The Games You Will See on Surface Pro 2 at the PAX East Indie Megabooth
Once again Boston is playing host to one of the biggest and best gaming conventions in North America, PAX East! Whether attending in person or taking in the show via a multitude of streams, blogs, vlogs, tweets, etc., PAX East is three days of all things gaming, from table top to AAA titles and an awesome collection of indie games.
AAA titles have traditionally dominated consumer gaming shows like PAX East, however, in 2012 a few innovative minds decided to provide greater visibility for indie gaming by banding together with their fellow indie developers. The result was the Indie Megabooth. For those of you not familiar with the Indie Megabooth, it is a collection of independent game developers working together to bring indie games to the forefront of the gaming community.
At PAX East 2014 Surface is thrilled to be a sponsor of the Indie Megabooth. What is really exciting is that there will be a number of indie developers showing off their incredible games during the show on the Surface Pro 2.
Here are the games you will be able to see on the Surface Pro 2 at the PAX East Indie Megabooth:
Ronimo Games: Awesomenauts Starstorm
Awesomenauts is a 2012 MOBA fitted into the form of an accessible 3-on-3 action platformer. Starstorm is the first official expansion for the game and will be shown on the Surface Pro 2 at PAX East. Awesomenauts was developed by Ronimo Games, a then 7 person independent developer out of the Netherlands that has now grown to a staff of 16. The Awesomenauts Starstorm expansion was successfully funded on Kickstarter.com in September 2013 and is available now as an Early Access Game.
Discover more about Awesomenauts at the official Indie Megabooth site.
Iridium Studios: There Came An Echo
There Came An Echo is an innovative real-time strategy game by Iridium Studios, a 7 person independent developer based out of Los Angeles, that utilizes voice control. Players, acting as a field commander in a variety of military-style engagements are able to precisely control a squad using voice commands and get their units to move around a map to accomplish various objectives. What is really amazing is the natural flow of conversation back and forth between the squad and players and the ability to customize the commands to meet the player’s personal style. For instance, instead of “Grace, hold position”, the player might choose to say “yo girl, hold up”. The game features recognizable VO talent, such as Wil Wheaton (Star Trek, The Guild, Big Bang Theory).
Find out more here.
Untame: Mushroom 11
Developed by Untame, an independent games studio headed by husband and wife Itay Keren and Julia Keren-Detar, Mushroom 11 is a post-apocalyptic puzzle-platformer with unique control mechanics. Guide a mysterious amorphous organism across brain-twisting obstacles, overcome swarms of bizarre mutated creatures, and understand the true nature of the devastation from which you emerged.
Learn more about Mushroom 11 here.
Vagabond Dog: Always Sometimes Monsters
Set out on a cross-country journey to win back the love of your life and endure the hardship of making story-defining choices that affect your life and the lives of those around you.
Vagabond Dog, a small independent game studio based out of Toronto has developed Always Sometimes Monsters, which delivers a story-driven experience focusing on relationships and emotional bonds rather than traditional RPG combat and adventuring. Indecision is your enemy and empathy is your weapon in a quest to earn one last chance to win back the love of your life.
Find out more about Always Sometimes Monsters here.
Pre-orders are available at www.alwayssometimesmonsters.com.
Rocket 5 Studios: Phantom P.I. Mission Apparition
Rocket 5 Studios is a wife-and-husband indie developer based in Toronto. The Phantom P.I. Mission Apparition is a spooky, puzzly adventure game staring a paranormal investigator who specializes in helping ghosts who are being bullied in the afterlife. The levels feature 3D backgrounds with beautiful art and atmospheric lighting while the gameplay is 2D point-and-click.
For more info click here.
Heart Machine: Hyper Light Drifter
Hyper Light Drifter is a 2D Action RPG in the vein of the best 8-bit and 16-bit classics, with modernized mechanics and designs on a much grander scale. Explore a beautiful, vast and ruined world riddled with unknown dangers and lost technologies. Inspired by nightmares and dreams alike.
Learn more here. Preorder bundles are available here.
Defiant Development: Hand of Fate
Developed by Defiant Development in Brisbane, Australia, Hand of Fate is a card based roguelike, in which the player builds a collection of cards into a deck, which is then used to deal out the dungeon floors through which they adventure. Upon entering a combat, all of the cards the player has collected fly into their character’s hands as fully modeled 3D assets, and combat begins. Hand of Fate will bring card driven action as a PC download in the first quarter of 2014.
