This is the end of the line. With the breadth of Summer Game Fest conferences and demos, I only have so much fuel in me to show you what I think is interesting. For our terminus, I've picked two final showcases: one nice, one nasty, but before we get there, I promised a little surprise.
Sonic Frontiers
Just when I thought I knew what Sonic was, Sega told us it now includes a Breath of the Wild-inspired sandbox world. Their preview was met with widespread backlash. Among other criticisms, viewers described Frontiers' backdrop as empty and lifeless. I don't think that it's a sin to have an environment that is barren or still. Whether it's mechanics or scenery, more is not necessarily better. Games like Sea of Solitude and even Breath of the Wild itself created serene atmospheres and measured pacing by subduing their wildlife and leaving large gaps between encounters. The placidness in these settings was the catalyst for reflection on the enormous loss suffered there. But the idea of doing the same thing for Sonic is a terrific gag. You have this barbed, irreverent 90s mascot who slows down for no one, and you're dumping him into the kind of world optimised for bittersweet meditation. If Sega are to be believed, they're making Tarvoksky's Bubsy.
But what really pushes Frontiers over the edge into absolute "are you seeing this?" territory are the statements made by the project's director, Morio Kishimoto. Maybe you think that the micro-stages present in Sonic Frontiers' hub world are a staple of 3D platforming going all the way back to Mario 64 in 1996. Prepare to think again because Kishimoto tells us, "A playable world map that includes stage-like elements is something that hasn't really been done before". Maybe you, naive reader, think that Sonic Frontiers is the product of ongoing iteration on the open-world platformer style. Fool that you are, you've not realised that games have been using the same map system since 1988 until Frontiers came along to revolutionise it.
"The [world map] system has been used by countless platformers since [Super Mario Bros. 3], even to this day [...] A true evolution of this structure is what we see as the essence of Sonic Frontiers' field".
Maybe something has been lost in translation here, but if so, it slipped past everyone at Sega involved in this interview, as well as the crew at IGN, which is effectively unveiling the game for them. There's nothing wrong with having your project be a reworking of previous releases. That is what every game is in some sense. But to see the director of Frontiers, which is clearly inspired by the last thirty years of platformers, go "Hub worlds? Never heard of them" is truly mind-bending.
The Wholesome Games Showcase
For those of us yearning for more gameplay in our video games event, the Wholesome Showcase has always had a place set for us. The more humble game developers don't have the budget for fancy pre-rendered trailers and copious cutscenes, so they must exhibit their gameplay in its raw, authentic state. During Wholesome Direct, that simplicity and honesty crests atop the heartfelt charm of these adorable applications to create something human and upfront.
Terra Nil is a management game where we're not growing a business or a settlement; we're rewilding the Earth. Even in supposedly environmentally-progressive sims, we often consume the landscape with our structures, sucking down ever more resources. This was a significant weakness of Civilization: Beyond Earth. Terra Nil's tech appears minimally intrusive, and when we're done covering the ground in luscious flora, we pack up and ship off. Much like Lumbearjack, which appeared later in the lineup, Terra Nil looks to be a vitally optimistic game in an age of climate pessimism.
Games are defined, in large part, by what challenge they ask us to overcome. Little Bear Chef, like Chibi-Robo and Little Nightmares before it, give us the task of doing big things even while tiny. Being a small part of a huge world can be intimidating, but many thumb-sized characters are also squeezably cute.
Sometimes developers want players to stop and smell the roses instead of rushing to the exit. One way to slow a game's speed is to ensure it only advances as the days, weeks, and months of the real world do. It worked for Animal Crossing, and it could work for The Garden Path. Real-time seasonal changes can help a game respond to the world the player inhabits and put them in touch with nature. They're also a fist raised against the idea of a game being a product to "binge" over the weekend and then throw away.
2D games typically contain their own self-consistent worlds. However, a developer can also contrast two-dimensional planes against full 3D environments. Doing so emphasises the flatness of the 2D screen and makes it a subspace in a larger setting. You can see 30 Birds and The Plucky Squire both toying with that idea, becoming the playable equivalent of a rug hanging in a marketplace or a poster on a dorm wall. When I first drafted this article, I thought the game was called "Bobirds" based on the logo.
Games deconstructing systems like theme parks or cars often try to simulate their mechanisms in scintillating detail. Yet, it's also possible to represent an industry or object by reinterpreting its themes and concepts rather than recreating them. That latter technique can be especially useful when you're trying to depict something too complex or unsatisfying to provide an empowerment fantasy. The Last Clockwinder shows this method in motion. A timepiece is a bafflingly intricate mechanism, but the game isn't trying to model it literally. Instead, it has you set up a network of physical interactions to capture the essence of a clock. It could be a wonderful way to see your efforts persistently and materially recognised in a puzzle game.
