This week I’ve gone over everything I saw at Rezzed. I mentioned meeting friends, talking to developers and above all, I spoke of the awesome games I played. It was a fun trio of days and I can’t wait to see the final versions of the titles I tried.
To think of the “Best of Rezzed” is a daunting task, because there as too much good stuff there. Last year during EGX I gave an award to AAA games and another to Indie games. This time around, there aren’t any AAA titles to mention, only indies and so I have a giant list of candidates and one slot to fill.
To make my life easier I’ve broken the “Best of…” into a few categories. From those, I’ll pick up my true best of Rezzed.
But before I do that, here are some opinions from good friends.
Wes Platt, Writer/Designer, Prologue Games: “For presentation at Rezzed, I loved Last Fight’s booth and gameplay. Got a soft spot for Like a Boss, though – too much WoW!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CzdLC0CtsqM
James Broom, Editor/Writer, KickstartVentures: “Although I couldn’t stay as long as I had hoped, I saw some great looking titles including Tokyo 42, Lumo and Outreach. Not to mention some cool adventure games like Nelly Cootalot and Wailing Heights.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdK-HlHavM4&nohtml5=False
James and Wes both dropped a few names there that I didn’t get to see. I didn’t check out Last Fight, Outreach or Wailing Heights, so maybe I should do that in the near future.
Best of Square Enix Collective – The Turing Test: The reasons are fairly simple. Awesome gameplay and the most polished Alpha ever.
Best of Versus Evil – Like a Boss: As Wes said, soft spot for this one as a WoW player. Also, it’s massively fun!
Best of the Indie Room – Tokyo 42: Not only was Tokyo 42 fun to play, but it breaks the mold in so many ways. Isometric but still 3D so you can change perspectives, a myriad of mechanics inspired by games and films that work well together and most importantly a bright and colourful world for what is traditionally a very grim and stark genre. Grand Theft Auto in bright garish pink is a brilliant idea.
Best of the Rest – Skylar & Plux: Adventure on Clover Island: There were dozens of games out there spread across the Tobacco Dock, but Skylar & Plux was the best I tried, not only because of its gameplay but also because, as I mentioned in my article a couple of days ago, we need more games like this.
With those four final contenders, I have to say the best of Rezzed goes to Tokyo 42. Much like The Turing Test, this one was solid, but for the reasons I mentioned above, I find it the most innovative, fun and engaging title at Rezzed. I just hope the final game is as fun and engaging as this demo was.
On a final note there’s Best of the Food! There were a few food spots at Rezzed and they were all overpriced. An acquaintance ate some chicken at one of the food tents and he summed up the issue with the price in one perfect sentence: “The chicken was good, but it wasn’t worth a tenner!”
But the best of the show for me were the Halloumi Chips. I love halloumi, and I love breading. Combine those two together and it’s magic. It’s also one ingredient swap away, the breading, from being a very, very, very good Venezuelan dish!
I can’t wait until next year’s Rezzed to see what else is on show. EGX will offer me another chance to look at wonderful indie titles, but there is nothing like Rezzed to be honest. This event gives you that one-on-one with a developer that you can’t get anywhere else and it doesn’t matter if you’re press or not.
