It was little bit lighter day for me today, dropping in a on a few booths and taking some ad hoc appointments. I also spent some time with the very exciting title Frost Punk, which we cover more later. In the meantime, here are some cool titles which I saw in the Indie Megabooth:
Signal Decay (Nela Sytsem, PC)
I stopped in to speak with PAX first timers Nela Systems from Shanghai to try Signal Decay, the cyberpunk stealth action game. Signal Decay has you, and up to two other players, infiltrating mission sites to carry out stealth operations, evading guards and security systems in a top-down view that reminds me a little of the old Genesis Shadowrun game, both in terms of tone (With both its cyberpunk setting and synth-heavy soundtrack that I really liked) and also a little bit in mechanics. Players move through randomly-generated maps, trying to evade guards by ducking around corners and behind boxes and lining up stealth kill shots. While it wasn’t expressly emphasized, the game calls for cooperation between players to evade detection and carry out missions. On top of that, in between missions you can research new gear and upgrades, increasing your skills and abilities.
I sat down with another player to go through a few levels together, and we did a pretty bad job of it, being caught numerous times and having to shoot it out with more guards than was probably intended. I don’t know as that the game is especially hard, but it does take some time to get used to, which is fine. My teammate and I, however, did not sync much as a team and I think this really did hurt our ability to succeed. To me, this is a positive sign if the game is going to present difficult hurdles which require coordinated teamwork to progress. To me, it has the makings of a great game to play with friends, so I’m excited to how the game progresses.
We grabbed a last-minute to see Tiny Metal, a title that welcomes the description of a spiritual successor to Advance Wars. We took some time to sample the game with the studio’s CEO, who showed some of the first few missions. First off, the game has no qualms with using Advance Wars as a template for its inspiration: It looks plays and feels like the game it emulates. This version boasts new 3D graphics and a few new mechanics, such as pincers attacks, new battle tactics and hero units, which are specialized versions of standard units with improved capabilities and powers. We’ll spend more time with the title as more develops, but for the time being, if you are longing for an Advance War fix, Area 35 is more than happy to give you what your after.
