“Not-E3” has been in full swing this week, and while many of my friends think there were 3 shows (State of Play, Summer Game Fest Live and finally the Microsoft XBOX Showcase) there have been many, many more. Thanks to the voices online platforms can give us, there’s now showcases for games from SEA, Latin America, and Australia / New Zealand. In addition to the geographical showcases there’s Wholesome Games (My fiance’s favourite), PC Gaming Show, Future Games Show, Women-Led Games and Acess-ability showcases.
Even then, I’m sure I probably missed a name or two. Keeping up with the games announced is no easy feat, so we’ve noted down just a couple from each event you didn’t watch (and won’t get a million articles about on your social feeds) that we are excited to feature in the future on B3.
Let’s find some weird little gems…
The MIX
What is it?
The MIX is essentially an indie marketing group. Founded by gamers and indie developers, the MIX offers affordable promotion and engagement so that smaller devs to get involved with Summer Game Fest without having to have bumped into Geoff Keighley at the pub.
Bracer
Bracer is a medieval fantasy take on Space Invaders. That might sound weird, and that’s because it is! Technically it’s more akin to something like Astro Avenger, as Bracer has you move upwards towards the enemies at the top and “scroll” rather than sit and defend like in Space Invaders. Regardless, a medieval fantasy vertical scroller? It’s safe to say I’ve never played one of those.
The trailer showcases upgrades like pinball projectiles and spear walls, but more interestingly has dungeon sections where the ascending screen forces you to enter thin, dangerous corridor segments. I can imagine the possibilities of some builds excelling in open fields and then getting minced in a corridor section, which is going to be an interesting challenge for players.
Poly Fighter
No, this isn’t a fighting game about dating everyone you fight.
The “poly” here refers to the gaming meaning rather than the progressive one. Other than simply being a low-poly fighting game, Poly Fighter is being built as an accessible way for genre fans or new players to learn fighting game tricks and traps in a singleplayer environment. I suck at fighting games, so the chance to play a fully singleplayer one is appealing.
The basic idea is that your character starts with only very basic moves, but defeating rivals each run unlocks their special moves and techniques for use. This is a great way to drip-feed extra mechanics and also make fights feel worth winning. It’s worth noting many of these rivals have secret unlock criteria and triggers, making for deep replayability and some route-planning elements.
I’ll be abusing their Neutral, playing Footsies and Deadzoning enemies before doing a Low Crush Whiff Punish in no time! (I have no idea what half of those terms mean, I just hear Tekken players say them).
Black Voices in Gaming
What is it?
Rather self-explanatory as showcases go, the Black Voices in Gaming showcase is a space for games both developed by or focused around, well, black voices. Sometimes this means a game that celebrates a specific culture, and other times it’s more related to the developer’s own story. While their Summer Game Fest Showcase slots nicely into the schedule, they run several other fantastic showcases throughout the year.
Oh!Ware
Oh!Ware looks incredibly interesting. We’ve had Balatro-likes out the wazoo, but Oh!Ware promises a fresh take as we are ramping up abilities and modifiers on a game of Mancala. Mancala is an ancient board game, featuring marble placement. Oh!Ware takes the core game and brings it thousands of years to the present, complete with roguelike buffs and abilities.
By placing offerings and activating your little pixel warrior you’re learning how to play an ancient game whilst also revelling in modern game design (With pixel artwork that’s somewhere inbetween!)
Tossdown
Tossdown is a delivery game, but along the way you’re being assailed by various tracking and exploding projectiles. Oh, and you’re a tricked out basketball player so, naturally, you weave and dunk the parcels at their destination rather than taking a bike. The movement looks smooth and the idea of seamlessly chaining pickups, dribbles and dunks in a game that isn’t restricted to being an actual sports sim is inherently more exciting to me.
The most recent trailer even showed different characters and playstyles, which I wasn’t expecting from a dedicated thematic game like this. Tossdown is shaping up to be just sheer adrenaline and traversal-based bullet-hell fun.
Latin America Games Showcase
Affectionately called LAGS, this showcase is one of the many showcases focused on highlighting unique work and teams across the world. Often you’ll see a heavy-hitter here and only realise “Oh, it’s from Latin America?” after the fact.
Tempus Vitae
Tempus Vitae was a pleasant surprise. What at first appears to be a first-person bullet-hell time-travel roguelike is actually a first-person bullet-hell time-travel immersive sim metroidvania. Having the unique time stop and projectile manipulation mechanics exist inside a persistent, explorable world rather than individual roguelike rooms is a breath of fresh air, and could put Tempus Vitae up there with System Shock, Dishonoured and the like.
The map screen shown here is promising, and bearing in mind the seamless time-travel element you get to explore it not just once, but twice! Hat’s off to Tempus Vitae for daring to create a single, coherent world for these mechanics to shine in.
