I woke up sore on day two, and I just knew the day would be just as long and my feet would hurt twice as much by the end. But even so I was excited to come back.
This day had a few surprises and fun meetings. I ran into the big boss and editor of 1001Up, She Who Wields the Red Pen of Doom, there for the day to keep an eye out on what the Great and Legendary Ben was up to, and checking out some of her top picks as well. Always lovely to meet her, though as is usually the case, we were all so busy there was never really a chance for a long chat.
Unlike Day One where I was on my own for the most part, on day two James and I stalked the halls together, commenting on the nonsensically long queues for AAA games, seeing him show off his Rock Band 4 and Vermintide skills, and even having a nice lunch discussing the good and bad of the expo.
The games I saw that day were just as great, though the VR games almost soured the experience. POLLEN by Mindfield Games was great in concept, another in a growing list of exploration games, but the VR headset made me ill. I had never had that reaction to the headsets but even with Coatsink’s Esper, I had to stop playing because I was feeling disoriented. It’s because of this that I eventually decided to contact the Crystal Rift developers and cancel my appointment with them. I was sad to do so, but VR was kicking my butt.
Mushroom 11 was one of my favourite titles during Rezzed and I took the chance to meet the other half of the Untame team, Kara and Simon. They had a fun speedrun competition, something I decided not to try. I play puzzle games very slowly and my times would get ludicrously long.
RPG Tycoon isn’t my type of game, but in the past months, thanks to Timlah from Geekout South-West and my brother in law, I’ve gotten to know a lot about these micromanaging games so I was intrigued by the title. It looks interesting and the developer, Matt from Skatanic Studious, was kind enough to answer my questions. I think he could tell it’s not my usual game and I appreciate his patience.
By the afternoon I was so tired I sincerely doubted I would be there on Sunday, so I decided to take the initiative and approach those devs I’d booked for Day 4 and see if they’d let me change the appointment to “right now!” Masquerada is a phenomenal game I am hoping to hear more of in the future, a mix of Tactical RPG and Diablo-style gameplay. Asura is an ambitious dungeon crawler that randomly generates everything when you respawn, even your skill trees. Herald and Void and Meddler were both gorgeous point & click adventures, the first by Wispfire with a definite Horatio Hornblower vibe to it that I thoroughly enjoyed. Void and Meddler’s visual style is very old-school but its use of shadows and colour giving a distinct Film Noir vibe. Finally, I got to play Beyond Flesh and Blood by Pixelbomb Games and I want to see where the game goes in the future. There is a ton of potential in there and I hope they fully bring it out on release!
Day two didn’t end with me going home exhausted, but going to an after party with the amazing Senshudo TV crowd. They are some of the loveliest people I’ve had the pleasure to meet in this industry. We chatted of life, games and plans for the future, what we hoped to achieved and were things seemed to be heading. I can only thank TinyPixxels so much for inviting me!
But when I got home, I could barely move.
Gallery:
