August 12, 2022|

Filed under: Event Report, Featured, Impressions, Indie Games

BitSummit X-Roads Game Roundup

Hey everybody, Brando here. I just got back from Bitsummit X-Roads, 2022’s iteration of the indie game expo held yearly in Kyoto, Japan. Like last time, here’s a quick roundup of some of the games I played on the show floor.

OUTCORE: DESKTOP ADVENTURE

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/outcore-desktop-adventure-2/

Winner of BitSummit’s “Innovative Outlaw” award, this unique experience takes place on your computer’s desktop. Literally, a girl named Lumi pops up and you interact with her in your normal Microsoft Windows operating system. You solve puzzles not in a game application window, but in MS Paint.

This means you are free to manipulate files on your computer in order to solve puzzles and find easter eggs as rewards for your cleverness. This also means that you are free to corrupt and delete files necessary for the game to progress, so be careful!

If you have concerns about the security of all this, developer Doctor Shinobi assured us that the game does not require any special permissions or weird stuff like that. The game was created using C# (Unity), C++, and “a bit of black magic”, but there’s no need to worry about Lumi secretly mining bitcoin on your computer, it seems.

Doctor Shinobi has been working on the game for about 2.5 years by himself, and volunteers have been helping to translate the game into Japanese and other languages. The game is planned to release in September 2022 (hopefully!), and the estimated time to complete is 3~4 hours.

Free demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1275670/Outcore_Desktop_Adventure/

DIFFERENT STROKES

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/different-strokes/

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2102020/Different_Strokes/

A collaborative online painting game, set in a charming virtual art gallery. Knowing fully well what happens when people are allowed to draw anything they want and post it on the internet anonymously, Different Strokes allows players to draw over existing paintings (one edit per painting), encouraging them to creatively “fix” the art as they like.

When viewing a completed drawing you can also praise it, view the before and after images if it has been edited, share a link to it, and browse the author’s other art.

The game is delightful, and feels like a creative, digital, social art experiment. There’s also some NPCs in the art gallery who make jokes and liven things up. Even if you don’t feel like drawing anything yourself, it’s fun to roam the infinite hallways and see what other players have come up with (lots of Among Us, at time of writing).

Free version playable in-browser on itch.io: https://swsteffes.itch.io/different-strokes

A PET SHOP AFTER DARK

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/a-pet-shop-after-dark/

A horror point-and-click adventure game with cute, clean visuals and an intriguing premise. After starting a new part-time job at a pet shop, things start to get weird.

The BitSummit demo wasn’t long, but I was amazed at how quickly and effectively it created an unsettling atmosphere with such few elements. The music is quiet, but sets an uneasy tone. The dialogue establishes the setting and characters without being long-winded, and (slight spoilers), even gets re-used effectively. The pets are invisible, which makes them easy to draw and sparks curiosity. The simple visual style is free of distractions and clickable objects are clearly marked. This, combined with the mystery to unravel, made for a compelling experience I wanted to keep playing.

Free demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1934800/a_pet_shop_after_dark/

PAPER TRAIL

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/paper-trail/

A puzzle adventure game where each screen is a square that can be folded over onto itself. You can drag any corner or side of the square over the front of the level to reveal things hidden on the back of the level. Once folded, the back side elements are connected to the front. The concept is intuitive at first touch, but puzzle-solving quickly gets complicated in practice. With 4 corners and 4 sides of each screen draggable in different amounts (and combinable to connect different parts), checking and rechecking each side/corner becomes inevitable on more complex levels, resulting a lot of trial and error. There are other mechanics and elements mixed in too though, and the developers are still tweaking and balancing.

Free demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1889740/Paper_Trail/

UNREAL LIFE

https://en.unreal-life.net/

Yokaze is an indie game label that features games with entrancing atmospheres. Last year I played their game Recolit, and at this year’s booth I played Unreal Life, which has a similar style.

A girl who can see the memories of objects begins searching for her own memories with the help of a talking traffic light AI. It’s an adventure game where you find items and use them to interact with the environment and solve puzzles. The surreal world is presented in gorgeous pixel art.

