I attended the biggest Indie Game event in Warsaw and got to try HTC Vive VR, play a bunch of upcoming indies, and watch Peter Molyneux preach!
Last year I attended the event for the first time as an exhibitor when my my game KARASKI: What Goes up… was nominated for the awards. This year, however, I was a mere spectator and a gamer. For those who know me, you might have heard “enjoying” games has been a bit of a problem ever since things got more business-y with my projects. Gaming becamse “research,” weekend binges turned “waste of time,” and playing a new title for 10 minutes led to inevitable burst of inspiration and shutting back the game to return to work… yea it was not healthy.
During my two month backpacking travels I’ve been re-learning how to enjoy my “favorite” hobby again. So would the indie game expo full of innovation and freshness manage to get me excited? Let’s find out!
First Impressions
The Pixel Heaven event was held at some sort of a bus hangar divided into several areas, as depicted by the cleverly designed map full of little gaming references.
Passing the food trucks and devs taking a break to see sun and drink beer, I entered the main hall and glanced around, orienting myself. I walked to one end and back and my first thoughts were… small. The event feels really small, especially for someone attending PAX South just a few months ago and GDC in the past.
But size does not matter, as many wise man such as Lao Tsu would tell you, so I began exploring the booths!
Indie Table
I skipped the Pinballs and the Doom computers (Id’s title being one of few western titles making an appearance) and headed for the table right in the middle. Laid on them were numerous laptops, with indie devs eager to show their upcoming title. Most were… not good. Still in prototypical phase, featuring barebone graphics, unlocalized string tags (build_a_farmer, create_route etc.), and generic Unity assets.
What caught my eye was the Chernobyl VR simulation which disappointingly turned to be a static 3D photo you can look around. There was also a cyberpunk RPG / RTS game about futuristic religions that seemed intriguing. And an obligatory island-crafting-survival-sim.
Presentations and Panels
I did not have much time to check out things just yet for the first panel-of-interest was starting! My friend Piotr Grabiec, excellent Polish writer for SpidersWeb, asked me to take a gander at the CDP presentation as rumors of some Big Announcement™ were rife. With the success of Witcher 3 and their next Cyberpunk title still in shrouds of mystery, everyone was excited.
And they announced… Klabater, a new publishing arm focused on western markets, with 3 launch titles. Regalia was a typical Japanese-y tactical RPG ala Final Fantasy Tactics. Alice VR some sort of futuristic VR-based puzzle game on a desolate planet. Finally, Symmetry was a minimalist vector art management sim helping a crashed ship survive on a desolate planet. The last one seemed the most interesting, if they manage to get FTL’s or This War of Mine’s level of complexity and randomization.
Right after came the presentation I really wanted to see – Q&A with Legendary Peter Molyneux! Well, legendary as in “it’s been a hell of a long time since you lived up to your promises.” Still, I cannot denounce his successes and was curious. But I left halfway through, realizing it was just small chit-chat about his inspirations and life stories. While it wasn’t bad in itself, nothing really stuck out enough for me to keep watching.
Preach, Petey, Preach!
I also got to watch an interesting discussion panels about the need for distributor companies in the digital age, from the perspective of one indie dev (Ethan Carter’s) and three publishers (CDP among them). While the imbalanced panel favored the latter, interesting points were raised on both sides.
Finally, I also listened on a brief presentation about brokering deals with distributors and what to watch out for in a good agreement. Having signed two games with a publisher so far, a lot of the advice definitely rang true, and new good points were learned as well.
Pixel Heaven Finalists – the highlight of the expo!
On the walls of the hall with the main stage, the finalists of the expo awards were set up. I felt bad for the terrible placement, as the loud stage speakers distracted from the games and required the devs to almost yell when explaining the premise. I expect their voices to be way more dead than mine was exhibiting last year. Still, after lackluster indie table, I was pleasantly surprised – the finalists were mostly really cool titles with high quality and polish.
First up was the (poorly named) SE7en: The Days Long Gone, a post-apocalyptic isometric RPG playing as a thief asked to steal a valuable something from dreadful slave pits. There’s also a demon in your head, or so I heard. While the premise sounds bit generic, the graphics and “game feel” were spot on – it played excellent with a gamepad and the perspective and atmosphere exuded classic CRPGs like Fallout or Baldur’s Gate. While I cannot comment on complexity of mechanics, for just an Alpha build, I was very impressed.
