Everything Action at PAX East 2025
PAX East pulled into the Boston station this May, delivering four jam-packed days of gaming excitement and geeky fun. Zach and Chris dove headfirst into the action, tackling a whirlwind of events, eye-catching sights, and nonstop entertainment. From exploring the bustling show floor and dropping into panels to hanging out in the game rooms, we captured every moment with plenty of snapshots. Join us as we recount our epic journey with bite-sized reviews, fun encounters, and all the unforgettable highlights we experienced in our PAX recap.
Pre-Show Pics:
We arrived on Wednesday before PAX East started to pick up our badges, and we got to see some of the setup process. Everyone from vendors to volunteers was trying to get everything in place and set up before the show started on Thursday morning. It’s weird to be in the convention center when it’s so empty and quiet when you know the awesome chaos that is coming in the next few days.
Expo Hall
The main Expo Hall was a mix of massive booths for big games and companies like Larian Studios, Devolver Digital, and Wizards of the Coast, along with smaller indie developers, companies like Alienware, Samsung, and Lenovo, vendors, and artists selling their products. There was a fairly even split between the video gaming and tabletop gaming sections this time, and areas like PAX Rising are always great to check out to see what games PAX selected as the most interesting and unique games to highlight.
Seismic Squirrel – Aether & Iron
Before PAX East started, Zach met with Seismic Squirrel president Jay Zylstra on Wednesday to discuss their upcoming game, Aether & Iron. Set in an alternate 1930s, you play as a smuggler named Gia who is trying to navigate the underworld of New York City. You slowly assemble a crew and explore the various areas of the city via a mix of RPG storytelling inspired by games like Disco Elysium, where you engage with characters via fully voiced over dialogue and build up skills like Hustle, Smarts and Brass with vehicular combat that feels a bit like the board game Thunder Road. Combat is based on lanes and positioning, with certain moves and attacks requiring you to be in a specific spot in relation to your enemy. You need to be mindful of hazards like civilian cars and splits in the road. The game was highly researched, with the “aether” that powers the anti-gravity of the retrofuture world being inspired by actual research that scientists like Einstein were doing before it eventually got debunked. The political and social events of the 1930s also inspired it. The story and setting is also inspired by classic noir movies like The Big Sleep along with films like Star Wars, The Guns of Navaronne and The Dirty Dozen, as one of the significant aspects of the game is building a crew of colorful characters, which gives you multiple vehicles to use in combat and alternate choices and options in the RPG sections. Aether & Iron is out sometime later this year.
Devolver Digital
Devolver Digital is always up to something interesting in their massive booth full of games and merch. We also enjoy walking around each side of the booth to discover what new titles and displays they’ll have, always making people look around for a short wait time to game or a fun moment when the crowds arrive.
Botsu: Zach and Chris jumped into a match of Botsu at the Devolver Digital booth. Developed by Peculiar Pixels, this physics-based robotic sports game is where players compete online or via split-screen in a series of events. The one we played at PAX was Sumo Survival, where the players battle in an arena above a pool of lava, trying to throw each other off the map and be the last one standing. The game’s ragdoll physics make the game hilariously difficult to control, feeling like something like QWOP, but it seems like once you get a handle on it, you could pull off some insane maneuvers. The game has ridiculous chaos as everyone tries to lunge, punch, and jump kick each other off the stage. There is also a basketball-style game called Box-Ball and Stockpile, where each team tries to steal items from the opposing team. There’s a demo of Botsu on Steam to check out right now, and it’s out in Q3 of this year.
Akupara Game
Airframe Ultra: Developed by Videocult and Akupara Games (who previously brought us Rain World), Airframe Ultra is an homage to the Dreamcast/PS1 era of gaming and combines on-foot and vehicular combat. Set in the brutal future of Megacity West, you choose a racer and then race through the streets on hoverbikes before battling on foot to prove who is the best in the city. Both modes feature weapons, and you can earn points to buy new weapons when you respawn or at the start of the next segment. When you are on the hoverbikes, you are racing through checkpoints to get to a particular area, and then, once everyone arrives, the bikers get off their bikes and have a deathmatch. The game has a cool, grungy, retro look, and it gets to some crazy speeds when you are going full throttle on your hoverbike. The levels are procedurally generated, so no two rounds will feel the same. It features online and local multiplayer. There’s a demo available to check out on Steam, and it’s coming soon.
Gigasword: Gigasword comes from Studio Hybrid and puts a cool puzzle twist on the 2D pixel art platformer. You play as Ezra, the latest warrior attempting to reach the top of the ancient tower Nestrium and slay the Nocturne within it. If the Nocturne can be defeated and the God Crystal Gnosis recovered, the world can be restored from the chaos and strife that plagues it. The titular Gigasword is Ezra’s primary weapon and is used to solve various puzzles. At multiple points, Ezra will need to embed the Gigasword in the ground and use it to open doors or figure out how to manipulate platforms and elevators to get the Gigasword to a new area, as there are certain places you cannot reach while wielding the sword. Once you drop the sword, you can jump higher and climb via triangle jumps. The mechanics of the Gigasword and figuring out the puzzles are a great way to mix up the 2d action platforming genre, and some of the puzzles will make you think and figure out where you need to put the sword and where you need to go to get to the next area. There’s a demo available to check out the game on Steam, and it is coming soon.
Starforge
Hell Clock: Hell Clock comes from developer Rogue Snail and publisher Mad Mushroom and is looking to take the experience of a big ARPG like Diablo or Path of Exile and put it into smaller, 20-minute or so runs. Inspired by the real-world War of Canudos in Brazil, you play as Pajeú, a warrior battling the demonic dark forces invading his land to rescue The Counselor, his mentor and spiritual leader. The game is an ARPG roguelike where you engage in runs into the depths of the undead, unlocking new skills and blessings during the run. When you die, you lose most of what you acquired, but you can earn currency to buy permanent upgrades at the game’s central hub. Pajeú’s primary weapon is firearms, but you can unlock flashy attacks, devastating dash attacks, or a whirling attack that hits a massive area of effect. There are plenty of enemy hordes to take on and challenging boss encounters to keep things interesting. The game will have three acts when it launches and features various difficulties, including a Relaxed Mode, which takes away the game’s time limit mechanics, and a Hardcore mode that gives players a bigger challenge in their playthrough. You can check out the Steam demo; the game is coming out in June.
