Image: Denkiworks / Polyhedra Games / Playdigious / Kotaku
This year’s PAX East felt small. There were a few big names on the show floor, like Bandai Namco which was there showing off Elden Ring: Nightreign and Larian Studios making its annual appearance with a Baldur’s Gate 3 booth, but many of the big industry movers and shakers who’ve appeared at the Boston games convention in years past were absent. Perhaps this was because many companies are gearing up for Summer Game Fest next month and this show got bitten in the ass by its move from March to May, or it’s just an extension of the tailspin the video game industry is dealing with right now. Whatever the reason, the result is the same: PAX East was a weird show for heavy hitters, but for those interested in seeing indie teams with small games and big ideas, being there felt like running around in a candy shop. Here are a handful of the coolest games we played and saw on the show floor.
This is my second PAX East singing the praises of Fretless, the turn-based deck-building rhythm RPG from Ritual Studios. Thankfully, the game is much closer to release this year as we’re only a week away from its May 22 launch, so folks won’t have to wait much longer to check out what the team has been cooking. As I wrote last year, Fretless is a loving blend of several genres, but what stands out is how its musicality is woven into every fabric. You wield instruments as weapons, and the music that plays in battle changes based on what you’re using, whether that’s a twangy acoustic guitar or a rumbling bass, so you’re basically composing a different song for each attack you use or spell you cast.
This time around, one of my big takeaways was that the rhythmic nature of its battle system meant that its timing-based mechanics had a consistency and clarity I was missing in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, another recent turn-based RPG that uses timing mechanics for parries and dodging. The team at Ritual Studios said it wasn’t looking to compete with Sandfall Interactive’s RPG when I made the comparison, but after spending dozens of hours not sure if I was about to get walloped by a monster or if I would gracefully dodge its incoming attacks in the hit French RPG, reliably letting my fingers dance on the block button to the rhythm of a song felt effortless. I can’t wait to play more of Fretless when it launches on PC later this month.
Disordered Media’s Oneway.exe sounds like something out of a creepypasta. It puts you in the cryptic remains of an unfinished horror game, and yeah, it’s filled with jump scares, puzzles, and creepy hallways, but the most compelling things in this decimated house of horrors are the chat logs you find between members of a now-defunct game studio, documenting the fraught development of the game you’re exploring. I like spooky shit as much as the next guy, but a mystery about the falling out of a team of people who can’t get their shit together to achieve something? Sign me up. I’ll face The Horrors to collect the tea. Oneway.exe has a demo available on Steam.
Denkiworks’ Tanuki: Pon’s Summer dares to ask the question, “What if Death Stranding, but starring a little guy?” Then it goes even further and asks, “Okay, but what if he also did sick tricks on a bicycle?” Tanuki is the kind of game that is a relief to play on a noisy convention show floor. It’s a cute little game starring a tanuki who delivers packages to a quirky cast of characters and takes on some extracurricular activities between shipments. I just believe that he’s the kind of dude who wants to try everything, whether it be sumo wrestling or bartending. Also, he rides a bicycle and does cool stunts, Tony Hawk style, on the way from one activity to another. What more can one want from a video game? Tanuki is coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, and Switch later this year.
On the other end of the spectrum was CYBRLICH and the Death Cult of Labor, which instead reminds you that work sucks and so do the people who make it miserable. The boomer shooter’s hand-drawn visual style is evocative of the kind of graphic drawings you scribble in the margins of your grade school notebook, making fun of your annoying math teacher or schoolyard bully, and that kind of gross-out angsty attitude is channeled into a cathartic political satire about how much corporate bullshit taints everything it touches. Running through an office, wreaking havoc on literal corporate zombies and smoking weed to keep your mental health afloat while you do it? That’s the game we need right now. CYBRLICH is coming to Steam, and the team is posting updates to the game’s development on Kickstarter.
Perfect Tides: Station to Station is the kind of early ‘00s burnout story that, despite being dressed in irony-poisoned snark, is full of earnest, genuinely funny writing that kept it from getting old in the brief time I was able to spend with the point-and-click sequel. I don’t usually feel nostalgic for my college years, but Station to Station had me reflecting on the grind, the tiresome days I spent working at my school’s library, and the anxiety of trying to gauge if my classmates even liked me. If you, too, would like to remember the bittersweet feeling of trying to figure out who you are, developer Three Bees has put a demo up on Steam.
