(Just a disclaimer to all, this was my first Gamescom experience. Despite purchasing my tickets nearly half a year in advance, I don’t think I was prepared as I should have been. There will be some lessons learned after detailing some of the events I attended. Sadly, I could only do one day do to work. )
Hey everyone, this is Seizui, one of the managers of Harmonious Buttons and the general ‘guy in the field’ who attends some of the conferences. Living in Germany has provided me the convenience of participating in many of the conventions. The biggest one that I have been to now is Gamescom 2016. Sadly, I did not get to do all that I would have liked to have done. We will fix that for next time.
Nevertheless, I’ll cover the topics in the following order:
- The Line of Truth
- Final Fantasy XIV PVP Arena Showdown
- Indie Area Booth
The Line of Truth
For better or worse, I am used to waking up early in the morning. Even my ‘sleeping in’ time is early. In this case, I woke up at 4:30am and then made my way to Gamescom around 6am. Around 6:30, there were already around 50-60 people waiting in line to get in. Once it hit, 7:15am, we were able to move. Then 8:15am, everyone got to move.
Overall, even if you go early in the morning when the events open around 10am, expect there to be people waiting hours earlier. Oof.
Final Fantasy XIV PVP Arena Showdown
The Final Fantasy XIV event area was incredibly active. Unfortunately, their Eorzea Grill will NEVER hold a candle to the Eorzea Café in Akihabara, Japan. Oh well.
I decided to sign up for the PVP, but I ran into a snag: I needed 3 other people to sign in with. I did the one thing that I knew would work: “LFG!!!”
… Yes, I actually shouted that. I managed to get a couple and another random person to join me. We called ourselves the Zodiarks Brave, per my suggestion. Our official match was supposed to be at 12:00pm.
Despite it being my first time doing PVP, I did fairly well. I followed the strategy of my partners. The first attempt, I played a Monk because I thought I was stuck as the class. The second time, however, I played my Dragoon class and everything felt a bit more comfortable again.
… And then, the big televised footage of our match came. We played against a group who were extremely good. One of my teammates mentioned that he seen them play, so my group would have to be on our A-game.
… Unfortunately, our opponents destroyed my team. I was beaten so bad, I instinctively reached into my pocket to give them some Euro because I thought I owed them money.
Indie Arena Booth 2016
I need to cover this group to get this out of the way: This is an amazing group that hosts these wonderful small time developers so that they can present the games out to the public audience in events such as Gamescom.
I originally arrived at the area to meet with a friend of mine, creator of A Hole New World, Daniel <>. I will cover the game more in a little while. However, when I arrived at the area, I noticed a whole slew of independent games out within that wide area. To my surprise, the area was larger than what I initially saw, as well! While meeting with Daniel, I got to try out a couple of games and made note to cover them and their developers. I’ll go in order over my particular highlights.
Website: http://www.indiearenabooth.de/
Twitter: @IndieArenaBooth
Regalia: Of Men and Monarch
Regalia: Of Men and Monarch is a classless, individual-based tactical-RPG that carries light-hearted humor, city building, and bonding with unique characters in order to unlock features. Upon first view, I saw the sense of humor akin to Disgaea while you can bond with the shopkeeper and other members of the party.
Originally, these Polish developers threw a Kickstarter campaign, eventually got picked up by Klabater, an indie game publisher out at Warsaw.
I met with one of the Pixelated Milk developers, Artur, and tried out the Gamescom demo briefly. It is rather interesting to play. The cast have their own unique set of skills and you really have to think how you want to seize victory. Otherwise, you will end up like me and get curbstomped by the monsters.
Offical Website: https://www.regaliagame.com/
Twitter: @regaliagame
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnN0R8QN-xQ
ICEY
ICEY is a hack-and-slash sci-fi/fantasy mixture that is incredibly fast paced. This game was one of the many that caught my attention while at Gamescom. It’s made by Fantablade network, a group out in China. They came down to allow people to playtest their game.
When I played ICEY, I enjoyed how fast the character could move and the hack-and-slash aspects. One of the neat things is that you have to press a button upon the indicator to perform a finisher.
Offical Website: http://hj.xd.com/
Twitter: @ICEYtheGame
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_-rGlP0Vq4
Pankapu
An action-platformer where you are able to switch between different sets of weapons and abilities. This one had a Kickstarter campaign of its own, but it was also backed via the SquareEnix Collective.
I got a chance to meet and chat with the developer, . When the opportunity popped up, I picked up the controller and started the game. There were two variations of the character that I could choose: warrior and archer. What was even cooler was that there were elements that I could switch into as well. I will say, some of the platforming aspects destroyed me completely.
Website: http://tookindstudio.com/en/
Twitter: @Pankapu and @tookindstudio
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71xvXqlrDGU
Strikers Edge
This is a party game where the goal is to launch projectiles at each other. You can go up to 4 players and each team are off on their respective side, similar to pong. The goal is to take the other team out.
Daniel and I ended up giving the game a go. …. I w–was destroyed. ;_;
Website: http://funpunchgames.com/
Twitter: @funpunchgames @strikers_edge
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1NUA5Tc_jw
A Hole New World
An NES-era style platformer . The unique feature of the game is that when the player jumps into a hole, they are in the other world, which everything is upside down. This is pretty important when you navigate through the game because areas are not passible unless you got through the other world.
I got a chance to test this game out when I hung out with Daniel. The game was pretty fun when I got to try it out. While I am not sure how quickly other players will pick up on the game’s narrative and purpose, it does present a bit of interesting gameplay with the whole ‘upside down world’ vibe that is integrated into the gameplay. I defeated my first enemy and then gained the enemy’s freezing ability. Overall, the game is pretty good and worth checking out.
Website: http://madgeargames.com/ahnw/
Twitter: @MadGearGames
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fi1QkIosqA4
Klang
This a game that’s completely fused with rhythm and action-platforming. Everything that you do throughout the game relies on the rhythm of the music.
With that said, I got a chance to test the game out. Sadly, I learned that I have no rhythm. Nevertheless, I somehow managed to get through the demo. It is quite phenomenal and I definitely recommend trying it out.
Website: http://tinimations.net/
Twitter: @Tinimations
Footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_88wz6V1zWk
(Following: Ulysse Trezeres(Too Kind Studio), myself, and Daniel Pelliecer(Mad Gear Games))
My overall thoughts: The Indie Arena Booth was honestly my main highlight of Gamescom. Unfortunately, despite purchasing tickets half-a-year prior, I still felt unprepared. It taught me to look at the maps a little more and then I will know where to go from there. Nevertheless, the Indie Arena Booth is a great organization that exposed thousands of people to smaller, independent gamers who may not have been able to attend the convention otherwise.