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Nest Rivals playtest
by Turning Rook Games
Lead a slime colony through a living pixel world. Take direct control of individual creatures, grow new nests, face rival species and guide your colony through a campaign of changing worlds. Explore unfamiliar biomes and fill your illustrated bestiary with discoveries.
Anyone with a Steam account can join, and it's free.
- Access
- Instant
- On playtest since
- Nov 3, 2026
- Planned release
- Mar 2027
- Developer
- Turning Rook Games
- Platforms
- Windows, macOS
- Players
- Single-player
- Languages
- English, German
How to join the Nest Rivals playtest
- Open the game's Steam page with the Join playtest button. Sign in to Steam if it asks.
- Use the Nest Rivals playtest signup there. You're in straight away, with nothing to pay.
- The playtest shows up in your Steam library, ready to install and play.
New to playtests? How Steam playtests work
How AI is used
Nest Rivals uses pre-generated AI-assisted artwork in selected sprites, environment textures, bestiary illustrations and marketing images. Some music and sound effects, as well as parts of this Steam store description, were also created with AI assistance. These materials were selected and integrated by the developer. The game does not generate AI content during gameplay.
The developer's own words, from Steam.
About Nest Rivals
You don't just lead a colony. You're part of it.
Nest Rivals combines colony simulation with direct control. Take charge of an individual slime while the rest of your colony lives and works around you. Gather food, explore the world, protect your queens and help a small nest grow into a network of competing colonies.
Build a colony that can spread
Your colony gathers food, raises new generations and travels between the surface and its underground nests. Collect nectar to earn new founding rights, choose where to establish another nest and keep the growing colony connected and supplied.
A campaign of changing worlds
The campaign sends your colony through a sequence of handcrafted challenges built from Nest Rivals' simulation systems. Begin with a single Aqua colony, encounter rival species, survive unfamiliar environments and face situations that change the rules of each world.
Some stages introduce new rivals or habitats. Others put an established colony under unusual pressure. Progress reveals more of the world without explaining everything in advance.
Every species plays by different rules
Water, heat, darkness, decay and hostile terrain do not affect every species in the same way. What protects one colony can threaten another. Learning where a species thrives – and where its rivals do not – becomes part of surviving the world.
The world doesn't wait for you
Your slimes act on their own, and rival colonies do too. They gather resources, travel through the world, defend themselves and pursue the needs of their colony while you control just one creature at a time.
Take direct control when it matters: scout ahead, carry supplies, hunt, fight or guide the colony through dangerous territory.
Above and below
The surface is only half of the colony. Dig underground, connect chambers and entrances, expand existing nests and move between both layers of the world as your colony grows.
Discover the world instead of reading a manual
Creatures, species and places enter the illustrated Bestiary as you discover them. Its pages preserve what you have learned across different worlds and gradually reveal more about the ecology and history of Nest Rivals.
A world with its own rhythm
Day turns to night. Weather changes. Populations rise and fall. Colonies spread, clash and sometimes disappear entirely. The world keeps moving whether you are watching it unfold or taking direct control.
At a glance
- Campaign stages built around different simulation challenges
- Colony simulation with direct control of individual slimes
- Autonomous inhabitants and competing rival colonies
- Multiple species with different environmental needs
- Expandable underground nests and new colony foundations
- Nectar, founding rights, food transport and reproduction
- Procedural worlds with exploration and fog of war
- Weather and a day-night cycle that affect survival
- An illustrated Bestiary with discoveries that persist across worlds
- A hand-crafted pixel world with an ink-and-natural-history-inspired interface
From the game's Steam page.