Find out more here. Preorder at: http://www.defiantdev.com/handoffate.php.
17-Bit: Skulls of the Shogun
17-BIT proudly presents Skulls of the Shogun, a furiously fast-paced turn-based strategy on the shores of the Samurai Afterlife! Lightning-quick tactics combine with fighting-game flash as you command a ragtag undead army, battling through an epic single-player campaign and meaty multiplayer maps supporting up to 4 teams! There’s no grid, no filler, and thanks to pick-up-and-play controls, no need to read a manual!
What are you waiting for? Fight, fight, FIGHT!!! Discover more about Skulls of the Shogun here.
Mi-Clos Studio: Out There
You are an astronaut awaking from cryonics not in the solar system, but… out there… in a far and unknown place of the galaxy. In Out There, you will have to survive, tinkering your ship with what you can gather drifting in the void, and spot garden planets to refill your oxygen supply. Space is a hostile place; dangerous and mysterious adventures will mark each step of your travel. You will not only meet intelligent species that won’t care about you, but also deal with ancient powers linked to your destiny and the fate of mankind itself. Survival and understanding of what is really at stake in the galaxy is the core of what Out There has to offer.
Music by award-winning composer Siddhartha Barnhoorn (Antichamber, The Stanley Parable). Find out more here.
Lumenox Games: Aaru’s Awakening
Lumenox Games is an indie game developer currently working on their first title – an artistic teleportation platformer called Aaru’s Awakening. Lumenox is an Iceland based developer with a team of 8 men and women.
Aaru’s Awakening is a hand drawn 2D action platformer. The game requires players to make the most of Aaru’s two mobile abilities – teleportation and charging – as he travels through the world of Lumenox to defeat an evil entity. These two abilities are at the heart of every level design throughout the game, to make a challenging and fluid experience.
The world of Lumenox consists of a balance between Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night. But the balance is being compromised by a dark menace from the domain of Night. As a last hope Dawn sends out his champion, Aaru, to travel all the way to Night’s domain and restore balance.
The game is created with a transcendent, dreamy art style where everything starts on paper. By doing the line on paper we are able to achieve a certain charm that is often lost when an image is done entirely digital – approaching the entire production in a fairly old school way. The music is carefully crafted to further enhance your experience with dreamy hymns that capture the mood of the game. The storyline is expressed through cut scenes. Learn more here.
If you want to pre-order Aaru’s Awakening then you can do so now with Humble Bundle. Pre-order Aaru’s Awakening
Love Conquers All Games: Analogue: A Hate Story
Analogue: A Hate Story and Hate Plus are visual novels about solving the mystery of a long lost generation ship by reading the log files and diary entries of its long-dead crew, with the help of a pair of spunky AI sidekicks. Analogue was an IndieCade finalist and a runner-up for the IGF narrative award in the year it came out. Hate Plus is a standalone sequel, which refines a lot of the original’s mechanics.
Proletariat Inc: World Zombination
World Zombination is a faction-based strategy game where you choose sides in the global battle between Survivors and the Infected.
Proletariat is a Boston-based startup founded by game-industry veterans from Harmonix, Turbine, Media Molecule, and Insomniac who have worked on everything from Rock Band to Lord of the Rings Online to Resistance: Fall of Man. We lovingly handcraft engaging tablet-first experiences, focusing on creating great team multiplayer games. Find out more here.
Sign up for the beta at worldzombination.com
Kumobius: Duet
Duet is a hypnotic new action arcade game with a mesmerizingly beautiful soundtrack by Melbourne composer and Gotye multi-instrumentalist Tim Shiel. Elegant and minimal, Duet asks players simply to navigate two orbiting spheres past an increasingly complex maze of falling obstacles. As the difficulty increases, the tension mounts, and a peculiar narrative unfolds… Learn more about Duet here.
Marc ten Bosch: Miegakure
Miegakure is a puzzle game that lets you explore and interact with a four-dimensional world. The fourth dimension in this game works just like the first three: it is a mathematical generalization.
Your ability to move in the fourth dimensions in addition to the usual three allows you to perform miraculous feats like seeing inside closed buildings, walking through walls, stealing objects from closed containers, binding two separate rings without breaking them, etc…
These actual consequences of the mathematical formulation of 4D space have been thought about for more than a century (in the 1884 novella “Flatland” for example) but it is the first time anyone can actually perform them, thanks to the video game medium.