Conquest Dark: Coming from Eldritch Sword Games and published by Mad Mushroom, Conquest Dark puts a Conan the Barbarianesque spin on the Survivor-like genre. Set in a dark fantasy universe, you play as a warrior traveling the land, performing Dark Rituals to gain power and looking to become a legend in the dying world. You can choose from various challenges on the game’s map, with different objectives ranging from destroying specific targets to trying to survive for a certain amount of time. As you play through the challenge, you’ll gain experience and unlock tons of skills and attacks that will slowly turn you into an overpowered killing machine, but the hordes of undead will get bigger and more dangerous. Many Vampire Survivor-inspired games go for a higher fantasy or horror feel, so getting something like Conan and other barbarian fantasy properties is cool. The game came out in April in Early Access, and you can check it out on Steam.
Buffalo Buffalo – Fresh Tracks
Even though winter is over, we couldn’t help but get some game time in the snow. Buffalo Buffalo invites players to experience a stunning wintery landscape with popping beats in Fresh Tracks, a on-rails first-person rhythm title. What started as a game about recreating an outdoor natural trail, Fresh Tracks is about finding the rhythm with nature and the supernatural, inspired by Scandinavian folklore. You play as a Skaii, on a quest to unite the elemental gods to defeat Mar, the Queen of Terror. You’ll seamlessly move and combat over obstacles and foes, timing your actions to a dynamic soundtrack. We spoke with Patrick Owens, Buffalo Buffalo’s Experience Director, and he mentioned how the music and sound effects were focused on heavily to create a considerable auditory adventure—the studio creating over 1000 combined sound effects based on the equipment and elemental god that you carry. There are 28 recorded songs to listen to in the game, each showcasing a different style of music genre and detailing the player’s journey. There are some angelic EDM beats, heavy metal rock, and soft alternative tunes that will keep the players exploring different routes and different equipment combinations. From the two levels we played, we saw how the rhythm-based combat is simple to learn, but the levels are designed to test your reactions. If you loved how the Tetris Effect utilized music to put you in a trance while focusing on the gameplay, Fresh Tracks achieves a similar result. Fresh Tracks looks like an excellent fit for any rhythm gamer or that cozy gamer who wants a relaxing time grooving and battling. We played the beta build at Pax, with no release date set yet, but the game will be coming out to PC, Xbox X|S, and PS5.
One More Game – Swapmeat
If you were walking around the middle of the Expo Hall, you might have heard the loud chants of “MEAT, MEAT, MEAT!”. If you didn’t follow the noise, you’ve missed the meatious shooting game we got to play. Swapmeat is a 3rd person, roguelite shooter with players collecting and exchanging body parts to shape an unstoppable, alien-splattering soldier. You are dropped into a strange and aggressive alien world, where everything wants to kill you. Your only chance for survival is to defeat enemies and upgrade your body parts to become stronger and deadlier to take on increasingly difficult foes. Different alien parts give various abilities, so mixing and matching is key to finding what combination works for the current situation. The game is pretty chaotic, so you’ll be scrambling to find limbs after taking damage, doing the best with what you can build to fend off enemies. In one part of our playthrough, we exchanged our legs for insect-like appendages for speed, robotic jet parts for a torso, and a cooked turkey for a head. But all those body parts got quickly swapped out for others as we took damage and had to find something to place on ourselves to survive longer. We spoke with Jamie Stormbreaker, founder and COO of One More Games, who told us that their other title, Spellcraft, started this idea of “meat mixing”. Inspired by the gross humor of Rick and Morty, Swapmeat was a prototype project in 2023 that built up to a sandbox of creative ideas and broken bugs. Many unintentional glitches that broke gameplay were smoothed out to create interesting features and designs that let players experiment with new play styles. Swapmeat has a planned release later this year, but you can sign up for the occasional closed betas known as “Meat Labs” from their Discord or on Steam.
Ritual Studios – Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson
Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is a turn-based, action RPG from Ritual Studios and Playdigious Originals. Fretless takes place in a world based around music, where you play as Rob, a lowly musician trying to journey to the legendary Battle of the Bands competition. He soon learns that the evil record executive Riff Rifferson is using the Battle of the Bands for his nefarious schemes and Rob has to gather a team of other musicians and fight to free the world from corporate oppression. If you played Super Mario RPG, you’ll be right at home in Fretless, as it shares the rhythm-based timing for attacks and defense that Super Mario RPG used. If you can time things properly, you can increase your attack power or have a stronger block. You play moves, called Riffs, onto the timeline and then unleash them in the order you play them. Some work better after certain other moves, so it’s essential to see what each move does and figure out the best place to use it. You unlock accessories for your guitar and other instruments, which can add new effects and skills, and you build up a deck of Riffs that you can swap out to create your deck that suits your play style. You also build up a meter to unleash a massive Crescendo attack that can cause large amounts of damage to enemies. The game has a great, charming retro art style, and, as you might expect, the music is top-notch. It features a wide range of styles, from acoustic to punk. Fretless: The Wrath of Riffson is out now, and a demo of Fretless you can check out on Steam.
My Next Game – HANK: Drowning on Dry Land
Developed and published by My Next Games, Hank: Drowning on Dry Land is a time-bending superhero game where you play as an alcoholic vigilante who has the power to go back in time. We got a hands-on preview of the title with the game’s creator, Jakub Lisińki, who was inspired to make this game from his love of comic books and Back to the future. For a cool, dark art style, Lisińki took visual cues from shows like Batman Beyond to create a hyper-cell-shaded look to his game. Lisińki liked the idea of looping back in time to fix or create consequential effects, like in the scene from Back to the Future 2, where Marty has to help his past selves to survive the big prom scene. Hank’s time-manipulating powers allow him to travel to any point forward or backward, so you can skip past certain events or rewind to fix a mistake. Hank can also find portals that let him Time Jump, which will put Hank back in time but leave his past self performing the actions you performed before jumping. This is used to solve environmental puzzles, and it feels a bit like the Clank stages of Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack in Time, where you made several copies of yourself to perform multiple actions simultaneously. His other selves can’t see Hank, so there’s also a bit of a stealth element to the game. The game has an interesting story with some excellent writing and voice acting, and it’s coming soon. You can check out the demo on Steam.