It’s very “classic adventure game” gameplay, which means that sometimes you will need to select a specific item in your inventory and use it on a specific NPC in order to progress. I didn’t encounter any absurd stretches of logic in my short time with the game, but maybe those would be more acceptable in this dreamlike world where a traffic light can talk and a chain-smoking penguin manages a train station?

The game was already released a few years ago on Nintendo Switch: https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/unreal-life-switch/

and Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1335560/UNREAL_LIFE/

ANTONBLAST

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/antonblast/

A 2D action platformer with smooth pixel art animations and lots of explosions. Pure fun. Smashing your way through the sprawling environments reminded me of the Wario Land series, and the visuals have a cartoony, Crash Bandicoot-like charm. It’s extremely polished and feels great to play. Lots of little effects on everything show that a lot of care went into making this game. After a successful Kickstarter campaign, the Summitsphere development team is now targeting a release date of When It’s Done: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1887400/ANTONBLAST/

Kickstarter demo on itch.io: https://summitsphere.itch.io/antonblast-kickstarter-demo

KINGS GAUNTLET: CHESS REVOLUTION

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/kings-gauntlet-chess-revolution/

A realtime, 2D, multiplayer battle game. Battles take place on a chessboard and chess pieces move in their usual patterns, but that’s where the similarities end. You and your opponent dodge around the chess board, shooting at each other while trying to pick up crown pieces and not get hit by the opposing color’s chess pieces. It’s hectic!

We spoke with the game’s composer Jayolite a bit about the game’s development. The dev team is six people, all living in the same city in Italy. Everyone wears multiple hats — in addition to the music, Jayolite also handled the Japanese localization. The game started as a game jam entry, then after winning the jam the team decided to work on a full version. Made using Unity, the full version has been in development for about 1.5 years. After the core gameplay was finished, the team has been balancing, iterating, adding new characters, and preparing for release on Steam.

Free demo on Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1646910/Kings_Gauntlet_Chess_Revolution/

SLAVE ZERO X

https://bitsummit.org/en/game/slave-zero-x/

A stylish, “high-action” beat-em-up game for hardcore action fans, set in the world of Slave Zero (1999 Dreamcast title). In the demo I hacked and slashed my way through the streets of far-future Kyoto, fighting a bunch of cyborg dudes before getting smacked around by another big cyborg dude atop a moving train. The combat feels very satisfying, with hitstun and hitstop and different moves that can combo into each other, like a fighting game. The game actually has lots of fighting game mechanics in it (air grabs, parrying, bursting, etc.) and takes influence from Devil May Cry, Strider, Guilty Gear, and other classic action games. Another fun fact — everything in the game was made using free software (like Blender). Slave Zero X is set to release in early 2023.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1903910/Slave_Zero_X/

PREDATOR AND WRECK

https://www.bitsummit.org/en/game/predator-and-wreck/

A horror game created by a student team at Tokyo Denki University. Make your way through an abandoned space station without being caught by the alien monster prowling the hallways. Very atmospheric! Already released on Switch, slated for a Steam release by the end of 2022.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1920210/PREDATOR_AND_WRECK/

GAMES WITH WEIRD CONTROLLERS

These are always fun. No Steam demos here, you can only experience these experimental works in person!

In 僕のお墓はアイスの棒 (“My Grave Is A Popsicle Stick”), you take the role of priest in a classic RPG party, and you play by putting real wooden popsicle sticks in a container of sand. As the priest you must put graves (the sticks) in the ground (the sand) when you pass over dead enemies (slain by the party members in front of you), so that their souls can go to the afterlife. It’s actually a rhythm game!

Finally, RapTapBath is a projector unit that converts an existing bathtub into a human-computer interface. Using it as a controller, you can put touch-based games anywhere you point it. Maybe your kids will want to take a bath if they can play whack-a-mole, or maybe you just want to play drums while you’re in the tub. The Ubiquitous Media Lab researches human-computer interaction, and has other interesting projects like this, see https://hir.ai/lab for more.