Well, after months of anticipation, articles, sorting flights and accommodation, PAX Aus 2024 is here! The convention has officially kicked off after the media hour afforded to us by the organisers, and I have to say that the indie games that are on show this year are phenomenal. It was impossible to get around to all the games on show in one hour, so I had to focus on the ones that caught my eye. Here's the breakdown of the indie games that had my attention for this hour…
What's the best part of Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) you ask? For me, it has to be the unexpected moments while playing with your mates that no one can plan for. A lot of people don't have the chance to spend as much time with their mates as they like due to distance, time commitments, or that one fucking guy that just rubs everyone the wrong way but is the only one that actually reads those massive manuals. As a result, a lot of people have turned to online D&D toolkits to try and make it easier to game over the internet. This is where Unite the Party comes in! It's a new online toolkit developed by self-proclaimed D&D nerds Paradice Studios with the goal to be the closest program on the market to real-life D&D. The best part is that according to the devs, you can bring in any asset you have to make it truly unique to you and your mates.
I love the idea of time travel and dimension hopping in my sci-fi, so much so that I wrote a short story about it. Unfortunately, I haven't seen many dimension-hopping games on the market, so imagine my surprise when I pulled up to this booth and saw Paraglock on display. Playing the game was a lot of fun. The soundtrack and visual design, while not for everyone, melded well together for me, and the gameplay, while quite buggy it must be said, was easy to pick up and play while still having a hint of challenge to it. Definitely one to check out a couple of patches down the line.
Ever thought of different Venn diagrams that games would occupy? Like Dark Souls would be a mix of medieval fantasy and Lovecraftian horror, and Sonic the Hedgehog would be cuddly woodland creatures mixed with biting pro-environmental messaging and just a sprinkle of elder abuse? Well, if you're a fan of amphibians, magic, tongue action, or 2D platformers like Hollow Knight and Shovel Knight, then Frogreign is right up your alley! Hands-on with the game, you get the feeling of both these games within seconds, yet the developers manage to differentiate the game with the unique tongue mechanic being unlocked from the get-go, which removes a significant gripe I have with the Metroidvania genre of being slow to open up world verticality.
Need to change the vibe of a conversation with the same grace as a train derailment? Mention World War II, that works for me almost always. Much like this article, the next game, Death of a Partisan, has brought the tone down somewhat but once you check out the game you find it's totally worth it. With a story by a Russian-American and Russian voice actors, the game places you in the Soviet Union as a resistance fighter with a simple goal… survive. I've been told by the developers that there are multiple ways to accomplish this goal, including never engaging in violence, which is a nice option to have. The black and white colour palette elicits memories of the old 1950s Soviet war films and is the perfect choice for the game’s overall tone.
Having started the article with a D&D adjacent game, it feels appropriate to finish on another D&D adjacent game to really bookend this article. After the grim previous entry, let's have a little palette cleanser with a sweet dating sim/three-of-a-type matching D&D adventure full of tough battles and swoon-worthy romance. The developers have set out to make an inclusive dating experience, avoiding some of the more problematic aspects of the whole dating sim genre. The battle system itself is nuanced and deeper than first appearances would have you believe and was a pleasant surprise right at the end of the media hour. No word on whether you can romance the Lich… fingers crossed.
Have any of these games piqued your interest? Are you attending PAX Aus 2024? Let us know in the comments and keep an eye on Couch Soup this weekend for everything PAX Aus.