The Birdsong Tree
Ah, mayhaps this one will also be at the Wholesome Games show? The Birdsong Tree is a birdhouse building game where meeting specific requirements for colour, size and shape will encourage different birds to inhabit your cute little constructions. Hang them to the titular birdsong tree and it’ll grow, giving you more space for, you guessed it, more birdhouses!
This sort of “design a habitat and wait” style that Pokemon Pokopia explored is a fantastic addition to the usual genre lineup at these shows. I am excited for more ways to build habitats, set up scenarios and explore what that gameplay can do for the indie scene.
Women-Led Games
What is it?
No, not God of War Laufey (although it almost certainly qualifies given how instrumental women were to the development of Santa Monica, but I digress). Women-Led Games always has an eclectic mix of genres and styles. It’s almost like being a woman doesn’t inherently make your game one thing or another. Huh.
Rhell: Warped Worlds & Troubled Times
Rhell is my kind of puzzle game: The kind where you can break puzzles instead of solving them. With over 40 combinable spells you can craft your own unique solutions to almost every puzzle or obstacle in the game. In the trailer we see someone turn water to lava because lava will send Rhell flying upwards (Super Mario style), and that lift is enough to reach a nearby ledge. Someone else might make bubbles to jump on, or slingshot themselves with a rubber band type spell.
What’s most promising about this game, though, is they have announced a built-in randomiser. Not only does this increase replayability, but it has a huge implication for the puzzle design: Puzzles are designed without any specific spells in mind. If the game can be solved with a random start and random spell locations, then clearly the puzzles must be solvable in a simply uncountable number of ways. This implies puzzle design without any single intended solution in mind: Similar to something like Tears of the Kingdom shrines.
We actually recently went hands on with it during New Game Plus.
Short Short Fictions
Let’s get some horror in, shall we? Short Short Fictions is an anthology of small pixel games. Go:North is a top-down pixel adventure in which you can move left, right and up. You cannot move down the screen — you cannot go south. This core premise makes maximising movement and interactions important, and makes you consider the genre in a whole new way.
With some psychological horror (and the horror of going too far north and missing something you wanted) and two more games to play in the Short Short Fictions anthology, the whole package oozes soul and charm.
South East Asia Games Showcase
What is it?
As the name implies, the SEA showcase is a geographic showcase for South East Asia. Unlike the Green or Black Voices shows the games don’t need to outwardly represent SEA nationality, so there’s a good mix of genres and styles.
Duo Quest
Anyone who’s part of a gaming couple in the vein of KnZPlays (Or myself and my fiance) should have an eye on Duo Quest. It’s a roguelike deckbuilder where each player builds their own deck. That sounds great, but where’s the unique indie twist?
Well, when you inevitably try and perform a super-synchronised card combo with your co-op partner the game will instead ask you a question. There are hundreds of options across multiple categories. After choosing an answer, your co-op partner has to correctly guess what you chose.
How well do you know your partner? If you know what they’d say and choose the right response the card combo goes off, but if you choose the wrong answer you’ll both be dealt damage that turn instead. Luckily we aren’t married yet so won’t need a divorce lawyer.
Lost & Found
Lost & Found is a game that couldn’t decide on an artstyle, so uses all of them. In a 3D world you’ll meet 2D, pixel, photographed and 3D characters as you track down lost items to return them to their rightful owner.
“Rightful owner” is the key phrase, as the most interesting point here (other than the multiple overlapping artstyles) is that you can return items to the wrong person! Make observations, hear the population’s input and ensure items are returned to the correct little goober.
Wholesome Games Showcase
What is it?
The Wholesome Games Showcase highlights an absurd amount of games, and the dedicated Steam sale page is always needed to keep track. Everything from cosy farming to lo-fi survival horror and art school narrative pieces can be found here.
Dungeon Tourists
We all know the best Pokemon games are the spinoffs. Dungeon Tourists is Pokemon Snap but co-op and also you’re in a fantasy dungeon with swinging axes, cursed chests and vampire bats. Trundling along in your minecarts taking photos of traps and creatures while simultaneously ducking and weaving to avoid them sounds like a riot.
The trailer also highlights secret interactions, such as throwing coins into a well, which can trigger new encounters. Exploring these levels and uncovering secrets in co-op promises to be a unique experience for your gaming group.
Toem 2
Toem is a game about taking photographs (Oops, both our picks from this show are camera related…) and solving puzzles to get the right subjects in the right place.
Toem 2 seems to be a classic sequel: More of the same, but bigger and better. Given how enjoyable Toem was, that suits us just fine.
Story Rich Games Showcase
What is it?
This brand-new showcase is there to highlight games that don’t rely on flashy trailers and gameplay drops. It’d almost be unfair to put them alongside action titles, so having a dedicated showcase for those titles does make some sense.