Brother Ming Games – Re;Match
Re;Match originally debuted in 2020 at PAX South as Sento, but Covid and some other issues caused the game to be delayed indefinitely. Most of that has been worked out, and Sento is now Re;Match, a tabletop take on a fighting game. Each player chooses a character, each of whom has different moves and gimmicks. One of the characters, for example, is a trickster and gets special playing card tokens that you can lay out on your character’s board. If certain events occur, you flip over a card, which may positively or negatively affect you or your opponent. The main gameplay consists of matching colored marbles and using them to perform attacks. Once you use the selected marbles for your move, you deposit them at the top of the game’s dispenser, and more marbles drop down, adding an element of randomness to things. Each player has a Red, Yellow, and Blue button, and your goal is to destroy each of your opponents’ buttons. Each button that gets destroyed eliminates the moves associated with that color, but it also makes that color marble wild for that player, so you can use them to chain the other colors across a great distance. You can also use coins to repair your buttons, but you are defeated once you are out of coins and out of buttons. The components and art all look top-notch, and it seems like it has a great variety and some cool push/pull mechanics. Re;Match is launching soon on Kickstarter.
Limited Run Games
Limited Run Games is a publishing company doing great things for game preservation in the modern era of digital downloads. When gaming titles get lost between licensing rights and digital stores, LRG gives them a second chance at a physical release. That means gamers can own and play stuff that might’ve been lost to time. Often, their premium releases come with rad extras, so it feels like getting a piece of gaming history. We snapped a few pics of some of the re-releases they issued.
Shantae Risky Revolution:
After 20 years in the making, Shantae’s initial sequel gets a proper release. A title that started development in 2002, Risky Revolution was developer WayForward’s next release after the original Shantae, released on the Game Boy Color. This follow-up would be on the Game Boy Advance, but it was shelved in favor of other projects due to slow sales. However, the demand for more Shantae games has never been stronger, and the game finally got a physical GBA release in April of 2025. We captured a quick pic of Shantae creator Matt Bozon and the original Shantae voice actress, Meagan Glaser, meeting fans and signing autographs. The line wrapped around the booth, with fans waiting to get their Shantae items signed.
Gex Trilogy:
The wisecracking gecko known as Gex is back, as Limited Run Games is publishing a retro collection of the Gex Trilogy (Gex, Gex: Enter the Gecko, and Gex: Deep Cover Gecko). The games run on LRG’s Carbon Engine and enjoy quality of life improvements like rewind, widescreen support, and updated controls. There’s also plenty of extra content to explore for each game. The actual games are mostly the same as in the 90s, with the first Gex being a 2D platformer and the second and third being 3D, Super Mario 64-inspired platformers. All of the one-liners from comedian Dana Gould, who voices Gex, are here, along with all the references and parodies of pop culture. As with every Limited Run release, there’s a massive physical collector’s edition that includes tons of extras, including an inflatable Gex, a Gex statue, the whole soundtrack, and more.
Interview with Seth Fulkerson and Audi Sorlie
We interviewed Seth “Dopply” Fulkerson and Audi Sorlie, the developers and producers of Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, an adventure title inspired by The Legend of Zelda CD-i games. Fulerson mentioned how the CD-i promised a new revolution in gaming and that he wanted to pick up where they started, hoping people could see the fun and style of what was created. Once Arzette was pitched, it wasn’t hard for the artists and animators to recreate the look of those Zelda games; many artists were waiting for the chance to bring fun designs to the table and see them come alive. Arzette was a daring passion project that rewarded them with a spot on the Limited Run Games development team, and they have helped with LRG’s Carbon Engine development. The Carbon Engine has become a powerful tool for converting dormant projects and titles. Older games developed before the times of Unity and Unreal can be cumbersome to modernize, and the Carbon Engine has been a great interpreter in emulating the look and feel of classic gaming on modern hardware. For the Gex Trilogy, it allowed them to do things like add analog control when the original games used digital and make them widescreen. We also had to ask if they were to make a Gex 4, what would they like to do, and their answer was to bring it back to the 2D style of the first game and update the jokes to go meta with commentary about the last few decades of gaming, along with pop culture. With countless cult classics in the Saturn, N64, and PS1 era, waiting to be rediscovered, the sky’s the limit on what games LRG would release next.
Bitmask Games – NESmaker
Regarding retro games and physical releases, we stopped by the Bitmask Games/The New 8-bit Heroes booth to learn more about the NESmaker. NESmaker is a PC software tool that enables users to create brand-new, cartridge-based games for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) that can run on actual hardware. Designed with a modern development environment, NESmaker allows even those with no programming experience to start building their dream NES games. We got to talk to Joe Granato, owner and teacher at Bitmask Games, who gave us a detailed history of the software and the many successful projects created by indie devs. We have seen the NESMaker and the games people have made over the years, and finally decided it’s time to start our NES development journey. Chris purchased the last bundle of the day, and who knows what game we can think to create? Maybe we’ll have something to show one day at an event like PAX?
Funcom – Dune Awakening
Dune Awakening brought Arakkis to Boston with a massive booth featuring a giant sandworm and cosplayers dressed in desert survival gear. Big crowds formed around this booth as attendees could queue up to check out the upcoming game and test their luck in multiple raffle drawings each day. Winners could get an early game key and Dune prop replicas. We tried our luck but weren’t the Muad’dib of PAX East and left empty-handed. Guess we didn’t drink enough of the Water of Life.
