PAX Australia Indie Showcase Winners Announced
As PAX Australia draws closer, two topics have been at the fingertips of social media:
- Out of the numerous gaming fiends who live in Melbourne, who has a spare couch they are happy to rent out for a long weekend?
- Out of the numerous local game projects, who will go on to be highlighted in PAX Australia’s 2018 Indie Showcase?
Thankfully, a panel of industry veterans has scoured through submissions, providing us with the list of six lucky projects that will be highlighted in 2018’s Indie Showcase. Unfortunately, they haven’t been able to solve the city’s shortage of couches.
A lot of our favourite games in recent years were proud recipients of PAX’s attention – the most notable being Hollow Knight, which is still going strong with a recent DLC release and a successful port to the Nintendo Switch. Other successful titles include Hacknet and Objects in Space, with other promising titles such as The Gardens Between still on the future horizon.
The following titles will be available for you to view and play as part of PAX Rising, the area on the exhibition floor reserved for Australia and New Zealand’s local gaming talent.
Spin Rhythm, a new take on the rhythm game genre by Super Entertainment that debuted at PAX Aus 2017, requiring the players to not only tap the rhythm in-time with on-screen prompts but also spin a blue-and-pink wheel at the bottom of the screen to correspond with the colour of the notes in each section. Our resident rhythm nerd Stephen del Prado gave us his initial thoughts last year, including his experience with the Pioneer CD-J as a controller for the game. It’d be interesting to see the range of control options available at PAX Aus 2018!
Infliction, an indie horror game from Sydney startup student Caustic Reality, successfully met its Kickstarter funding goals in July 2018 with the promise of the game launching in October 2018. With most of the project already completed, the final financial push aided the team to polish some of the animations before launch. The game pushes the player to piece together the events of a once-happy family in suburbia by exploring their house, now overrun by a vengeful spirit. Paul James gave us a sneak peek at the demo last June.
Double Shot’s creators, Aberrant Realities, are taking players back to the eighties in its VR experience. Playing as a rough bartender, the aim of the game is to not only take aim at bad guys who are adamant to steal proprietary technology but to continue mixing drinks for your bar’s patrons. Thankfully, your bartending skills are aided by B.A.R.R. – the shiny sentient drink-preparation technology. Hopefully, this AI support will be enough to not only keep the drinks going and your customers happy but to facilitate you to shoot down those nasties who are after the sentient intellectual property.
Dissembler may look like a simple puzzle game, but don’t let its looks deceive you – it is the love child of puzzle games and Solitaire, challenging you to clear each puzzle board with careful planning and lateral thinking. Ian MacLarty is the sole developer of this title and its 120 levels, which is already available on Steam, iOS and Google Play.
Major League teleBlast spawned from Perth’s Global Game Jam 2018 and the mind of Tim Veletta. Up to four players are invited to partake in this fast-paced sportsball game where teleportation and explosions are used to obliterate your enemies. Tim’s development diary includes plans for other game modes and is currently playing around with a Football mode providing co-operative teams and another object to bounce around the playfield aside from your foes.
Mars Underground is a Groundhog Day narrative gaming experience where you have free reign to do nearly anything on one single day before the world ends. Moloch Media have created a cute little pixelated world for their protagonist to run amok, with the hope that players will guide Mars through his first day of school in a way that it will not be his last.
Congratulations on the success of our local developers, and be sure to head over to the PAX Rising section at PAX Australia this year! Many of the Player 2 Crew will be at PAX Australia this year, and we would love to hear your thoughts about all of the new games that you discover!
Alas, I’ll be at home on my couch.