The Mermaid Mask
The first of two detective games from the Story Rich Showcase — The Mermaid Mask is a murder mystery whodunnit type deal. What stands out in the trailer is the lovingly real-time animated character portraits. Usually you’d expect profiles or portraits in a game like this to have 3 or so static versions for basic emotions. Instead, The Mermaid Mask opts for fully animated and responsive characters which makes the mystery all the more engrossing.
Beyond the fancy appearance, the gameplay seems to have the usual selection of puzzles and “Fill in the blank” detective work, but presentation can make all the difference when it comes to getting those first mysterious hooks into a player. We actually just covered it’s release date recently.
Grave Seasons
The second detective-esque game is Grave Seasons. This is a unique take on the Stardew Valley-like, as during the usual process of growing your friendships and running a farm you will inevitably discover a dead body. It’s not someone who died before the start of the game, either. No, in Grave Seasons the villagers themselves that you make such good friends with and do quests for are the very people being murdered…
Not only that, but the most interesting design choice in Grave Seasons is that the killer is chosen every playthrough. This means you can’t guarantee who will live or die, or even who the killer is, from playthrough to playthrough. Seeing different stories unfold and using different evidence to identify the culprit sounds ambitious, but if they pull it off then Grave Seasons will be the best bit of detective design this year.
Green Games Showcase
What is it?
The Green Games Showcase highlights developers that support real-world green initiatives such as planting trees every purchase or donating to animal shelters. It also includes games built to raise awareness or generally encourage a more outwardly-facing worldview of nature and caring for other life.
Fantastic Haven
Fantastic Haven is a game that utilises the habitat-building craze going around right now. Choosing the right materials and decorations can create zones that cater to different fantastical beasts, such as griffons and manticores.
The latest trailer is unfortunately not available separate from the Green Games stream (in general it has weaker infrastructure than the other shows, complete with incorrect title tags and outdated information in places) but showcased the habitat building side of this fantasy creature manager.
Hela
Hela is an adventure game where up to 3 friends can explore a magical forest. It’s not quite friendslop, but it does have an open world to find quest items and complete co-operative puzzles in. The graphical fidelity and story presentation separates it from many recent co-op experiences and sets Hela to be perfect alone as well as in a group.
You are tasked with helping heal an aging witch whose magic once kept the forest alive and safe. Now, the creatures she protected must help her recover in turn.
The Future Games Show
What is it?
The most mainstream of the non-headline showcases, The Future Games show is always heralded by two great voice talents. We’ve have Ben Starr, Jennifer English, Nolan North and David Hayter in recent years. This time around we had Troy Baker and the voice of the new Lara Croft: Alix Wilton Regan.
Duskfade
Duskfade was described as “A love letter to the golden age of 3D action platformers” which, to me, says one thing only: Ratchet and Clank style grinding rail segments.
As it happens the trailer from the Future Games Show delivered exactly that. Grind boots, double jumps, AoE weapon blasts and big boss fights make Duskfade look like the sort of game tween me would have adored.
Mistfall Hunter
Mistfall Hunter is touted as a singleplayer or co-op extraction game. Nowhere does it mention PvP. This intrigues me, as the idea of an extraction genre game not being “PvPvE” is inherently more interesting to someone of my advanced years.
The trailer gave us souls-y combat, charged spells and bow shots, wondrously bodacious boss designs (Honestly I’m not sure they needed three different semi-clad female-bodied bosses, but there they are) and a hint of some verticality in the level designs. If it lives up to the promise of that experience, it’ll be one for the Nightreign fans.
Frosty Games Showcase
What is it?
The Frosty Games Showcase is a geographical showcase for Australian and New Zealand-devloped games. Expect comedy mixed with every genre imaginable. Even horror.
Penguin Colony
Speaking of which, Penguin Colony is an eldtritch horror game where you play as a penguin. The forces of the cosmos respect you as you are in your proper place: Just a little penguin doing penguin business. The humans you find on the other hand…
Penguin Colony promises to be the mix of surreal comedy and surrealist horror that we’ve come to expect from Australian and New Zealand developers…they’re just a vibe over there.
Slayblade
Slayblade is another “what sort of gameplay hasn’t been made roguelike yet” type of thing. Fortunately, the gameplay that developer Henry’s House and Oscar Brittain chose was Beyblade arena battles.
I’ve certainly never seen a spinning disc battle arena videogame so, I’ll take it! Thanks, Frosty.
That’s a wrap!
That was our top 20 indie picks we are excited to feature on B3 in the coming year. That was just two games per show, so a lot was featured that we just couldn’t include here. If you don’t have time to watch the shows in full, I hope this has given you some insight into the variety and creativity of the indie games shows.
Till next year, have a good one!
