This year’s E3 season has obviously been a little scattershot due to COVID-19 effectively canceling the annual gaming conference. In its absence, developers have had to come up with alternative ways of announcing their hot new gaming projects to the masses. While this isn’t a problem for big-name publishers like Sony or EA, smaller indie game companies have had a harder time getting the word out about their upcoming titles.
Thankfully, Double Fine’s annual Day Of The Devs showcase is here to help independent developers reveal their games to audiences that may not have heard about them otherwise. It was a bit of a bizarre livestream, especially since it was proceeded by announcements for both Crash Bandicoot 4 and Smite, two decidedly not indie games. There was also an interview with ALF….Yes, that ALF.
Once it was past its initial weird beginning - that took over 40 mind-numbing minutes to finish - the show transitioned into the actual Day Of The Devs portion of the stream. There were plenty of unique and charming titles shown off by Tim Schafer and company, so here’s a recap of all the games we got to see.
Gameheads Showcase
The show started with some titles from Gameheads, an organization that teaches game design to low-income students. They showed off the following projects from their classes:
Serpent Showdown
This game involves snakes fighting each other with swords. There really isn’t much more to say about it, but if you think snakes wearing armor and dueling sounds fun then here you go.
Tri-Ger
A vertical shmup in the same vein as Ikaruga that seemed to borrow the visual style of Geometry Wars. It looks a little simplistic, but could easily be a solid time-waster like most good shmups tend to be.
The Groundz
There’s always room for more dodgeball games, but this one looks a little rough. The animations seem off and the characters appeared to be lagging through the video. It is a student project, so it’s possible that it just requires a lot more polish and guidance, and this was simply early alpha footage.
The Artful Escape
Coming from Beethoven and Dinosaur, this game is all about helping a teenage rock star discover his onstage persona while setting out on a wild, cosmic musical adventure. It looks like someone took the art style of Oxenfree or Afterparty and made a platformer/rhythm game out of it.
Starbase
If you like space and games where you and your friends shout at each other while frantically trying to build things, then you should look into Starbase. You build a spaceship, battle other players, and can even discover planets together. It looks like the kind of thing streamers will be all over.
Foregone
It was surprising when the developer mentioned Dead Cells during this presentation since Foregone looks like a dead ringer for that game. Everything from the genre to the art style resembles Motion Twin’s hit roguelike, but that doesn’t necessarily mean this won’t be good. The animation is pretty solid, the combat looks fun, and it could easily be a title that stands on its own when it comes out in October.
But seriously, it looks a lot like Dead Cells.
Spinch
Hey, do you like drugs? Then here’s a game for you! Spinch is what would probably happen if you dropped acid and then decided to play Super Meat Boy. It’s the perfect title for those who love platformers and extreme psychedelia. It’s out on September 3rd.
Ynglet
Coming from the creators of Knytt Underground and Uurnog, here’s another game with a hard to comprehend title. You play as a weird jellyfish thing that bounces between bubbles and platforms while the soundtrack adapts to your movements. Could be neat.
Skate Story
In a year where we’re due to get remakes of Tony Hawk Pro Skater 1 & 2 and EA has finally announced a new Skate game, now we also have Skate Story. Although this one seems less like a pure skateboarding game and more of an adventure where your glass skateboard man tries to make it to the underworld under New York City. So it’s a bit more high concept than Tony Hawk, but it looks like you can still do ollies.
Black Book
This cross between an adventure game and a deck building RPG is about a young witch who travels throughout Eastern Europe during the 19th Century. It features gorgeous art and references to Slavic folklore. It looks like it’ll be simultaneously spooky and beautiful.
Drake Hollow
The makers of The Flame And The Flood introduced their newest game, which looks like a more adorable version of a survival game. There was plenty of footage of hitting things with axes in order to gather resources. If all goes well, it could very likely be another hit with streamers and content creators.
Panzer Paladin
In terms of games that try to echo 8-bit or 16-bit games of the past, Panzer Paladin does a pretty incredible job. It has a pretty strong chance of being the next big indie hit and should be a blast on the Switch.
Haunted Garage
This minimalistic, black and white adventure/rhythm game is….weird. There’s a machine that creates a small game window where a 1-pixel tall man tries to get on a train, and then a cassette player magically appears and…..Yeah. It should be interesting, but right now it’s just rather bizarre.
The Eternal Cylinder
Continuing the run of weird games is the latest project from the developer of Rock Of Ages and Zeno Clash. This seems to be an exploration game about strange Qbert-esque aliens who are constantly running from a massive cylinder that’s crushing everything in its path.
Sky
thatgamecompany showed off some new content for their game Sky, and if you play video games in order to relax, then you should already be all over this one.
The Night Is Grey
This horror adventure game involves a man who comes across a lost little girl while being chased by wolves in the woods. Much like a lot of the games in this showcase, it features great art and animation and looks both creepy and mysterious.
Knuckle Sandwich
Knuckle Sandwich is a turn-based RPG that gives off serious Earthbound/Undertale vibes. The combat system involves performing mini-games to perform special attacks. It’s quite possibly the most impressive looking game of the entire livestream.
Sea Of Stars
Finally, there’s the latest effort from The Messenger developer Sabotage, and it looks like a love letter to classic JRPGs of the SNES era. Clearly inspired by Chrono Trigger, it’s a prequel to The Messenger and looks fantastic. Too bad we won’t get to play it until 2022.
More To Come
Those were all the interesting indie games to come out of the Day Of The Devs livestream, but apparently Double Fine will have even more to show in a second stream that’ll occur on July 20th. We look forward to seeing what else they have in store.