Dating apps have their operators trying to discover the correct inputs to achieve their desired output, feeding them goals and rewards, both big and little, along the way. In that sense, these services already feel like games, so it makes sense to transform them into one, as Lovebirb does.
Ooblets asks what if you didn't just catch the Pokémon? What if you grew them? It also has the bright idea of using a card-based battle system, which prevents players from spamming the same move endlessly. When you can only play each item in your hand once, you can't sleepwalk your way to victory. You must carefully consider what actions to take when, even if each of those actions has easily understood consequences.
SkateBIRD was a game with such irresistible curb appeal that people who'd never otherwise watch Wholesome Direct took interest. With the snappy physicality of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater and the precocious cuteness of its avian cast, SkateBIRD looked both novel and nostalgic. I was so ready to love it, but every one of its features was just that little bit misaligned. The camera range was too myopic to make the ambitious leaps you needed to, the setpieces were often just centimetres too far apart, and tricks often felt fractionally out of step with their animations. Still, it's easy to root for the devs when you can see the care and heart baked right into the project. Hopefully, the content update to SkateBIRD is proof that Glass Bottom's game found its audience.
We talk a certain amount about having the right moderation tools and policies to prevent online abuse. Still, we can't forget that a sympathetic approach to toxicity also involves providing emotional support to the victims. Wholesome Direct plugged the Games and Online Harassment Hotline, so I'm going to do the same here, on the off-chance that it might help someone having a shitty time on the internet.
Lastly, snacko.land joins wizards.cool as one of the most delightful video game websites advertised at the Summer Games Fest.
Devolver Direct
Devolver's games devolve you, taking you from the organised and hopefully considerate person you have to be in your everyday life and reducing you to an animal driven by its amygdala, baring its teeth at anything that moves. That attitude also translatedwell to parodies of game publisher conferences because capitalism is violence. It speaks to the forceful energy and lavish production of Devolver's briefings that they maintain such a cultural hold even when the company only has a few games to trot out each year. Their presentation is the diametric opposite of the Future Games Show: a professional affair that, nonetheless, lacked chemistry between its presenters. Its coldness gave it the corporate sensibility that Devolver's showcases mercilessly disembowel.
Much of Devolver's satire has taken aim at the dubious practices game publishers get into when they have mind-boggling quantities of capital at their disposal. For 2022 specifically, they set their sights on the ridiculousness of pre-shows for video game conferences, adverts made to frontend other adverts. They also spoke to the cynical branding exercise of trying to mash all the franchises and characters up into one prison loaf metaverse, a la Fortnite, and had a starring role for cult auteur Goichi Suda. There would have been a time when immersing yourself deep in video game discourse meant you learned who Suda51 was through cultural osmosis, but that's no longer the case. The dang kids these days don't know the classics, so anyone who is flying Suda's flag in 2022 is cool in my book. Perhaps the most ridiculous dimension of Devolver's comedy sci-fi was that the scene in which Nina Struthers offered Suda omnipotence was actually kind of beautiful.
There would have been an obvious storyboard for the Cult of the Lamb trailer that involved having the twee cartoon animals murdered by Satanic minions. However, I think it's far funnier and more interesting to let these barnyard critters accept slaughter and dark magicks as part of their reality. Cult of the Lamb comes down halfway between Peppa Pig and The Binding of Isaac. I only hope that having so much lively on-screen activity at once doesn't make the game visually difficult to parse.
I highlighted an older version of Anger Foot in one of my Lo-Fi Play blogs, so I'm feeling very vindicated that it's being spun out into a full-length orgy of punting gangsters into walls. If this trend continues, expect to see the $60 release of Death Flush announced next year.
Post-Tony Hawk, skateboarding games have scoured far and wide for identities to supplant the converses and pop-punk of the genre's giant. OlliOlli found a sense of self in chillstep, the aforementioned SkateBIRD threw some anthropomorphism and household objects into the mix. Yet, Skate Story may be the apple that's fallen farthest from the tree, landing in a 3 a.m. blur of smothering darkness and extra-dimensional objects. There's a sense of forward movement and pursuit in this trailer that is rare to see in the format; an athlete is pulled through an alternate reality by the guiding light of a beguiling lantern.
___
Given that there is still uncertainty about E3's future, I want to take this opportunity to say that I hope this carousel keeps coming back around. I'm not going to stop being critical of the industry's more boring tendencies or sceptical of the commercialism at the heart of E3. However, when so many aspects of the industry are changing beyond recognition, this expo is a constant. It's something you can rely on, and it's a good excuse to read and engage in discussion about the hobby we love so much. I hope we can keep doing that for many more years to come. Thanks for reading.
Log in to comment