Atari
Mission Command Delta: Atari has been putting unique spins on classic titles, like Yars Rising for Yars’ Revenge. Missile Command Delta takes the classic, brutal arcade game, adding escape room and tactical elements. You play as a character who joins several friends who decide to camp in an old missile bunker, but then find themselves locked in. While trying to find a way out, the bunker’s computers come back to life, and what may be either simulations or real missile strikes start playing out. You explore the bunker via first person, talking to your friends, finding items, and solving puzzles. When it comes time to defend against missiles, you go into a tactical mode where you have a deck of missiles that you can launch. Each missile has a specific range; you can see the path of the incoming missiles and where your missile will end up and explode. You must strategically use your available missiles and survive several waves of attacking missiles. It’s cool that the game has changed up the gameplay. However, it still feels like classic Missile Command, like setting up your explosions to take out multiple enemy missiles, and the different missile types add an interesting tactical edge. Missile Command Delta is coming soon.
Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch: The sequel to Jay and Silent Bob: Mall Brawl, Jay and Silent Bob: Chronic Blunt Punch comes from Interabang Entertainment and features everyone’s favorite New Jersey duo battling through familiar locales, like the Quik Stop, and beyond. You can swap between Jay and Silent Bob at any time if you’re playing in single player, and there’s also two-player co-op. Jay is slightly faster than Silent Bob, while Bob is stronger, in classic beat-em-up fashion. The game has some fantastic, hand-drawn animation, hilarious background jokes, and enemy types, like zombie cell phone teenagers, and characters like Dante and Elias can be recruited as support. It feels like the game prioritizes the animation over the gameplay a tad, so it’s not as snappy as something like Shredder’s Revenge, but it still seems like a fun beat-em-up, especially for Kevin Smith fans. It’s coming soon.
Martian Lawyers Club – GUG
Strange creatures, turn-based combat, and a title that sounds like a sound effect? Sign us up for a weird time. GUG is a roguelike RPG that lets players create monstrous-looking life forms that adapt and evolve. These creatures are created by inputting a word or scrambled letters that will spawn GUG creatures with unique abilities. Then, the player’s GUGs are battle-tested, fighting other GUGs and further growing the player’s GUGs’ form. The enemies are pre-generated GUGs, but some are based on other players’ GUGs, now looking for a fight. The game takes time to get used to, as GUGs are unique creatures that need a moment to quickly analyze their attack patterns and ideal placements in the battle grid. Some GUGs are stronger from a distance, while others are better up close. There’s a lot of trial and error under your own GUG, and with so many combinations of GUG attacks and models, you can easily sink hours into this game. GUG is aiming for a July release date, and the demo is up on Steam.
Samsung
Samsung was at PAX East showing off the gaming capabilities of their phones, like the new S25 Ultra, most notably how it can play games like PUBG. There were competitions against pro gamers and setups where you could check out the phones and play a round of PUBG Mobile. They also had some crane games set up filled with Funko Pops, and after filling out a brief survey, you could get a chance to try and win one. Chris managed to snag an Unmasked Mandalorian, but Zach just missed getting two Pops, as both bounced out of the claw right before hitting the chute.
Chooseco
One of our childhood favorites, Choose Your Own Adventure, was at PAX East, showing off all of their newer books and the news that they are issuing a classic version of their first Choose Your Own Adventure title, The Cave of Time. This new retro version will feature all the original artwork from the original book, and it will be available by itself or in an upcoming “Retro Pack” featuring several other classic titles in their original form. While at the booth, you could meet author Deborah Lerme Goodman, who has written several of the newer fantasy-based CYOA books, including the four-book Unicorn series and the recent Spies: Josephine Baker, and get a signed copy.
Will Brierly – VCTV
If you ever want to see where technology, art, and games can be merged, check out what new project Will Brierly has up his sleeves. Brierly, Keith Garde, Sean Baptiste, Aaron Bleyaert, and Kevin Pereira have teamed up to produce a unique gamification that mixes online streaming with AI. VCTV is a streaming network that features interactive programming created by real-life humans and generative AI content. This is not simply watching AI streamers that scrape the internet and regurgitate whatever pop trend they find. These AI models are ethically created, maintained, and based on the creator’s actions. The team behind this is aware of the dangers of being caught up in the excitement of technology and forgetting the humane aspect of art. Brierly and the team want to explore what makes people human and use AI as a creative tool to let creators freely experiment with visuals and narrative media in new, meaningful ways. The best part is that anyone who contributes to the production of VCTV will receive ongoing royalties for their contributions. If anyone has played a Snowproduction title before, you can expect the same abstract style and overloaded simulations, but now in a streaming channel. VCTV currently has 12 “shows” created, with 7-10 on rotation on Twitch. You can catch their 24/7 stream right now and interact with a host. Will and the team are looking to expand VCTV further, and content creators can sign up for early access here.
BeautifulBee – Strings Theory
Coming out of Poland, developer Beautiful Bee brought the cozy puzzle game Strings Theory to PAX East. We talked to the studio’s founder, Mateusz Duber, who was inspired by actual scientific string theory and showed his passion for game design and the industry. Duber had spent four years developing the game, working solo for nearly 70% of the total project before working with others to bring the game to production. In Strings Theory, you play as three “Strings” who are sucked into an Anomaly and forced to work together to find a way out. Each character has a unique ability, and Duber and the team were influenced by games like The Lost Vikings for that aspect of the gameplay. For instance, the blue string, Telly, can push obstacles, the yellow string, Isaac, can flip to the underside of the stage, and the pink String, The Twins, can separate. You must navigate through the stages and collect enough objects in each stage to unlock the goal and move on. Each level offers three types of challenges, so every level can be repeated to achieve specific goals. There are over 50 stages, along with collectibles and achievements to unlock. The game has a single-player mode where you switch between each character and a co-op mode where three players can control 1 of the characters. Strings Theory is a solid pick-up and play mechanics, excellent for all ages to learn and master. Strings Theory has also won 13 indie awards for being a creative title, as visuals and gameplay have a universal design that makes it easy for anyone to understand. The game was released May 7th on Steam, Xbox, and Switch and is coming to PS4/5 in Q4 this year. On Steam, there’s a demo you can check out.
