A 5th of BitSummit Impressions

Over the last four days, I’ve slept…maybe 13 hours total? I haven’t slept much, but it didn’t matter — it was BitSummit. BitSummit was an absolute blast (their Twitter has a lot of photos!). For those who haven’t read the previous year impressions or my short preview of the event, let me fill you in with the details. BitSummit is an indie game festival held in Kyoto that’s currently in its’ fifth year. It’s a pretty sizable event with big names like Goichi Suda, Atsushi Inaba, and Masaya Matsuura attending (by the way – we have interviews with all of them!) in addition to a lot of small, neat projects.

This year, instead of checking out a lot of titles I focused on meeting people and conducting interviews. Because of that, my impressions might be a little lackluster compared to last years. It really was a big weekend for Source Gaming, and a lot of the content we are going to be able to do in the future is all thanks to the efforts of the whole BitSummit team. I’d like to give a quick shout out to John Davis of DANGEN Entertainment for helping coordinate all of these interviews, as well as the wonderful staff and volunteers of BitSummit.

I made a Twitter list of the accounts mentioned in this article. You can easily follow everyone here.

Line Wobbler

Let’s start off with the “1D game that doesn’t suck”, Line Wobbler. Line Wobbler was created by Robin Baumgarten as a 1D dungeon crawler game. The game is extremely linear and simple to grasp, but it’s definitely an experience. Videos and photos simply don’t do it justice. Enemies and obstacles are indicated by certain colors while the player tries to reach the goal. The game has ten levels and will be traveling to other conventions and events. We have an interview with Robin that will be coming out later this week, so don’t miss it!

Görsd

Görsd – a mixture of Pac-Man and a shooting game – is a game that’s coming out to the Switch by Springloaded Software. Players will need to use a lot of strategy to paint the map. The game is quite fun, and the booth was usually crowded. There’s a lot of strategy in how to aim shots, so I’m sure it’ll be a fun game to play. Also, the single player concept seems interesting…stay tuned to Source Gaming for full details via an interview. I’m looking forward to seeing it’s full release!

Earth Atlantis

An upcoming game by Pixel Perfex that’s coming to a variety of platforms including the Switch. The gameplay is pretty straight forward; players control a ship hunting down monsters. Levels are pretty open, where players can go anywhere they want. The graphics look fantastic and the gameplay is pretty smooth. We also will have an interview with the developer later this week!

Paper Garden

Paper Garden is a VR prototype made by Vitei Backroom. Vitei was founded by Giles Goddard, a former Nintendo employee who worked as a programmer for the original Star Fox and worked on Mario’s face programming in Mario 64. The game looks beautiful, and certainly has a Flower or Journey vibe to it. The game won an award from Famitsu, so you should definitely check it out!

Stifled

A VR horror game where players can only see by making sound. The issue? Monsters are also alerted by sound! Stilfled is made by Gattai Games. The demo had a short level, but it did a great job introducing some of the elements of the story, and painted its’ atmosphere really quickly.

People Panic

People Panic is probably one of my favorite games from the show. A gamer made by coconoe, for the PC game, where players use a spaceship to try to abduct as many people as possible. It has a Katamari Demacy vibe to it, and it was endless fun.

Tasukete Tako-San: Save me Mr. Tako!

A game made by Christophe Galati. The gameplay looks even more polished than last year’s showing — Christophe is really getting close to releasing Tasukete Tako-San. I look forward to picking up the game when it’s released. We’ll have an interview with Christophe later this week on Source Gaming!

Cerulean Moon

Cerulean Moon is probably my #2 pick of the show for this year. The game is being developed by nachobeard. Cerulean Moon is a jumpless platformer with an incredible design. The controls are very simple, yet the gameplay is very engaging.

Sumer

Sumer is a game that’s already out on Steam, but I got a chance to play a couple rounds with the developers, Studio Wumpus. It’s designed around the idea of being a board game that can only exist in a game. The gameplay was pretty deep (what you would expect from a board game), but it wasn’t that difficult.

Pawarumi

Pawarumi, is a shoot em’ up by Manufacture 43. It reminds me a lot of Ikagura, and that’s not a bad thing. Players will have to use three types of attacks effectively to shoot down enemies. It’s based off a futuristic versions of pre-Columbian civilizations, so I’m very interested in the art style.

Pon Pon Pirates

The newest game made by dadako. It’s a two player co-op game that’s a bit Metroidvania mixed in. It’s pretty fun, and will be perfect on the Switch. It’s a bit like Bubble Bobble, but it certainly has its’ own unique twist on it. I look forward to seeing its’ release!