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All Articles: PAX East 2014
Over 100 games will be included in the Indie Megabooth at PAX East 2014
Over the years, the Indie Megabooth has become one of the busiest spots at PAX East and PAX Prime and the 2014 East show is no exception. Organizers behind the Indie Megabooth have announced that 76 games will be permanently installed in the booth with another 28 titles rotating in-and-out of a special “Minibooth” within the Indie Megabooth over the course of the convention’s three days. For the first time, tabletop games will get a chance to shine in the Indie Megabooth. Sponsored by Cards Against Humanity, this selection of tabletop games includes bluffing game These French Fries Are Terrible Hot Dogs, party game Funemployed, and six others.
Other highlights in this year’s Megabooth include Duet, a hypnotic mobile puzzler; Delver’s Drop, everyone’s favorite indie answer to the Zelda franchise; Hyper Light Drifter, everyone’s other favorite indie answer to the Zelda franchise; Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Answer, a sequel to the ultraviolent overhead shooter; and Secret Ponchos, an arena shooter that was one of our favorite games from PAX East 2013. Of course, with 104 total titles, this list of highlights is just scratching the surface of what’s available within the Indie Megabooth.
A complete list of titles that will be playable within the Indie Megabooth at PAX East 2014 can be found after the break. And more information about all of them is available at the organization’s official website. (more…)
Microsoft @ PAX East 2014: Project Spark, TitanFall, Super Time Force, more
Microsoft plans to have a huge presence at this year’s PAX East convention, but temper your expectations, as most of the games they’re bringing to the show are already available to all.
The centerpiece of the Xbox booth will be this Spring’s biggest game, TitanFall. It will be joined by cartoony shooter Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare (originally released in February), game creator Project Spark (which is currently available in open beta), and a quartet of launch games (Forza Motorsport 5, Dead Rising 3, Ryse: Son of Rome, and Killer Instinct). Early April releases Kinect Sports Rivals and Strike Suit Zero: Director’s Cut will also be playable at the Microsoft booth.
As of right now, the only unreleased game Microsoft plans to show in its PAX East booth is Super Time Force. This leads me to guess that Super Time Force is probably going to be added to the Xbox Live Store pretty soon. Just a hunch.
More details on Microsoft’s PAX East 2014 plans for all of these titles are available after the break. You can also read all about the panels the consolemaker will be hosting, including a Project Spark panel, a TitanFall panel, and a live recording of Major Nelson’s podcast. (more…)
Tetropolis is a literal puzzle platformer that will be playable at PAX East 2014
A few weeks ago, I mused on the characters that inhabit our favorite puzzle games, including the belief of many Tetris players that the piece randomizer secretly has feelings. Apparently, the developers at NextGen Pants operate on the same wavelength as they’ve revealed Tetropolis, a literal “puzzle” platformer that stars a sentient Tetris piece rebelling against the piece randomizer:
Tetropolis is a nonlinear puzzle platformer set in a world obsessed with falling block puzzles. In the city of Tetropolis, thousands of game pieces are manufactured every minute in order to meet the demands of “the game.” You play as a squareshaped tetromino that has failed the quality check and has been discarded for not being perfect. Unlike other discarded pieces, you obtain the ability to change into different shapes, each one possessing its own unique ability that you can use to traverse the world.
In addition to Tetris (even the rooms themselves can be realigned like Tetris pieces), Tetropolis has taken plenty of inspiration from the “Metroidvania” genre of side-scrolling exploration games. Using your ability to change into different Tetris pieces, your Tetris piece will battle enemies, solve puzzles, obtain new abilities, and advance through the world.
Tetropolis sounds like my dream come true and it’ll be playable at the Indie Minibooth during this year’s PAX East expo on Sunday, April 13.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged PAX East 2014, Refactor
Ubisoft bringing Watch Dogs, The Crew, Child of Light, Trials Fusion, more to PAX East 2014
Several big name publishers won’t be in attendance at this year’s PAX East convention, but you definitely shouldn’t count Ubisoft among their number. The French publishing powerhouse will have a massive booth featuring eight different games at this year’s show:
- Watch Dogs – Con-goers will be able to view a before-seen demo of the game as well as participate in an “eye-opening Watch Dogs experience that lets fans see themselves through the lens of a hacker and get a look at how they could potentially be targeted.”
- The Crew – Ubisoft’s upcoming driving game will be playable on the show floor as “players will be able to the own the road in a massive, open-world re-creation of the United States that is brimming with exciting challenges.”
- Trials Fusion – Scheduled for release on April 16, attendees will get their first chance to play the first next-generation game in the Trials series. In addition to the hands-on demo, professional BMX riders will perform stunts in Ubisoft’s in-booth skate park.