Ocean Drive Studios – God Save Birmingham
The zombie genre gets a medieval twist soon when God Save Birmingham from Ocean Drive Studios arrives. Set in 14th-century Birmingham, England, a zombie apocalypse has broken out and turned most of the villagers into the undead. You play as one of the last survivors of the outbreak. In the demo, we played as Roger, a peasant farmer, but there will be other characters and classes as the game develops. Along with avoiding and battling the undead hordes, you must keep track of your hunger, fatigue, and thirst and try to take shelter to satisfy one or all of those needs. You’ll start feeling the effects if you fail to keep those needs in check. You can pick up almost any object in the game and use the world’s physics to do things like stack boxes to trip up zombies or barricade doors. If you have no choice, you’ll have to fight the zombies, and you can use items like rakes and other medieval tools to fend them off. You can knock off limbs to try and hinder them, but the only way to truly kill them is to decapitate them or stomp their head when they go down. The game has a very authentic look and feel, and the team did plenty of research to ensure they portrayed an accurate Birmingham. The game was still in pre-Alpha when we played it, but it seems to have a ton of potential to be a unique and fun zombie survival game. The release date will be announced soon.
Software Verde – Mordfield Command
Developed by Software Verde, LLC, Mordfield Command combines elements of 4X sim games like Civilization with the real-time strategy of games like Starcraft. You play as the commander of humanity’s forces fighting against an AI called Algorithm Alpha that has raised a mechanical army to wipe humanity out. Like in Starcraft, you build a base that includes facilities to create units and ones that can generate energy and other resources, which you need to build units and additional buildings. However, on the 4X side, you have a certain number of action points and must end your turn once they are exhausted. Elements like terrain also become a factor, with mountains and hills giving you a better view into the fog of war, and areas like forests providing cover. All of the spaces are hexes that will be familiar to Civ players, and you slowly expand your area of influence as you gain more energy and build more base buildings. Limited boosts are available in both building and combat that will allow you to perform extra actions or build faster, adding more strategic options to the game. The maps are all procedurally generated, so you won’t see the same maps twice each time you start a campaign. You can take on the computer solo or battle online in PvP matches. The game is coming soon, but you can check out a demo on Steam.
UVS Games
When we need a break from staring at screens, there’s no better way to game with friends than with a good card game. We first checked out UVS Games from our previous Pax Unplugged trips and reviewed a few of their released decks. But we never had the experience of getting a refresher course on the rules and play styles with UVS coaches before. We sat with Matt and a helper to run a quick round of play to go over the basic deck build and different attacks with the upcoming Attack on Titan: Apocalypse set. One of the cool aspects about UVS Games is how well they utilize the lore and characters of many TV shows, comics, video games, etc, to craft a play system that makes it all flow together. Since the Attack on Titan focuses on big aerial maneuvers and bigger emotional outbursts, some of the attack cards have a greater effect on speed and feature great moments in the show. If you’ve collected previous Attack on Titan sets, these cards are a great way to add variety to your deck and boost your favorite characters in the field.
Indie.IO
Indie.IO is a game publisher focused on helping small, passionate game creators bring their creative ideas to life. The Indie.io team comprises passionate gamers, developers, and representatives who work together to get the game titles into gamers’ hands. We stopped by to talk with Ben Smith and check out a few titles from Indie.IO’s upcoming releases.
Don’t Die, Collect Loot: In this retro throwback to games like King’s Knight, Don’t Die, Collect Loot is a roguelite arcade RPG where you can try to do as the title says and gain loot while trying not to die. The game plays like a vertical shooter, where you are scrolling ahead from top to bottom. You battle enemies along the way and can earn upgrades, emphasizing getting as powerful as possible. You can sell loot collected to gain skills, and you can create some insane builds that developer Dan Marchand isn’t putting any limits on, no matter how much it might seem like it breaks the game. The retro art style is excellent; it’s a new spin on the Survivors-style games, adding the vertical shooter style gameplay instead of moving around an enormous battlefield like in Vampire Survivors. Don’t Die, Collect Loot is out soon, and you can check out a demo on Steam.
The Zombie Slayers: Developed by Rashad Ibrahimli, The Zombie Slayers is a cartoonish take on the zombie apocalypse. This 3D top-down shooter has you controlling a survivor, battling the undead across various cityscapes and small towns to make it alive for another day. The story mode has players fetch items and encounter waves of zombified citizens, blocking their path to escape. We joined a quick demo session with our character accompanied by three NPCs, who protected our character as we roamed to collect key cards and turn off alarms. We finished the demo by building an ambush point, standing against an approaching horde of zombies. This was pretty fun, as most of the gameplay had us run and gun, and this section allowed us to set up traps and barriers to create some defensive positions. The controls took a slight adjustment to understand the aiming and shooting mechanics, but the game has fairly basic controls and UI setup. The Zombie Slayers reminds us of an arcade take on Left 4 Dead for the fast-paced shooting and team mechanics, and we are interested to see how this game fares with real co-op gameplay. You can check out the demo on Steam now.
Nedra: The wastelands of Antarctica are an unforgiving world that will consume all who are unprepared. But monstrous creatures known as the Frostwalkers stalk the frozen land, tearing into anything hot-blooded. Armed with your wits and whatever materials you can find on a Soviet research station, you play as an expedition survivor, fending off the freezing temperatures and the Frostwalkers to uncover what mysterious events occurred to unleash these monsters. Aside from the running and hiding of a survival horror game, Davit Andreasyan’s Nedra introduces a temperature system that makes players regularly lower and raise their body temperature. Frostwalkers sense body heat signatures, and players are forced to expose themselves to the wintery elements to lower their temperature to go undetected. However, too much exposure can lead to hypothermia and dangerous health conditions for the player. There are iodine-alcohol mixtures that can be consumed to restore body heat and stave off hypothermia, but that also give the Frostwalkers a chance to find you. We only had a small taste of Nedra‘s cold terror, but the game has an interesting stealth action mechanic that we haven’t seen before. The game’s early development has a rough edge to the visuals and animations, but it can be overlooked for the cosmic frights. The game offers an eerie atmospheric story and thrilling situations to make the player jump out of surprise enemy encounters. The demo is available on Steam for you to check out.