Even after decades of iteration and influential games, getting movement right in a platformer can be a tricky proposition. You want to make sure the player feels like they’re able to quickly and gracefully move through a level without veering too hard into a floaty, imprecise approach that feels like it’s more about accommodating imperfections in their movement than letting them confidently make strides. Demon Tides gives you a lot of different tools for moving through its world, and in the brief time I spent with the game, I never once felt like I was losing control. I transformed into different creatures on the fly, each with different movement abilities like flying, floating, and swimming at high speeds, and each of them felt weighty and also powerful enough that I was flowing through its open areas without ever once getting bored or feeling like the game was wasting my time. I grew up on classic platformers like Mario, Sonic, and Sly Cooper, so when a run-and-jump game feels like a drag to move through, it turns me off immediately, and I can confidently say Demon Tides has the juice. The game has a demo available on Steam.
Rhythm RPGs seem pretty en vogue right now, and Nocturne was another cool one I saw at PAX. Pracy’s take on the genre mashup feels heavily inspired by Guitar Hero, so much so that I felt my muscle memory for the old gee-tar games kicking in and had to change the control scheme to accommodate it. Battles take place on a track, with both the player and their enemies gradually gaining power as you hit notes and beats of the background music, Guitar Hero style. As such, rather than relying on only a handful of tracks, the team has composed a ton of songs to keep even the RPG grind fresh. I miss Rock Band and Guitar Hero, but I don’t miss spending a bunch of money on the peripherals. So if Nocturne can give me that same satisfying rhythm gameplay in a new, cheaper context, that’s good enough for me. If you want to give it a try, a demo of the first chapter is available on Steam.
I love me a good asymmetrical co-op game, and one caught my eye at PAX East this year. Cappy and Tappy: Temples of Peril is one part spelunking platformer and another part block-stacking Tetris-like. One player takes the role of the adventurous Cappy, who is trying to make his way through ancient ruins and their piranha-infested waters, while Tappy provides support by dropping platforms for him to jump and run along or cling onto. Though the game can be played solo, why deprive yourself of the satisfying cooperation or the repeated sabotage that comes with putting your life in someone else’s hands? A free demo for Cappy and Tappy is available on Steam.
The beat-em-up genre has such a storied history that it can be tough to distinguish yourself from classics like Streets of Rage, but Ra Ra Boom’s blend of colorful sci-fi and spunky, girlypop attitude manages to pull it off. Developer Gylee Games has created four heroes fighting in a dystopian future, each of whom has a distinct playstyle and personal charm that make playthroughs feel vastly different from one another. But the game can also be played with up to four players at a time, with each utilizing different abilities and strategies to handle anything that comes your team’s way. Aris uses her Uzis to unleash a barrage of bullets on enemies as she gets in close to finish them with her scythe, Saida sends explosives across the field with her rocket launcher, Ren doesn’t need firearms because she brings her sword to a gun fight, and Vee tanks her way to the frontline with her riot shield. They’re all a blast to play.
Desktop Survivors 98 is the kind of game that could easily come off like just a gimmicky gag if not done well. The Vampire Survivors-esque roguelite dungeon crawler plays out on a late ‘90s Windows desktop and is full of references to old internet and PC iconography and pre-installed apps. This might sound like a nostalgia play, but Desktop Survivors 98 has the gas to make good on its premise. You won’t have to wait long to find out for yourself, as it’s coming to PC on May 20, and a demo is available now on Steam.
White Knuckle is the kind of game that just feels good to play. Its frenetic parkour feels like something out of Mirror’s Edge, but it’s juxtaposed with the game’s grimy aesthetic, which makes all the running, jumping, and climbing you do feel more like a sprint for your life than a series of sick stunts. It’s spooky, it’s speedy, and it’s available in Early Access on Steam.
If Nocturne’s RPG mechanics are less interesting to you than its rhythm ones, Projekt Godhand has much of the same gameplay, but is also decidedly not as chill and is, instead, comically difficult. The pop and electronic soundtrack is composed with the goal of making you destroy your keyboard in mind. If you yearn for the days of Flash Flash Revolution and playing “Flight of the Bumblebee” in it is a core memory for you, Projekt Godhand is right up your alley. The game just went into Early Access on Steam last week.
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