- Child of Light – Players will be able to take control of the game’s main character, Aurora, in a new hands-on demo: “Players will use an active turn-based fight system to uncover mythical dragons and other enchanting creatures, as well as explore the gorgeous watercolor-painted 2D environments in a poetic journey inspired by fairy tales.”
Ubisoft also plans to showcase a playable demo for an unannounced downloadable title as well as a trio of free-to-play titles: online shooter Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Phantoms, hack and slash The Mighty Quest for Epic Loot, and collectible card game Might & Magic: Duel of Champions.
PAX East 2014 is less than three weeks away and it’ll be held in Boston, Massachusetts from April 11-13.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Child of Light, PAX East 2014, The Crew, Trials Fusion, Watch Dogs
Blizzard @ PAX East 2014: Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III PS4, Hearthstone, WoW: Draenor
Blizzard will have plenty to showcase at this year’s PAX East expo, including playable demos of the PS4 port of Diablo III, Heroes of the Storm, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, and World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.
Players who get a chance to visit booth #848 will be able to play as The Crusader in Diablo III’s “Ultimate Evil Edition” with a DualShock 4 controller for the first time. If they slide over to the WoW: Warlords of Draenor demo, they will experience “updated character models” and the expansion’s “intro experience.” A brand-new demo of Heroes of the Storm will also be on hand, with never-before-seen heroes to try out. And finally, the iPad edition of Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft will be playable at Blizzard’s booth.
As always, PAX East will be held at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center. This year’s expo will begin on Friday, April 11 and run through Sunday, April 13.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS4
Tagged Diablo III, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Heroes of the Storm, PAX East 2014, World of Warcraft
Secret Ponchos will sneak into PAX East 2014 in playable form
The developers at Switchblade Monkeys certainly had a busy 2013. In March, they debuted their first game, Secret Ponchos, at PAX East 2013. After a huge reaction from the crowd of con-goers, the team signed up with Sony and agreed to showcase the game at E3 2013 as a PS4-exclusive. And with its April release date looming, the developer has just revealed that first we’ll all get a chance to try it out again at PAX East 2014:
We've been working like mad, getting the game rebuilt in PhyreEngine for PS4! Get your hands on the new SP debut PAX East! Its been worth it
— Switchblade Monkeys (@SwitchbladeMkys) March 14, 2014
PAX East 2014 will be held in Boston beginning on April 11. If you plan to attend, I hope you’ve got your tickets. The popular Spring event is already sold out.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged PAX East 2014, Secret Ponchos
Tumblestone will bring back the multiplayer puzzle game this Fall
The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, besides having one of the coolest company names in the business, released The Bridge to almost universal acclaim last year on the PC and Xbox Live Arcade. Now they’re back with their next game: Tumblestone.
Tumblestone is a multiplayer match-3 puzzler that looks like a mashup of Bust-A-Move‘s cannon and Puzzle Fighter‘s block-filled stack. Like any good multiplayer puzzler, matching three squares of the same color will dump them on the player to your right and the last one standing wins. In addition to the main multiplayer mode, Tumblestone will also include a cooperative multiplayer mode, several single-player modes, and multiple cannon operators on the character select screen (presumably, each will have their own skillset when it comes to manning the cannon).
Tumblestone is currently scheduled to be released this Fall for PC platforms (PC/Mac/Linux) via Steam. The game will also be released for tablets and the Xbox Live Arcade (Xbox 360) at a later date. If you want to give Tumblestone a playthrough before its released, Ty Taylor of The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild will appear at this weekend’s SXSW festival and April’s PAX East expo to demonstrate the game’s multiplayer mode.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, Xbox 360
Tagged PAX East 2014, Tumblestone
PAX East 2014 Indie Showcase selections announced
It’s almost time for one of our favorite events of the year: PAX East! They’ve announced their selections for the Indie Showcase, which has six “of the best indie games you’ve never heard of available on mobile platforms.”
The games are Crowman & Wolfboy (which has “an unlikely pair of shadow creatures on a bizarre journey to escape their own nature and find the mysterious ‘humans'”), Duet (no, not Cypher Prime’s Duet – “a hypnotic new ‘hex-like’ mobile action arcade game with a mesmerizingly beautiful soundtrack by Melbourne composer and Gotye multi-instrumentalist Tim Shiel”), Framed (“an award winning narrative-puzzle game that plays like an animated comic book”), The Spookening (“a 3D scare ‘em up game à la Tim Burton, where you die every night and spawn as a ghost trying to resurrect”), Tiny Dice Dungeon (a game that “brings RPGs back to their roots… no more mysterious battle stats, instead you directly control what happens by rolling the virtual dice”), and Wayward Souls (“an action-adventure dungeon crawler with randomized levels and permanent death”).
For a full description of the games, head to the PAX East Indie Showcase page.
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged PAX East 2014