Tales of Old: Dominus: An open world medieval RPG, Tales of Old: Dominus comes from developer Hvmana Industries MMD. You play as Eric of Woldham, a member of a failed rebellion who finds his entire village destroyed and his sister kidnapped. He sets out on a revenge mission, slowly building a new rebel army and gaining notoriety among the corrupt nobles. The game features a detailed combat system with period-accurate weapon styles and moves. You can choose between swords, axes, other melee weapons, and ranged weapons like a bow and arrow. There’s also a stealth mechanic where you can sneak up and take out enemies silently. You’ll build up a base, starting with basically just a fire in the woods, but you slowly get better bases and hire troops and draw in allies to help in your mission. The game also incorporates survival elements, like hunger, thirst, and fatigue, so you must manage those along with the combat. The game was a little rough in our demo, but hopefully things can get straightened out before it launches. You can check out the demo on Steam.
Truth Arts – Goblintown
We stopped by with an eye-catching food truck to check out Truth Arts’ Goblintown. This arcadey driving title puts you behind the wheel of a fart-boosted burger truck, on a food delivery run across a gauntlet of absurd obstacles to deliver lunch to the Pumplescroob. The food truck you control is tricked out with rocket boost and tight steering, which will all come in handy for the physics-defying landscapes. You’ll have to drive on steep curves, giant jumps, and wacky traps that await to push you off the road. The developers figured players would be gripping the controllers and too busy to break, so they added a “scream” listener to help players brake. The crude humor and tough gameplay deliver how challenging Goblintown will be for the average player. If you are a fan of games like Trials Fusion, Goblintown will scratch that itch for punishing driving terrain. Goblintown was released in early access this April and is now available on Steam.
JOFSOFT – Pizza Bandit
We checked out Pizza Bandit from JOFSOFT last year, and the game has shown some massive upgrades since that demo. Combining elements of games like Overcooked with the gameplay style and aesthetics of something like Gears of War, you play as an ex-mercenary with dreams of opening their own pizza shop. Needing cash to fund the business, you take jobs to time travel back to the past, where you’ll do things like cook sushi while battling hordes of time demons who manifest because you are not in the proper time period. You can play solo or with up to four players, but communication is key. During our demo, there wasn’t a lot of coordination with our team, so our sushi mission went horrifically bad. If you can complete missions, you’ll upgrade your cooking skills, and you can earn money that you can use to unlock not only new weapons but also decorations and upgrades for your pizza shop. The game has a great sense of humor, with lots of wacky customization options, and knows exactly what it’s trying to do. It’s coming soon, but you can check out a demo on Steam.
Here Be Monsters – Lurks Within the Walls
If you’re looking for something creepy, put Lurks Within Walls on your wishlist. Developed by Here Be Monsters, Lurks Within Walls takes its gameplay inspiration from old school dungeon crawlers like Wizardry, where you move on a grid with the dungeons being swapped out for creepy facilities and dark hallways where an infection has forced a quarantine. You can play as survivors who were trapped in the facility when it was locked down, or a police officer, who is called in to investigate and eliminate the threat. Either path will see you exploring the facility, finding items, and solving environmental puzzles. When you encounter a creature, you engage in turn-based combat where you first choose what weapon you want to use and then what area of the body to attack. Going for the head could cause more damage, but it has a much lower chance of success. The creatures were all designed by artist Trevor Henderson, who has never worked on a game before but jumped at the opportunity to work on this one. Lurks Within Walls is coming soon, but you can check out the demo on Steam.
Toge Productions – Moses & Plato: Last Train to Clawville
Coming from the developing team of Chicken Police, The Wild Gentlemen’s upcoming project, Moses & Plato: Last Train to Clawville, was set up at the Toge Productions booth. This point-and-click adventure puts players into the shoes of Moses and Plato, two detectives caught up in the murder of their client, who is on a peace mission between two warring powers traveling on the luxury train, the Clawville Express. With everyone blaming Moses and Plato, the duo will have to find clues and connect the mystery behind the murder or face the consequences of sparking an all-out war. The gameplay has the player click around for interactive sections, but exploring too much can risk wasting time. Since the story takes place on a traveling train, Moses and Plato must quickly uncover details before the train arrives in Clawville. Get lead in circles or missing key clues will tick away at the timer, so even if you think you have a prime suspect, there may be no time to prove it. The game has an excellent presentation of a classic murder mystery, voiced by a cast of actors to give the characters a prominent personality. We only got a brief game experience and enjoyed it a lot. We easily watched minutes of dialog scenes without clicking the skip to enjoy the story unravel before we even got to asking questions or looking for clues. There’s also this fun element of deduction mode that uses Plato’s slick charms to get travelers to reveal small details about themselves, and Moses’ heightened senses to find items in plain sight. Moses doesn’t have a final release date yet, but you can check out the demo now on Steam.
Pax Rising
Curated to spotlight up-and-coming indie developers, the PAX Rising Showcase is a focus area for attendees to discover fresh, innovative gaming in the Expo hall easily. The showcase is packed with unique concepts, passion projects, and creative risks that try something different from the mainstream trends. This area is good for getting a closer look at the behind-the-scenes of an indie game and meeting the creative team.
