A pre-PAX Surprise Attack was dealt from a dungeon-like basement in Melbourne today with the announcement of three new indie titles. Surprise Attack is Australia’s first Independent games publisher who, according to managing directer Chris Wright, aims to create an Indie label that does for Game Developers what those in the music industry have done for bands like Nirvana.
The first game on show was Burden by Melbourne based Pixelpickle Games. Essentially, Burden can be described as Shadow of the Colossus meets Tower Defense. The latter may be a stale old soul, but Burden takes an intuitive approach by placing your defenses on a living, moving (and might we say good looking) battlefield. These “beasts of burden” are seen as couriers for the Gods, and it’s the player’s job to protect the payload strapped to their backs from an onslaught of enemies. The pre-Alpha demo we sampled was short and sweet, with only two types of bad guys to begin with, but it’s all about strategically placing Spinners, Seekers and Source turrets to properly defend your beast as it crashes through epic landscapes. Seekers take down airborne drones that buzz around like flies, Spinners knock back climbers attempting to scale the colossal creature and Source Points generate energy for increased turret placement.
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The next in line was SeeThrough Studios new title Particulars. A game that follows a Tron-esque storyline in which the main character Alison becomes so engrossed in her physics experiments that she actually becomes a subatomic quark. The game deals with positive and negative reactions, trying to draw in opposites whilst expelling similar quarks to achieve varying goals. The result is an intense collision of style and fluid gameplay that has you constantly trying to control hectic situations. You can purchase the Alpha in different packages here.
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The final game on show was a GTA inspired tablet title known as Wolfdozer from Anomalous Interactive, in which the Big Bad Wolf has thrown huffing and puffing to the wind and done got himself a tank. The top down view and pixel art sprites call back to an earlier period – but the sensitive touch controls and endless carnage (the first message you see when you enter a level is “DESTROY EVERYTHING!”) make for a good “pick up and play” title. The more destruction you cause, the more upgrades you can add to your tank – and as the old saying goes “mo’ upgrades = mo’ carnage”.
Each game will be playable at PAX this weekend in their pre-Alpha stages.
