Post-PAX East 2018 Prattle

    I'm back from PAX, everyone! I was only there for one day, but it was quite a day. Even better, despite some post-con fatigue, I don't seem to have PAX Plague or Con Creep or whatever convention-based diseases were there. I've been accepted to do a video game writing internship at mxdwn.com, so I was also a bit slower this week, but I'll still try to get some stuff out here. Anyway, I know what you're here for:

A huge honking convention space filled with video games and demos.

     I plan to deliver. Here are some of my favorite and most interesting games of PAX East 2018, out of the many, many, many I saw. I'm obviously missing a ton, but these stuck out the most.

    Disclaimer: Trailers provided when available. I was not paid in any way to endorse these games.

Unless you consider pins, bookmarks, stickers, and business/website cards payment.

Russian Subway Dogs

Developer & Publisher: Spooky Squid Games

    Some of you might have heard the fascinating stories about the stray dogs in Moscow that have learned to use the subway system and developed techniques to survive and get food. This is a game inspired by those pooches. It appears to be an action-arcade game where you run and jump along the subway platform, collecting food while avoiding hazards like rival dogs and other wildlife, including those dang Subway Bears. Don't you hate it when you're waiting for your subway train and a bear mauls your face off? Me too. As well as the game's dogs, it also has some special guests, such as two cyber-corgis from Va-11 HALL-A and Question Hound from the webcomic Gunshow! Starving in the cold Russian subway systems? This is fine.

Fight Knight

Developer: Team Sorcerobe   Publisher: DANGEN Entertainment

    Most knightly characters tend to use swords, but in this game, you get to use a much cooler weapon: your fists!! UUUHNGH!! Fight Knight bills itself as a mix between a first person dungeon crawler that transforms into a first person grid-based action game when you encounter monsters. The game boasts a unique retro style to its graphics, and I can tell it already has a sense of humor with its writing. As an example, one pre-fight versus screen depicts Fight Knight versus The Notorious R.I.B. This game looks pretty neat and I'm hoping to see and hear more of it.

Rhythm Doctor

Developer: 7th Beat Games   Publisher:7th Beat Games, Indienova

    I mentioned this game in my 10 games I want to play in 2018 article, but at PAX East, I got a chance to actually play a new demo. This demo had the boss stage from the old demo (accessible from their website,) the harder version of that stage (from the Steam trailer,) the 'One Shift More' stage (part of it can be seen at about 1:30 in the above video as well as the full song on fizzd's Soundcloud,) and a new stage with a gameplay gimmick I haven't seen yet. The patient in this stage was the coffee-loving kid from the sticker in the center of that picture back up there. Before the stage, I was told that this stage has a two-beat system. I'm given the beat when the nurse says "Get! Set!" and I have to press the space bar each time the second beat rolls around. You can see the gimmick in play at 0:50 in the video above. I finish the brief tutorial flawlessly, get a compliment from the game, and...

Oh, uhh... (Writer's Rendition) (And yes, that's a There She Is!! desktop background. Got it for funding an IndieGoGo campaign.)

    Suddenly, the game goes from full screen to windowed, and my first thought is "I done screwed something up, didn't I?" It turns out that as well as having to deal with a different kind of rhythm, the game window starts moving around the screen to the techno music in an effort to confuse me. I did pretty well, but it was pretty crazy, and there was the whole concern that I somehow broke a demo at PAX East. Nothing like annoyed developers and people denied a demo to get the blood pumping!

    (In a side note, I now have 'One Shift More' stuck in my head. Send help.)

Pig Eat Ball

Developer & Publisher: Mommy's Best Games

    For those of you in the market for a weird game, look no further than Pig Eat Ball. You play as Princess Bow, and your father, King Cake, is holding one of those 'win this contest and you can marry my daughter' contests. So you've decided to enter the contest yourself. No word on what will happen if you win. I'm not sure how you can get married to yourself, unless you're an extreme narcissist. The game has you running around five worlds in a giant space station, and the main game mechanic involves eating balls and then puking them at enemies. Definately pretty unique, and it has a demo up above.

Granted, it's not the first game I've played where vomiting is a form of attack.

    The demo seems to cover the first world and part of the second. The full game was recently funded via fig, one of those Kickstarter-esque sites. It looks pretty neat, and I'm planning on trying out the full version.

Wattam

Developer: Funomena   Publisher: Annapuma Interactive

    Another game from my 10 games of 2018 list, Wattam is that game from the creator of the Katamari series, Keita Takahashi. From the demo I played, it looks kind of like some sort of interactive playground. You start out with the Mayor, a lonely cube with a dapper hat, and as you accomplish certain tasks, more characters show up in the area. It's pretty hard to describe how it works 100%, but it certainly was entertaining and cute, and sometimes that all a game needs to get positive attention.

Donut County

Developer: Ben Esposito   Publisher: Annapuma Interactive

    "I...I want you to go into my hole, Ness. I got somethin' in there you need to see." - Liar X. Agerate, talking about the hole in his floor and nothing else, from Fobbies are Borange ep. 1

    Here's another game from Annapuma Interactive. This game got my interest because it also had a bit of a Katamari vibe to it. The story I saw in the demo (which had the first two stages) involves a girl and a raccoon who both work at a donut shop. They text about stuff over the phone, and the raccoon is close to getting Rank 9 in something, which will get him a cool quad-copter! Cut to some time later, and most of the town and its inhabitants are about 990 meters underground, and it's evidently the raccoon's fault. Our masked friend, meanwhile, is more upset about his broken quad-copter.

    The gameplay I saw involves moving a hole around different locations. As you make stuff fall into the hole, it gets bigger and you can pick up bigger stuff. There are also some light puzzle elements I saw. In the second stage, you have to use a snake sticking out of the hole to mess with some stuff and overload a snake watch meter owned by a ranger who's deathly afraid of snakes. I've heard there are more puzzle elements in the game, so I'll have to pick up the full version to see the rest of it, and I will. Because I'm a sucker for Katamari-esque games.

    (As a final note, I find the little "Aah!" the raccoon lets out in the trailer above surprisingly adorable.)