Our intrepid reporter Adam Rorke made the journey up the Hume highway to attend the first ever Rooster Teeth expo in Australia. Dubbed RTX the show was host to some amazing games, films, anime and various other pop culture related stalls. Adam has used his time well, managing to get a host of interviews, previews and reports together for your entertainment. Welcome to Player2’s coverage of RTX Australia 2016
RTX Australia – The Indies
Mori – By Jared Hahn
Mori is the kind of game that you could walk past, have a glance and go “oh that’s nice” and continue to walk by. It’s not until you actually pick the game up and give it a few minutes that you realise its bullet hell style gameplay is actually quite fun and addictive.
The game is essentially styled after a clock, as you rotate your icon clockwise, you gain time, as you avoid the many projectiles trying hit you. Once hit and you’re done and the clock winds all the way back to zero.
What initially sold me on this idea wasn’t the game itself, but the developer’s story behind it. After chatting with Jared he expressed that the inspiration for Mori came from his deep hatred of his day time job. Jared would explain that his habit of clock watching gave him this idea and he ran with it and drafted up the initial foundations for this game in his lunch break.
“You only gain points when you’re moving clockwise, but you realise it all becomes futile because once you’ve hit, it goes back to zero” said Jared.
Although quite a morbid story, Jared said that even making the game has made him actually start to enjoy his day job more and have a much more positive outlook. Mori isn’t the kind of game that is set to have the content levels of Skyrim, it’s designed purely and simply as a game to play in your down time, waiting for the train or on a quick break.
You can buy Mori on iOS right now for $3 right here: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1031906631 go check it out!
Projection – Michael Chu
Remember Shadow Puppets? If not, it’s a clever combination of light and cardboard cut outs to deliver a puppet show, chances are you’ve seen a large number of movies where such a thing has been shown. Well Projection is a game where it took this idea and transformed it into a clever puzzles game involving the use of light sources to help you progress further.
The demo that was on show guided me very easily through the games dynamics and by the end I had a very solid feel for the game and what it could throw at me. The basic concept is that you have to move your shadow puppet avatar from point A to point B and you do this by using a light source to cast shadows, which become paths and walkways for you to cross over. As the demo progressed the stages got more difficult and it required me to actually stop and plan out each movement instead of just winging it and hoping for the best.
We’re fairly interested in where Michael is taking this game and what brain teasers he has in store, you can check out the developer’s website for some more information here: http://www.shadowplaystudios.com/ currently there isn’t a release date for the final version, but from what we’ve played, it’s looking quite solid.
Lupinball – Michael Ventnor
We’ve actually featured an interview with Michael before on Player2, but this was the first time I personally go to sit down and actually play his game. The idea is quite simple, you and up to three other people pick your favourite coloured fox, select your favourite stage and you’re ready to go. As the game starts you notice there are little orbs scattered around the map, collect three of these and you can either throw a fireball or save it and use a shield that will protect you from said fireball.
The game goes from passive to mental in the space of one minute. The fireballs you see don’t just fire off temporarily in a straight line, but rather, ricochet off the edge of the screen until they inevitably smash into someone. The last man standing is the winner and the first person to get three wins is the overall winner.
This is party game fun all over and isn’t trying to be anything different than what it is. When you add in different map quirks and random power ups, this becomes instant fun that anyone can simply pick up and play. It’s one of those perfect games that you can bust out when friends pop over who haven’t yet played before. Michael made mention that they’re currently working on a netcode so that you can play over the wire, when I asked him how difficult that aspect was he said “that is literally one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to work on” … best of luck Michael, I’m loving what’s on offer thus far.
For a chance to win a free copy and get more detail, go check it out here: www.lupinball.com
Dungeon League – Achebit
Wow. Yes that’s pretty much all I can say about this game. If there was one game that instantly got me, hook, line and sinker, it was this little title. Essentially this is a very cut down RPG Dungeon Crawler that can be co-op or free for all. A mix of player vs player, player vs enemy and objective based mission goals, Dungeon League doesn’t take too long to grasp the fundamentals and have you and your friends fighting for that first place title.
You have your choice of characters that should be familiar with many games i.e. Wizard, Knight, Shooter, etc. All of which obviously have their strengths and weaknesses. From here you’re thrown into a random dungeon with an objective that could be anything from domination style ‘hold the position’ to a race, where you need to subsequently get to the numbered flags from 1 to 3 in that order. Each round is fairly short and the player or team with the most points at the end of that round gets the win. Three wins and you’re the winner!
In between rounds you can spend your XP and Gold to boost your player’s stats and one must actually think long and careful about what to upgrade. You may have really high damage but your attack rate might be quite slow. Or you may have found the previous round you were getting run down a lot and you need a teleport ability as a quick escape option for the next round. Very quickly these little decisions can vastly improve your chances in the next round and give you an edge over the opponents.
I did a number of play throughs with other RTX attendees and I always insisted that our team choose the Dragon symbol and whenever we won a round, we’d do a pose that intended to look like a dragon but came off as maybe a vampire with brain damage and yell DRAGON! I may have made some enemies that day.
You shouldn’t even need to ask, you want to check this game out, go here: http://dungeonleaguegame.com/ .
Keep your eyes peeled on Player2 for some reviews of these titles and more that I managed to get my hands on at this event. It’s always nice when big name conventions often get behind and help support the Indie Developer’s in Australia, it’s a chance for games as great as these to get some spot light and show us all just what they’re capable of.
Adam Rorke