Cybrlich and the Death Cult of Labor
Cyberpunk attitude meets corporate culture in Polyhedra game and Cybrlich Studios’ Cybrlich and the Death Cult of Labor. This is a throwback to classic boomer shooters like Doom and Hexen, set in a hellish twist on corporate structure. The story follows a muscle-headed barbarian hacker offered a position in the evil Cybrlich’s office. However, enraged by the potential future of the Cybrlich spreading more vile corporate culture and greedy capitalism, the barbarian sets off on a mission to climb his way up the corporate ladder to slay the Cybrlich overlord. The gameplay has the familiar gunplay of fast-paced shooting and dodging. The barbarian is equipped with a satanic gun that drains the barbarian’s mental gauge, which can be restored by burning up a cannabist joint. But the barbarian can unleash a sword for some up-close action when things get too personal. We spoke with Peter Larson Schmidt and Clipper Arnold, the game’s animator and developer, about the game’s inspiration and beautifully brutal hand-drawn artwork. This game was designed to be a middle finger against regulations and organized institutions that create stressful jobs for profit. The setting offers lots to explore, and levels have NPC employees and managers rattle off details about working for the Cybrlich and hidden, strange sights to discover. Cybrlich does not have a release date yet, but the game looks solid. The fun and unique visuals are a strong point in the game, so this should be on people’s radar if you enjoy a silly but challenging boomer shooter.
Cappy & Tappy
Cappy & Tappy: Temples of Peril from First Pancake Studios offers a unique spin on co-op. One player controls Cappy, who has to platform their way through the ancient temples while the player controlling Tappy moves blocks into the stage and has to play a spin on Tetris to create a path for Cappy. It offers up a new challenge as you can’t think how you would if this were just a regular Tetris-style puzzle game, and instead, you have to think of how best to place them so the player using Cappy can make jumps and get to the end of each stage. There are limited bombs available to clear out some mistakes, but things quickly get complicated as you have rooms where water starts flooding in, so you have a time limit, and things like blocks with spikes on them, so you have to place them so the Cappy player doesn’t get impaled. If you’re playing solo, you can flip between Cappy and Tappy to clear the stages. It seems like a great, enjoyable co-op experience that will either strengthen or destroy friendships depending on how things play out, and it’s coming out sometime next year. You can check out the demo on Steam right now to get a taste of the puzzle action.
Electro Bop Boxing League
Electro Bop Boxing League is a fusion of rhythmic beats and mecha-boxing. Developed by a solo creator, Developer Dob, Electro Bop Boxing League isn’t simply a boxing game with robots, but rather a jazzy auto-battler that has the player work to issue commands to the robot fighter. The player controls a crew of workers on the robot that engages in rhythm-based mini-games to manage the robot’s system resources and activate special abilities. Players have to tap the input button sequences to power up the arms and legs of the robot, then insert punch cards to issue punches and special moves. The crew’s performance affects how well the robot can fight and withstand attacks from the opponent. And just like boxing, recovery between rounds plays a significant role, and the robots must repair limbs and recharge their system. The atompunk visuals and electro-swing backdrop are pretty cool, with the gameplay that tries something more creative than the typical robotic fighting. The game was released in April and is available on Steam.
Arena
If you’re looking for some competitive action, the PAX Arena usually has some tournament or event going on. Challengers got pitted in various combative games, from high-stakes rounds of Operation to fighting games like Street Fighter and Power Stone 2. WWE superstar Xavier Woods even showed up before a round of Power Stone 2 to cut a promo and get the crowd hyped up for some stone-collecting, super-powered action.
Arcade & Console Rooms
Along with all the new and upcoming games on the show floor, there are plenty of spaces to play classic games with friends. There’s the Classic Console room, where you can go retro on consoles like the SNES, NES, and Genesis, along with a Console Freeplay room, where you can play more modern consoles. This year also saw the return of an on-site arcade, provided by Retroware, where arcade classics like Virtua Cop 2, House of the Dead 2, Spider-Man, TMNT, Mortal Kombat 2, and more were available on freeplay. It was a great place to take a break from the main floor and crowd around some joysticks with friends. We played quite a bit of the Spider-Man arcade game with our friend and panel co-host Chris from Radio of Horror, trying to figure out how a team consisting of Spidey, Black Cat, Namor, and Hawkeye got assembled and what the heck is going on in the story.
Panels
There are many panels all weekend long at PAX East, covering everything from in-depth information on upcoming and current games to live RPG sessions, gameshows, concerts, and more. We checked out a few while hosting our second PAX East panel on Thursday night.
Mafia: The Old Country Panel
We got invited to attend the big panel for Mafia: The Old Country, which is coming out on August 8th this year. We got to see the gameplay reveal trailer, plenty of behind-the-scenes footage, and insight from the lead development team. The panel was hosted by Greg Miller, the CEO and co-founder of Kinda Funny. We learned about the central characters in the game and heard from the actors playing them, along with how the team realized the 1900s Sicily setting, which included on-location visits, to make sure it’s as accurate as possible. They also dug into the combat, which looks more visceral and includes climactic knife duels with major antagonists. We’re big fans of the previous Mafia games, so we’re excited to go back to the beginning and see the origins of the criminal empire.
The History of Batman Games
Along with Chris from Radio of Horror, we hosted our second-ever panel at PAX East, The History of Batman Games. We went all the way back to 1986 for the first Batman game ever on the ZX Spectrum and other 80s computer systems and went all the way up to the Arkham series and talked about how well they captured the essence of Batman (or not) and how they fit into the era of gaming they came out. There’s the early computer games, the classic NES platformer, the SNES Batman Returns brawler, the bonkers insanity of the Batman Forever arcade game, and so much more. We had a great time, and we’ll try to return with a new panel for a future PAX.
Haute Set Podcast Panel
Zach checked out the “Analyzing the Costume Design from the 1993 Super Mario Brothers Movie” panel hosted by the Haute Set Podcast. Hosts Melinda and Ariel are professional costume designers. On their podcast, they analyze the costume design of various movies and discuss what they say about the characters and their overall opinions on the looks. They dug into the absolute insanity of the 1993 Super Marios Bros. movie, picking several of their favorite looks from the movie and trying to find any hints of the original video game characters in the designs and why the movie seemed to refuse to put Mario and Luigi in their iconic colors until the very end of the film. It was a fun panel and a new spin on commentary on the cult classic movie.
