Nintendo is going to be highlighting 9 specific indie tiles with this week’s discounts on the Switch e-shop. If you’ve waited for a discount on Death Squared, GoNNER, Graceful Explosion Machines, INVERSUS, Lovers In A Dangerous Space Time, Severed, Thimbleweed Park or Thumper, you are in luck. With discounts up to 35%, there is a lot of spare change to be saved.
Here’s the full list of discounts and prices as they will appear on the US e-shop:
Every year PAX is the host for many indie developers. These developers are some of the most diverse voices in the industry. They come from all over the United States and even all over the globe to show their creation to a passionate crowd of gamers who are itching for innovation and fun and a unique experience that the indie game community brings. I had the good fortune to try out some of these games and even talk to some of the indie developers at PAX. I enjoyed a great sampling of the dozens of games set up to demo. From the selection that were available to buy and play now, my favorites were “Inversus”, “Tooth and Tail”, “Keen” and “Holy Potatoes! We’re in Space?”.
Inversus, developed by Hypersect, is a strategic geometric shooter game. The idea appears so simple, you control the color black or white and you can turn squares black or white by shooting them. If you get hit by the opponent’s color, you die. You want to defeat your opponent by shooting them. It’s fast paced, simplistic game play charmed me and I solidly recommend trying it. You can buy it on Steam today.
Tooth and Tail, developed by Pocketwatch Games, is another strategic game that involves outsmarting and defeating your opponent. This arcade style strategy game has you taking the role of the leader of an animal revolution! With an army of squirrels, boars, pigeons, ferrets, moles and other WWI era styled beasts, there are plenty of options to choose from and a lot to play around with as far as ways to wipe out your opponent and their base in the skirmish. Matches are short and the maps are small and it is not mouse based, unlike many RTS games. Tooth and Tail has an alpha available, but only available to Discord users who regularly interact with the community and show interest in experiencing this unique game.
There were quite a numerous amount of puzzle games at the indie booth this year. One that particularly caught my attention was an adorable game titled “Keen’, developed by CatNigiri. In this game, you are guiding Kim “on a journey to stop an evil corporation from destroying her village”. I had the honor of talking to some of the team that was there representing this game and got to know a little more about this hidden gem. The game has been in development for 3 years as of the date of this article. It was inspired by both Zelda and 2048 to create a hybrid of RPG and sliding puzzle game. They were looking for something “deep and entertaining like Zelda with simple commands”. They started it with a tabletop origin to test how the mechanics would work, and since that went well, they took to developing it as a video game. After changing some gameplay and features, they polished the gameplay idea by creating another swiping puzzle game called Kitty Kitchen and then moving back to Keen to make their project a reality. The aesthetic of Keen was inspired by baby metal and megaman. A demo is currently available on Steam and on the Cat Nigiri website, and is definitely worth the time to play.
“Holy Potatoes! We’re In space?” also got my attention. Published by daylight studios, this game has you exploring the “vastness of space” in a spaceship you manage while crafting weapons. The combat is the tactical, turn based variety ad with hundreds of weapons to craft, the possibilities are extremely varied, leaving for much replayability. This game is available to purchase on Steam right now and I look forward to playing this soon, especially after talking to some of the team. The main inspiration was pop culture and punny humor for the story, characters and dialogue. After Holy Potatoes! A weapons shop! The creators wanted to expand the idea and gameplay and with their 7 person development team, they have made it a reality.
Overall, the indie gaming scene as always is thriving and booming with positivity and creativity. With so much diversity, passion and imagination, it’s easy to see why indie gaming is only becoming more popular and it was amazing to see everyone gathered together, sharing their projects and seeing others enjoying them and getting excited for what’s new and what’s to come.
There wereabsolutely dozens upon dozens of booths with hundreds of interactive experiences for attendees to try. Fionna and I tried to see as many booths as we could and play as many games as humanly possible with only six hours of floor time per day. Here is a visual rundown of some of the 3rd party booths – so not Microsoft, Sony or other major console manufacturers – from both the North and South Hall.
Just outside of the South Hall cafeteria was a small multi-part booth for the recently released 10 Cloverfield Lane. If you read my review of the film when it hit theatres last Spring you’ll know that I absolutely love the franchise. The booth in South Hall was complete with a functional jukebox and board games that attendees could play. A little odd for a movie to have a booth at E3 but hey it works.
Near the back of the IndieCade booth in Sout Hall was a small game called _Transfer being demonstrated off of the main programmer’s laptop. This game has a sci-fi / cyberpunk feel and from the 10 minute demo that I played gave me the same kind of feelings that Analogue: A Hate Story gave him – memories and identity are at the core of this unique experience.
The folks from Kona were at E3 also at the IndieCade booth, unfortunately all I saw was their laptop with a wallpaper. No developers were on hand for my time at the Indiecade booth 🙁
A number of unique experiences were on offer at the IndieCade booth include a real life adventure game set in an 8 year old’s bedroom, indie titles like Inversus and it was one of the only spaces where people could sit together on an actual play together.
Natsume had a medium sized booth complete with an inflatable tree, Harvest Moon demo-stations and the chance for fans to get some awesome swag provided that they play all four titles available at the booth.
Rebellion showcased Sniper Elite 4 in a pretty sweet lounge.
Some general shots of both Halls, the crowd outside on Day 2 and other general areas of the convention.
Capcom went all out for their E3 experience: A dilapidated demo theatre for the stealth announcement of Resident Evil 7, A replica of the actual courtroom from the Ace Attorney franchise complete with fans shouting “OBJECTION!” and a playable demo of Dead Rising 4 being played alongside members of the Capcom Vancouver development team. Of course some of our collegues have found that playing Resident Evil 7 in VR can be a bit of a nightmare!
Square Enix brought a lot of stuff to E3 -their booth had several stations for Final Fantasy XV, Star Ocean V, Kingdom Hearts 2.8, Final Fantasy XII HDand more. It would have been easy to lose an entire day of E3 to the offerings at Square Enix’s booth alone. Don’t forget that Kingdom Hearts 2.8 includes new content not found in other games – if you missed the E3 trailer from a few days ago check it out here.
That’s it! The conclusion of our 2016 3rd party booth tour in pictures. Do you think that a number of the games announced at E3 will be successful? Let us know which booth from E3 was your favorite in the comments below.
Just to recap some of the biggest games we’ve seen so far at E3 2016: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, Lawbreakers, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, Resident Evil 7, Death Striding and Gravity Rush 2. AAA publishers like Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo alongside smaller indie develoeprs brought their best games to this year’s E3 Expo!
