Sundays are for doing your best Ed Thorn impression, because he’s holidaying in Japan right now and you said you’d cover the Sunday Papers for him. Okay, here we go: "Hi I’m Ed and here is this week’s best writing about games (and game related things)." Nailed it.
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Liam and I had a fun time chatting with the folks over at Mega Cat Studios about their upcoming wrestling RPG WrestleQuest last year at PAX West, and this time at PAX East we finally cornered them in the ring for a proper interview.
Watch below to learn about how the developers created their zero to hero story, how they're addressing myths and persaonl issues in the world of pro wresting, as well as sharing a story about how one of the team got their nose broken in a wrestling accident during development.
My main take away from the interview is how much of the RPG incorporates all aspects of Wrestling, not just the ring fights we see on TV. Another interesting thing is that Mega Cat reached out to a handful of real-life wrestlers to ask their permission to use their likeness in the game - not an easy feat to secure, I'm sure.
I've played a bunch of indie game demos at PAX East, but none left my head reeling as much as 43 Studios' fiendishly frantic action platfotmer Hell Of An Office. It's a super fast parkour adventure in the vein of Neon White, and after ten minutes with the demo my heart race was through the roof. If I owned a fitbit it would have been screaming at me to have a nice sit down with a cuppa. Check out my full impressions in the video below:
Hell Of An Office puts your platforming reflexes to the test as you're tasked with sprinting ad jumping your way straight outta hell. With only a stapler as your means of survival, you need to navigate through each level before it slowly sinks into the burning lava. React quickly, or fall victim to Hell's scorching pools.
If you love the blood-pumping, sweaty palm inducing action-platforming of Neon White, make sure to keep an eye on Hell Of An Office as it makes it's way through Early Access.
I really enjoyed dark fantasy adventure Roki when it first released back in 2020, and keen to see what developers Polygon Treehouse have gotten up to since, I jumped at the opportunity to play the PAX East demo for Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island. You can watch my impressions of the demo in the video below:
In Mythwrecked you play as Alex, a backpacker who has washed up on the sun-drenched shores of Ambrosia Island. As she begins exploring, she soon realises that this island seems to be a hot spot for the gods from ancient Greek myths. Your task is to befriend each god, help them restore their memories, and find a way back to civilisation.
From playing the demo, you can see much of what made Roki fun reflected in Mythwrecked. The environments are interesting to poke around in, puzzles are breezy brain ticklers, and it has Polygon Treehouse's sense of humour. Each Greek god has a humerous twist on their lore, and during the demo I had a fun time chatting with Hermes, who is dressed in nothing more than a pair of skimpy white speedos and a matching white sweat band - a bold choice of attire.
Out of all the game demos Liam and I have played at PAX East, we both agree that Animal Well is something special. It's a 2D metriodvania where you play as a little blob trying to navigate a subtterranean labyrinth filled with creatures - some cute, some not so cute.
To find out more about this strange puzzle platformer's beginnings and development, we spoke to solo develeoper Billy Basso and Bigmode's Leah Gastrow which you can view in the two videos below.
You can watch me interview Billy here:
A combination of work trips to America and regular time offs means that there are actually only four of us here to fill in the WAP on the what we're playing this week. Given that it would make for a very short article for you, the reader, I have decided to fill in for the various absent members of the treehouse myself, in character, italicised for clarity. Anyone actually here and writing for themself is in regular text.
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Join us for another PAX East game highlight straight from the show floor, and this time we decided to revisit a cult horror classic: Alone In The Dark. This psychological horror is being developed by Pieces Interactive with publishing backing from THQ Nordic and is a love letter to the original game released back in the 90s.
As someone who had played the original, and RPS' Resident Evil uber fan, Liam decided to check out the demo and you can hear his impressions in the video below:
According to the devs at the THQ booth, this demo is a stand-alone prequel story that will not be in the final game, but shares the same eerie atmosphere and action that'll be in the main game. This reimagining is set in the Gothic American south and in the main game you'll be playing as Edward Carnby or Emily Hartwood as they navigate the monster infested Derceto Manor, the same mansion featured in the demo.
We've had our eyes on Goodbye Volcano High since it appeared in Sony's State Of Play back in February and the demo at PAX East is one of the first times that the devs have placed a game preview in the hands of eager players. I had the chance to sit down with the demo and play KO_OP's teen dino adventure first hand. Check out the video below if you're interested to know what I thought:
Goodbye Volcano High follows a group of teen dinos as they begin their senior year of highschool. It's part coming-of-age visual novel part rhythm game as the group try to grapple with school while also trying to make it big as up-and-coming musicians.
I had a great time with the demo, and it looks like we won't have to wait long for the full release at Goodbye Volcano High is launching on Steam and PlayStation on June 15th.
It's almost become an RPS tradition to search the show floor at PAX events and find the coolest stuff and highlight it in a video, so that's exactly what we've done at PAX East. There's a lot of cool booths, fun props, and generally weird stuff to see, so we've chosen our absolute favourites and have listed them in video form for your viewing pleasure.
Everything at PAX East is situated in one massive hall (instead of PAX West's multiple floors, rooms, and buildings) so it's nice and easy to see everything in one or two loops. It doesn't feel cramped at all, even with Friday's busy crowds, and the booths are as spectacular as ever.
Some of our favourites included Devolver Digital's movie theatre-inspired booth, which has the new addition of a candle-lit shrine for Cult Of The Lamb's upcoming free expansion Relics Of The Old Faith. We also loved Ysbryd Games' Demonschool booth which had a school desk layout and cool retro TV. Another favourite was the animated robot dinosaur (complete with rideable saddle) that we found at the Roots Of Pacha demo builds.
“Imagine someone saying ‘We need you to make a trailer for our movie, but we've only got half of the sets and props ready…” says Tim Bevan de Lange, Creative Director at Realtime Nordic, a studio that makes, specifically, video game trailers. “...and we haven’t actually shot anything, so you’ll need to do that yourself. Some of the actors won't come out of their trailers. One of them will but if you shoot him from the front you realise he's got no eyes, but don't show the audience that. It's not intentional, he's getting them fixed. Also can you film it twice, for different streaming platforms? Make a really good version for Netflix and a slightly worse looking one for Quibi.”
Every so often a game trailer comes along that makes me think, hang on, that was bloody brilliant! I bet some people made that! Most recently it was Creative Assembly’s Immortal Empires trailer. Well, I’ve been digging around and I’m happy to report that yes, although I’m the first one to just see a trailer as an algorithm trying to snatch my coin purse away like a manure-encrusted Victorian ne’er-do-well, game trailers are> made by humans. They're often humans who do it as as specific job, either in-house at a developer or as an outside agency like Realtime Nordic. Enlightened and enthralled, I asked some of them about what went into the strange space that is making the trailers for your favourite games.