Find out more about Miegakure here.
Fenix Fire Entertainment: Source
Source is an adventure unlike anything you’ve ever seen. Existing in an alternate dimension, you control a butterfly with the unique power to give and receive energy to every living creature throughout its bio luminescent world. However, this world is being devoured by a sinister and relentless dark energy that is literally ripping everything apart. It is up to you, the last of your kind, to stop the terrible threat of non-existence.
Playing out as a true metroidvania, you will face many mind bending puzzles, explore new lands, and face powerful creatures while constantly putting yourself at risk for the good of the world. You must learn how you to gather, harness, and unleash your energy to stop the threat of eternal darkness. You will need to find where this “Source” is coming from in hope of ever restoring balance and peace to all living things. Being developed for Xbox One, PS4 and PC.
Learn more here.
Terrible Posture Games: Tower of Guns
Tower of Guns is a ʺLunch-Break First-Person Shooterʺ, a fast paced randomized death gauntlet for the twitch gamer… designed to be beaten in under an hour…IF you’re going to win. The random levels, loot, enemies, bosses, and items make each play through feel fresh, so pick a gun, pick a perk, and good luck!
Discover more about Tower of Guns here.
Frogdice: ReignMaker
ReignMaker is a city building political strategy game with match-3 tower defense combat. From your capital city you lead your Kingdom against the invading Void Army that threatens all life.
Your strategy, tower defense, and match-3 skills will determine the fate of your armies, but the many political decisions you make as a leader affect the story and the culture of your kingdom.
As your capital city improves, you will have access to more powerful spells, mightier elite troops, and better battlefield gear and armaments.
Find out more here.
Reactive Studios: Codename Cygnus
Codename Cygnus is an interactive radio drama that uses speech recognition to cast you as the secret agent in a branching story. Use your voice to operate the game for a high quality acoustic experience of dialogue performance, sound effects, and music.
Find out more here.
PopCannibal: Girls Like Robots
Girls Like Robots is a puzzle game about seating arrangements, wrapped around an epic tale of love and danger! Make friends and break hearts while saving the world and bouncing along to an authentic, old-time, string band soundtrack! More info is available here.
Will O’Neill: Actual Sunlight
Walk the line between hope and despair in Actual Sunlight: A short interactive story about love, depression and the corporation. Find out more here.
Uber Entertainment: Planetary Annihilation
RTS FOR THE NEXT GENERATION Colonize solar systems, smash entire worlds, and obliterate your foes in epic battles with multiple players and potentially thousands of units. Planetary Annihilation is a next-generation RTS that takes the genre to a planetary scale. Learn more here.
SwackSoft softWorks workshop: Burrito Galaxy
GRAB UR BURRITO N SUIT UP, IT’S TIME TO BEAN IT UP! SLAP, BURP, AND SWACK YOUR WAY THROUGH COUPLES OF PUZZLES, SOME OF DUNGEONS AND TWO OF BOSS. BECOME GUAC – THE FIRST FEMALE BEAN COMMANDER IN BURRITO GALAXY – AND DELIVER THE INTERSTELLAR BEAN PAYLOAD! EXPLORE ALIEN PLANET WHERE IN PIRATES HAVE TAKEN YOUR BEAN CORE. HOW WILL GUAC DELIVER THE BEANS NOW!?
Discover more here.
Trichotomy: Dog Sled Saga
With a dogsledding team of your very own, enter randomized races to climb leagues and hire dogs whose skills will grow if they’re treated right. Week by week, get to know your dogs’ unique traits, and the storied Mount St. Something region. Find out more here.
The Amiable: Tetrapulse
Tetrapulse is a two to four player, single screen co-op game where you and your friends join forces to battle a swarm of alien robo-bugs using the only weapon you have left: your own life-force. Every shot of your laser drains your health as you work together to protect the Heartstone, an ancient battery that powers you and your friends. Learn more here.
Dejobaan Games: Monster Loves You!
Live the life of a Monster, from birth to elderhood and beyond, making decisions that affect the world of Monsters and Humans. You live in the village of Omen, and your favorite snack is the fingers of small children.
Monster Loves You! is available now here.
If you are at PAX East be sure to stop by the Indie Megabooth and check out all of these great indie games on the Surface Pro 2.
Thanks,
Adam Dixon
Product Marketing Manager