Indie Megabooth Game Highlights From PAX East 2017!

Welcome to Indie Spotlight! We at Nerd Caliber were once again among the masses of PAX East earlier this month. As in the past, I took a special interest in the Indie MegaBooth, where dozens of self-motivated game developers shared their works of passion with the world. Here you’ll find a list of everything I found the time to check out with some description and/or first impressions.

As an added bonus, I’ve marked my personal Top 10 games of interest! (Noted with an * and a screenshot.)

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Night in the Woods Infinite Fall
This is a 2D story-focused adventure game in a world of humanoid animals. It focuses on a college dropout that returns home to find everything she knew is changing mysteriously…

Super Cloudbuilt* Double Eleven
Coming from Sweden, this is an action parkour game, involving wall runs, jetpacks and rapid gunplay! It felt like what Mirror’s Edge would have been in the Borderlands engine.

Redout 34BigThings
A spiritual successor to F-Zero and WipeOut, here’s the latest hyper speed racing game out there!

Death Squared* SMG Studio
If you’re looking for a new multiplayer puzzle game that’ll lead to a lot of finger pointing, this is the game for you! Control different colored robot cubes and work together to solve one level after another.

Northgard* Shiro Games
This strategy game puts you in charge of a Viking village aiming to expand, advance and prepare for harsh winters. Imagine Civilization or Warcraft, only based on Norse mythology.

A Normal Lost Phone Accidental Queens
You have found someone’s phone, and it’s up to you to unearth the owner’s story by hacking and deducting your way into all of its secrets.

Open Sorcery Abigail Corfman
Technology and magic, confined into a world of computer code. Freedom to grow and destroy as you please, and many possible endings to unveil!

Badass Hero Awesome Gmes Studio
A new-age Metal Slug with rogue-like elements that sends you fighting through the pages of a comic book!

Bleed 2 Ian Campbell
Crazy side scrolling arcade action with dodging, reflecting and epic boss fights!

Emily is Away Too Kyle Seeley
Instant messaging as a game! This is a spiritual sequel that has you develop a story with your friends during your senior year.

Semblance Nyamakop
A puzzle platformer where everything is malleable! You can use your character to strike, dent and mold the environment to make your way around.

Tooth and Tail Pocketwatch Games
This is a real-time strategy game with rodents of the wilderness (mice, skunks, etc.) serving as military leaders. Play against AI or others and keep your base alive!

Hand of Fate 2* Defiant Development
Building upon its predecessor, Hand of Fate 2 combines beat-em-up arena combat, dark fantasy storytelling and RPG decision-making into a deck of cards. Prove the dealer wrong and survive!

Decay of Logos Amplify Creations
Inspired by Legend of Zelda and Dark Souls, this is a story-driven RPG adventure that takes you on a journey with an elk companion.

Thumper* Drool

One of the newest additions to the music-driven scene. Control a beetle-shaped pod as you react to turns, obstacles and projectiles along a speeding track — all to the beat!

Away* Aurelien Regard
Here’s a first-person, rogue-like RPG that plays like a ’90s anime cartoon!

Refactor NextGen Pants
This is a physics-based platformer where the entire world is a puzzle. You can rearrange your environment at will to prove you are a puzzle piece worthy of inclusion.

Dead Cells Motion Twin
A rogue-like action platformer inspired by Castlevania, aiming to give you a hardcore challenge. Remember the skills you learn, but lose everything else upon death…

Mothergunship Grip Digital & Terrible Posture Games
With a LEGO-easy gun crafting system, this first-person shooter is a bullet hell experience like no other.

Elsinore Golden Glitch Studios
This is a time-looping representation of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, where your goal is to keep all of the characters from killing each other over four days. Good luck!

Wulverblade* Darkwind Media & Fully Illustrated
A modern successor to Streets of Rage and Golden Axe, set in ancient Britannia. Grab some friends and unleash your tribal fury!

Super Rude Bear Resurrection Alex Rose
Enjoy the fast-paced platformer frenzy of Super Meat Boy with a teddy bear! Your nemesis follows you around with constant words of discouragement.

Asura Ogre Head Studio
A hack and slash rogue-like based on Indian mythos. Progress through a procedural skill tree and fight to victory!

Graceful Explosion Machine Vertex Pop
Here’s your modern day reincarnation of the classic arcade Defender — with four weapons loaded at all times!

Ultimate Chicken Horse Clever Endeavour Games
Players fight for points over several rounds of platformer racing. Before each round, everyone gets to install traps to the stage!

The Metronomicon Puuba
Dance Dance Revolution and Dungeons & Dragons had a lovechild and it is fabulous. Tap arrows to the beat to attack, rally and cast spells!

For the King Ironoak Games
Embark on a solo or cooperative adventure on a procedurally generated hex-grid world. Rogue-like RPG elements and high levels of strategy will be needed among the team!

Masquerada Witching Hour Studios
A story-driven tactical fantasy game that plays like a murder mystery/political thriller. The project is fully voiced, including big names like Matt Mercer and Felicia Day!

GNOG KO_OP
This is a really cool 3D puzzle game that gives you no direction. You enter a scenario and must click, explore and read the environment’s responses to solve it!

Galaxy of Pen and Paper Behold Studios
Experience a sci-fi tabletop RPG where you are both dungeon master AND player! It’s up to you to create your narrative and then survive it.

Iconoclasts* Joakim Sandberg
A new Metroidvania adventure with a steampunk / cyborg flair. Plenty of battles and puzzles to ensue!

Frostrune Grimnir AS
This is a new point-and-click adventure set in an abandoned Norse village. The dev team has an actual historian on payroll — everything in the game is accurate!

Project Highrise Somasim
Good ol’ Sim City for skyscrapers! Construct your building, set up offices and keep your workers happy.

West of Loathing Asymmetric
A wild west RPG adventure in a stick-figure universe!

Crossing Souls* Fourattic
An ’80s adventure akin to Goonies, where your cast of kids can see ghosts! Somehow it’s up to them to save the world…

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Lastly, this year’s MegaBooth offered the greatest assortment of VR titles yet! They have been grouped here for convenience.

Blasters of the Universe Secret Location
Enjoy a Tron-like bullet hell experience for VR!

I Expect You to Die* Schell Games
“Escape the Room” has collided with a secret agent lifestyle! Check this out for challenging first-person puzzles.

Kismet Psyop
Experience full tarot/astrology readings (using real-world factors) in the comfort of your own home!

The American Dream Samurai Punk
Handle your everyday tasks, like raising a baby or making doughnuts, with the use of handguns.

Obduction Cyan Inc.
This is the modern-day Myst experience — from the same creators no less!

Mare Visiontrick Media
An exploration alongside a lost girl and a mechanical bird.