Sunday, March 24, 2013

Pax East 2013 - 5 Games You Should Keep Your Eye On

I basically go to Pax East for 3 things.

1.) Streetpass- I got over 100 Mii's on Saturday (I completed my "Find Mii" quest).
2.) Checking out Cosplay costumes. I love seeing game designs brought to life.
3.) Indie games

I know over the next several months I will be inundated with ads for "Triple A" titles from super developers and mega-publishers. Some of them I will get and be happy with and others will fail to meet the hype they get. The teams that will work on those big games I have all kinds of respect for, they never seem to get the respect they deserve. With that being said, I have heaps of respect for small teams that scrape together what they can to bring their vision into reality. Some of them are working on their ideas solo, or with small teams and in almost every case with a shoestring budget. So, this post is for a handful of games from small teams.

Mercenary Kings-Tribute

Mercenary Kings is basically a Metal Slug with RPG elements and cover mechanics. You can craft weapons from parts that you pick up, level your character to satisfy those RPG needs and you can duck behind cover and while your enemies try to riddle you with bullets (the developer is also using the Gears of War reload system which is awesome). The developer, Tribute, also worked on the Scott Pilgrim game and their design aesthetic carries over into this title. The build I played at Pax East was a 4 player split screen. The controls were really responsive and the animations are excellent. Even the death animation brought a smile to my face.

Mercenary Kings

A.N.N.E - Gamesbymo

Gamesbymo calls A.N.N.E a shmup/platformer hybrid. In it you play as "25" a robot in love. Your quest is to find the missing parts of A.N.N.E on foot (and monowheel when you "run") and on your spaceship. I played with a usb Super Nintendo style gamepad and the controls were very tight in the platforming areas. You traverse in a Metroid-vania fashion from platform to platform grabbing loot and supplies to get you to the next area. In the spaceship portions I used a tractor beam to lift up large pieces of debris and whip them out of the way. In some cases you also need to use the debris to get 25 to a new area after you disembark your ship. The physics in the spaceship portions gave moving the debris real weight and it was really satisfying flinging them around. It's still early in it's development but the demo was a lot of fun. 

A.N.N.E

Guns of Icarus Online - Musegames

Have you ever wanted to man a fully armed airship? Well of course you have. Guns of Icarus Online caught my eye as I walked through the indie booth because it doesn't look like an indie game. The game has top tier design written all over it. Amazing ship models, brilliant lighting effects and realistic environmental events. You play as one part of a team of 4. There are 3 roles, captain, engineer and gunner. All roles can perform pretty much like the others except they get certain boosts when the perform duties in their role. It's really nerve racking when you're tracking an enemy ship and they suddenly disappear into a giant cloud of dust. It gets really frantic when you come under direct fire and you have to decide whether to keep shooting or start repairing your ship to keep it from becoming toothpicks. It's actually on sale now on Steam and it's available for PC, Mac and Linux. They are also looking for some Kickstarter funding to add features later on.





Legend of Dungeon - Robotloveskitty

Legend of Dungeon is part dungeon crawler action and part rougelike. It really harkens back to early adventure games, gathering loot, fighting baddies and delving down down down into a dungeon. As far  as I can tell the game is all dungeon. I spoke to one of the developers while I was there and she said that when you play solo it is a permadeath game. When you play in a group of 4, you follow the rest of your teammates as a ghost. This game is another example of simple design meetin beautiful effects. The alpha is currently on sale now and I haven't gotten very far but the game is beautiful and lots of fun. As of right now the co-op is restricted to 4 players on the same computer, I'm not sure if there are any plans to add online multiplayer in the future.


Transistor - Super Giant Games

I waited a couple hours to see this game that I only heard about this past Wednesday. Super Giant Games previous game "Bastion" was a perfect mix of stunning design, solid gameplay, engrossing story and amazing music and Transistor seems to be following in it's footsteps. All of what made Bastion great have been carried over to Transistor but the visual style is all new and they have added a strategy element to the gameplay. The game allows you to freeze time to plot and plan attacks. You can plot your route and what attacks you can perform during that planned route. The mechanic does limit how much you can do during the plan and there's also a cool-down period in between uses. The cool down period makes you vulnerable so you have to be careful to keep moving and/or take cover if you're unable to eliminate you enemies straight away. I'm really glad to have gotten my hands on the game for a little while and I look forward to it's release some time in 2014.


Closing thoughts:
I want to be clear that I didn't go to the show with a press pass but all of these developers were very approachable and open to questions. It was a pleasure to meet with them and see (and hear) their passion first hand. I wish them all the a lot of luck and I have the upmost respect for their craft and devotion.

Please take some time and check out the developers sites to learn more about these great games:

Mercenary Kings

A.N.N.E

Guns of Icarus

Legend of Dungeon

Transistor

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