Bioshop Infinite
Previously seen roaming the show floor for impromptu performances, barbershop singing group Bioshop Infinite got their own panel/concert on Saturday night. The barbershop quartet from Bioshock Infinite inspired the group. They perform “God Only Knows” from that game and several other video game songs from games like Cuphead and barbershop standards like “Goodbye, My Coney Island Baby”. The panel/concert was packed, and Bioshop Infinite has become a fixture of PAX East, so it’s always great to see them perform.
Speedrun Stage – GDQ
Games Done Quick (GDQ) is a charity video game organization that streams skilled gamers speedrunning various games live to raise money for great causes. They have returned to PAX to challenge gamers to test their abilities to complete a game under some pressure. It was nice to take a break and watch some players show off their platforming talents or spin out. But it’s all in good fun, and the community supported anyone brave enough to step on the stage.
Table Top Freeplay
Tabletop is always a massive part of any PAX convention, and this year’s PAX East was no exception. Along with the various tabletop companies and designers on the expo floor, there was a huge freeplay area, where you could gather friends and play games from the convention’s massive lending library. From old favorites to brand new releases, there’s a game for everyone somewhere in the pile of games. You can also watch for the “LFG” cones, which signal that people are looking for players to join them, which is a great way to learn a new game and make new friends. After a long day of walking, the tabletop area is a great way to take a break and have fun with friends.
RPG Room
The RPG Room is a must-stop for Pen-and-paper role-playing gamers. This area was filled with role-playing games from which anyone could sign out and create a world. From the dark political intrigue of Legend of the Five Rings to the robotic uprising of Terminator, there was something for every kind of playstyle. You could easily spend hours flipping through rulebooks, discovering what strange and surprising worlds have been turned into tabletop adventures. Seeing which unexpected franchises had been adapted into full RPGs was especially fun. A signup sheet at the front offered slots for hourly one-shots run by veteran game masters, so whether you were killing time between sessions or looking to make new party members, there was always a table to join and dice to roll.
Red Bull Creator Club
Want to know a big but obvious secret to keeping ourselves going for 8+ hours at PAX East? Take breaks and drink plenty of fluids. There was one secret club hideout that let us unwind for a moment and take in all the nerd vibes: the Red Bull Creator Club. Like a “quiet room” but with the opposite purpose, we recharged our inner batteries with cold drinks, cool music, and creative hard-drawn artwork, sketched out hourly by an artist. This spot was a mini meeting room for media and content creators to meet up and exchange our experiences so far. Previously, Red Bull sponsored a cool arcade, but the creator club was a much-needed, locally convenient hangout spot.
Parody Banners
One of our favorite sights at PAX shows is finding and reading their parody banners placed all over the convention. They may be tucked away in a hallway nook, sitting next to a door, or in an open space. We enjoyed using the banner to distract and remind people to have fun, and that not every sign you read in public should be taken seriously, except for real Emergency signs. Please follow those rules, or you’ll risk opening a fire door and making many people mad.
After Parties
After a long day of walking convention floors, chasing exclusive merch, and lining up for panels, the after party is the perfect way to unwind and recharge. It’s where sore feet get a good rest, where people break out the comfy clothes and relax. We have our usual romps around Boston that we love to revisit on our trips back to Pax East, but this year we wanted to hit up a few official parties to network and get nerdy cheers. Whether you’re here to network, dance, or chill with your fellow geeks, the after party keeps the energy going long after the expo hall closes. Just be sure to have some water and party responsibly.
The Side Quest Party
We ended our Thursday night by attending SideQuest’s takeover of Howl at the Moon. It was a nice night for a leisurely walk around the downtown streets, so it was no surprise that this place got busy. Top it off with a free buffet; it sometimes got as busy as the Pax Expo hall. However, the house band played great music and even took requests from the crowd through an online system, so no shouting matches or anyone bugging the band to play their “favorite” song. The bar was set high for a great closer on our first day of East: great weather, an easy walk, and free food. If we knew Boston weather had other plans for this weekend, we should have ordered more rounds of merriment while it lasted.
Red Bull Creator Happy Hour
After a busy Friday covering the show, Red Bull hosted a grand happy hour for Pax’s media and content creators to get energized. At the party, we listened to live DJ music, had a few Red Bull-inspired drinks, and networked our butts off. We also reduced our daytime caffeine intake, knowing we wanted to try a few cocktails from the bar. It was interesting to see the kinds of creators and media reps, and then catch up with a few people we only see when we come to the New England area. But once the after-hours gaming gets set up, all friendships are halted to see who can be the best in fights and nerd trivia. Chris got to get on stage to try his best to guess what video game character they were showing behind him, but one too many drinks gave him a handicap for the round. But we couldn’t stick around for too long since we had another party to attend the same night, only a few hours later. The rain on Friday would not let us get there easily, so we grabbed a few Red Bull for the wet road ahead.
Twitch Boston
The Twitch Boston community came out to play and party no matter what the weather had in mind. It was a rain-soaked trip from the convention area to the Twitch party, and the vibe was completely different from before. The Twitch Boston party has gone from a smaller hangout space to spreading out in the Candibar underneath the Royale. It was a big crowd, but plenty of unique people to meet. We witness people calling each other with their Twitch handles, showing each other’s phone screens to see which channels they joined, or even meeting for the first time in person. Luckily, the Red Bull fueled us just enough to hang out and rave a little before our bodies signaled us to pump the brakes. Four cups of water later, we were ready to call it for the night, knowing that since the PAX’s Saturday tickets mean an even busier day in the morning.
Final Thoughts
Another great PAX East ended with our bodies completely drained of energy, but our gaming spirits are revitalized and ready to explore amazing titles throughout the year. We spent four great days, packed next to a welcoming community, insightful developers, and awesome after parties that connected gamers for a singular celebration in Boston. We had a blast exploring titles, networking with creative minds, and sharing our stories. It is a bit different to hang out at PAX East in May, but the cold, rainy weather sure makes it feel familiar. But snow, rain, or too much shine cannot stop attendees from enjoying a great experience. As always, we look forward to our next PAX adventure, awaiting to be welcomed home once again.
