Our Review of SXSW (with videos!)
I want to say this up front: if you like swag, you got to go to SXSW. I came home with totes bags, t-shirts, coasters, stickers, buttons, bracelets, mood rings, keychains, and even some large posters. Considering that guest passes are free, I think I more than made up for the $20 I had to pay for parking. I also learned something important for next year: if you want to try virtual reality, you need to get into that line early! I missed out on my chance to play the upcoming VR Paranormal Activity game (fortunately other folks have provided some great descriptions). Fortunately, I did love a lot of the games I got a chance to play.
YIIK
We’ve seen YIIK before and we love it and we were excited to see it at SXSW. The first thing you’ll notice about the game are the beautiful visuals. Then you’ll enjoy the writing, the game has a great post-modern sense of humor as your everyday heroes poke fun at the RPG genre (I love the part in this demo where one character assures another that the locals won’t attack you just for asking questions and then the first local you meet – “Hook Handed Jack” – immediately does so). But with my time playing the game, I really started to enjoy the actual gameplay. The turn based fighting consists of fun minigames that you complete to execute your attack. Here there’s some rhythm tapping and pattern matching that makes the fighting more engaging. I’m not huge on RPGs (the amazing Ni No Kuni notwithstanding) but YIIK looks like the kind of RPG I’m going to enjoy playing this summer.
Song of the Deep
We saw some gameplay footage of Song of the Deep at Pax South and we actually got to play the game at SXSW. The game is insanely beautiful and simply exploring the environment is rewarding, but the gameplay is as fun as we hoped. The ship has a load of weapons and tools for exploring the world and in later stages you can exit the craft to explore on your own. The clips we’ve seen of later stages look really beautiful and the boss battles promise to be impressively large scale. We keep thinking of this game as an underwater spiritual successor to Master Blaster, which is an awesome thing.
Superhot
Okay, Superhot is already out but we hadn’t played it before but wow is it fun. The game looks like a first-person action shooter but is really a puzzle game in which you have to complete an action sequence without getting shot, which is actually like every action game, I suppose. The hook is that time only moves forwards as you move, so you can line up your shots and then move time forward to see how the sequence plays out. This means you can empty a clip at one enemy, throw your gun at the next one and then snag their gun and use it to finish off a third guy. Once you win the level, the game replays the sequence so you can watch the entire battle play out. The gameplay is really great in execution (it’s like making an action movie) and watching your sequence play out once you complete the level is hugely fun.
Burly Men at Sea
We don’t know much at the super cute Burly Men at Sea, but it seems like the perfect title to play for the iOS: the graphics are beautiful, the gameplay is straightforward, and the world you explore seems really unique. In the clip we played, the three protagonists, who have a great Lost Vikings vibe in their interactions, explore sleepy fishing villages trying to get some additional info their local surroundings. We didn’t capture the sound, which is unfortunate because the music was pretty great. We’ll be watching for this title to drop sometime soon (more info here).
Sh!tty Voltron
Look, we didn’t name the game, but Sh!tty Voltron was a big hit at SXSW. The game really asks the question about how easily four different pilots could successful captain a robot by controlling different limbs. The answer seems to be not very well. The legs and arms can quickly knock the entire robot off course and send the players tumbling end over end across the screen. The graphics remind us of rampage and the hilarious commentary by the panicked general (who never seems to lose faith that this awful robot will somehow save the day) make this game as much fun to watch as it is to play.
Fragments of Him
Okay, our video here does not do justice to the game, but Fragments of Him looks to be an extremely thoughtful reflection on life and loss. This is definitely one of those games that will challenge the definition of games. We wouldn’t call it a walking simulator per se, and it looks like there are some branching options and choices to be made as you play through the title. Certainly the game wasn’t afraid to set itself apart as one of the most mature titles we saw at SXSW and really focused on provided a powerful emotional experience to the players. We’re interested in seeing if the game can deliver on some of the heady emotional content that it’s taking on, but this may be one of the more interesting and unique titles we see this year.
Pinstripe
We don’t know a whole lot about Pinstripe, except that it’s apparently a game about hell, and it seems to be a Metroidvania style adventure that looks like it was designed by Tim Burton. In the clip we saw, your armed, ragdoll protagonist ventures through a snowy environment encountering a cute dog and some weird blob monsters. The graphics are really striking and the gameplay pretty intuitive. We’re really interested in where this title is headed as it looks really cool and is pretty impressive coming from a one-man team. Find out more about this crowdfunded indie title here.
Death Stair
Death Stair is a fun multiplayer party game in which three gamers race up a staircase while the fourth hurls objects down at them from the top of the stairs. The race seems to be driven by time not space (so if you’re in front when the time runs out, you win) with the winner reaching the top of the stairs when time expires. The gamers we saw playing it really loved it and this seems like a fun party game for casual game players. Multiplayer party games were a big hit at SXSW and Death Stair was one people really seemed to respond to. You can watch these gamers get to the top of the stairs below.
Home Improvisation
Home Improvisation is a cute little title in which you and your friends assemble furniture. We spent a few minutes playing this title and found it crazy cute. Much like Sh!tty Voltron, a lot of the fun seems to be when coop gamers fail to cooperate in the construction, but it is remarkably satisfying when you successfully complete a particularly complicated piece of furniture. Bonus, if you get sick of building furniture, you can just turn the game off and you don’t have a pile of parts and tools sitting in the corner.
Super Rad Ray Gun
There are always a lot of fun retro-style games at SXSW and one we really liked was Super Rad Ray Gun. The game is an immediately familiar run and gun style game rendered in Gameboy graphics, much like many of the games we played in the 80’s and early 90’s. We’re not sure what appealed to us most, the excellent Gameboy style graphics, the bizarre Red Scare communist villains attacking the White House, the cameo appearance of Ronald Reagan, or simply the fact that your Mega Man-inspired hero can actually duck. You can see me play a bit below (apologies for how long it takes me to master the slide attack).
Last BUT NOT LEAST AT SXSW: The Angry Video Game Nerd 2!
We are huge fans of the Angry Video Game Nerd and we were excited to see his game at SXSW. The game had some great throwback graphics, profane dialogue, and some pretty cool retro-platforming. Watch us play a bit below and then do yourself a favor and go watch some Angry Video Game Nerd videos here.