Next thing that caught my eyes was Layer’s of Fear, psychological thriller where we play as a painter gone mad. While it looked like a generic Unity-horror-game or Amnesia clone (complete with the same mechanic for opening doors), it had some neat space and time warping tricks. For example, going around in a circular corridors would slowly see the walls and decor change even though we were technically coming back to the same spot.
But then the jump scare happened and I was done with it.
Syndrome demanded I play it, looking like a System Shock 2 spiritual successor with a really friendly Portugese dev team. You wake up alone on a space ship with the crew dead and must roam in the shadows hiding from powerful enemies and scavenging every last bullet you can find… you know the drill. I played with the nice Doom 3 style UIs, watched corpses hanging from the ceiling, finally being killed by the big robot with a torn human face strapped to its head. The game has a lot of promise, but felt a bit clunky (particularly in combat). Still, a good effort by a small 3-man team worth supporting!
The last title to catch my eye was Butcher, basically Quake turned side scroller. With pixely graphics, brown and gory colors, some hellish demon-themes and similar weapon loudout, I can say they nailed the conversion. I only played for a few minutes but if they balance the difficulty and levels right, this could be a really great title.
There were a bunch of other titles that seemed equally as polished, such as Crush Your Enemies (a tactical real-time grid-based barbaric game) or Coffee Noir (economic management sim), but they did not grab me as much. All subjective tastes of course, so do yourself a favor and look up their trailers or demos!
Trying out HTC Vive VR
Having finished all the panels I wanted to see and taking a gander at the indies, I stood 45mins in line to try the HTC Vive playing Alice VR mentioned earlier. Well, more like cheated, for I got chatting with the other waiters and got them to hold my spot as I explored the expo for 25minutes. Working smart, and all that.
I put on the goggles and looked around the fuzzy space around me. I stood in a scifi room with a blue grid showing my boundary. There was nothing in the room, just things in the distance.
It was… disappointing. Yes, the sense of “being there” was nice, but the showcased titled failed to capitalize on it entirely. All the 3D stuff was in the distance, not even showcasing the effect well. I finally manged to switch to another “room” which had a little item dispenser. Suddenly, I could pick up and whack a virtual hammer on stuff! I could toss a disk and watch it fly like a frisbee. All with no lag, and allowing full movement in the 3×3 meter space. Now this WAS cool.
But it still needed a “game” to actually go with it. I wish I had time to try the bow-shooting game few booths down instead.
Board Games and Comics, the rooms less traveled by
The expo also had separate halls dedicate to other geeky ventures. The comics section had only two of the four walls featuring actual booths, with just a bunch of mainstream collections to buy and maybe one or two original artists. Barely any traffic either. Compared to the main hall, it was just sad.
The Board Game zone, on the other, was far more lively. With tons of shwag stores and new releases all around the halls, the gamers happily indulge in MTG or Settlers of Catan at the tables in the middle. It was a nice little space. Alas, I am not a huge board game nerd, so only went through it briefly.
There was also an area by the entrance with old NES, Commoders or Amigas running the classics from the day. The show’s main theme is “retro” after all. Oddly, the aforementioned Doom table was right next to them as well, perhaps trying to hearken to its old legacy?
Final Impressions
As with first impressions, I thought the event felt smaller than last year’s, and definitely not as well laid out (taking place in new location). There was one or two interesting panels the day after, but I did not feel motivated to go back just to see them. I would say it was really more of a “one day” thing than three, unless you want to sit and play board games or the retro classics.
However, on the whole, I enjoyed my time, and left the expo more tired than I expected (but I should have really grabbed that lunch!). Even with the small size and lacking HTC Vive showcase, there were a few cool upcoming titles I got to check out, and learned a thing or two from the panels. The festival still has a long way to go before it’s anywhere comparable to the western equivalents, but that’s also the nice part of it – it’s not as overwhelming. Being able to get it over with in just a day and move on is not necessarily a bad thing as a spectator.
My only regret was not chatting up and getting to know the fellow devs. But for once, I wanted to go just a gamer, there to enjoy and have fun, not worry about comparing myself or building connections. While I still had a lot of my compulsive dev thoughts buzzing in my head, I think it was a good step in helping my ongoing effort to relight the spark.
But nevermind the existential blabber, here’s some Witcher 3 erotic puzzles!
