I saw this game from a far, somewhat fittingly in a dark corner of the bar on a laptop. Leaves fell as a black ghostly figure stalked across a farm, looking and skulking about till finally bursts of light flooded the screen and a checkpoint was restarted. I glimpsed it later on during the night and saw someone knock over a silo and without playing the game I slowly understood what this spectral figure was doing...he was keeping to the shadows.

An entire puzzle game about using the shadows in a level to make your way across the world. The character in the game is a shadow who has been trapped by the sun for several years and has finally worked out a way to escape it’s darkened world. The Sun and light is your enemy and you have to do everything in your power to make it through the dusk. The game looks so beautiful, as I was playing, I was noticing the importance of certain shading elements and how the character would move to avoid any contact with light.

While there was only a farm level, one of the developers, Tim O’Brien talked about a factory level where your protagonist would work with the pistons and spinning fans to get through the area just as the sun was rising. The game runs on the Unreal Engine and was just jaw dropping. It takes pieces of the stealth games, puzzle games and puts it together with a beautifully conceptual story.

Title: Garbage Monster
Platform: iOS
Genre: Puzzle/Arcade

Developer: Edible Games This game was beyond cute. Like Angry Birds, Cut The Rope kind of cute. It was like a rectangular prism had come to life and the first thing he had learned to do was eat everything in the world. The guys at Edible Games, Patrick Norman and Jiyong Park have clearly got their head in the right place.  When I drop a Katamari reference, there are nods and smiles all around as I mention the visual style is similar.

The Garbage Monster himself is just walking around picking up rubbish in it’s mouth until it practically explodes and releases a rainbow gas behind him.  Of course, this isn't the object of the game. You fill your little monster up till he’s slow and almost incapable of moving and then you head to the nearest trash can to drop a load and some points. Rinse and repeat for two minutes as a score is racked up. I noticed through the night people were competing for high scores. 

Patrick showed another level where a dog will attack the garbage monster and you have to trap it in. While the dog isn't any real threat, he sure is a nuisance. Also Patrick told me  the game was also running on the Unreal Engine, but was node-based in it’s design - hardly any coding was done on it. Patrick also discussed how the game could be appropriated as something just fun, sit down and play or people could see it as an environmental game or even something else. It was actually brought up during the night by the guys at Convict Interactive, about randomness and appropriation, but we’ll get to them later.

Patrick told me the guys at Edible Games were really animators and hoping to really make a game people can pick up and play for a mobile phone platform, either iPhone or Android. Patrick’s game looks and plays like a Katamari game but with a different style. I didn't really enjoy the Katamari Games on the iPhone (or 360 for that matter) but Garbage Monster could be an indie hit with the right marketing and videos behind it.


Title: Questy
Platform: PC
Genre: Rogue/Dungeon Crawler
Developers: Luke Mac/Adam Myatt

Moving around the room, I saw a guy packing up and slightly disappointed.  I asked for his card and will give him a plug, right about here, I hope to see him at the next meeting, but anyway, I then turned in a 90 degree direction towards a guy ready and waiting with a Game Over screen. I’d recently gotten into Dungeons of Dredmore and Binding of Isaac and dungeon crawlers had kinda become my thing in the past few days, this is what Questy was like.

Randomly generated dungeons, starting off in a cool retro style, the green lettering of GAME OVER stuck in my mind all night. Big block letters in an 16 bit style that just kept me thinking about that aesthetic of really defining retro. The game is fantastic and is turn based in it’s strategy. Going from room to room to room defeating “Devils in pants” as you go through each level, reminded me of an old game I coded back in high school, based around memes.

They didn’t have a company name yet, but jokes were spry with the name “We Were Wizards.” Initially just one of them was showing the game and then the other returned with a beer and once Adam joined Luke, they were off talking about how they wanted to add more and more monsters and end bosses and really go for a retro feel.  They wanted to do that but also add in some strategy as they went along. The game was in an early Turn-Based stage but still strong with each random level providing a new strategy here or a new discovery there, I can’t wait to see what they add.


Title: Toska
Platform: PC
Genre: First Person Puzzler
Developer: Molniya Studios

Like I said before, invitation-wise, not everyone there has a finished game or a game to show off. I was interested in pretty much what everyone had to say about video games - theories, development or even games they were working on.  That’s when I talked to Catherine McAdam, from Molniya. A lovely girl who really wanted to talk about her game, even though her team was still working on it at the moment.

We discussed the storyline of their game in development, Toska. A reclusive girl by the name of Laura begins to escape through mirrors in her bedroom to different memories and parts of her life. Using the world around her, she can manipulate objects to create new paths and ways to get out of the worlds she inhabits and into new ones. Catherine discussed how the surrealistic and atmospheric style of the game would be similar to the Silent Hill series, specifically the third one.

The game started off as a survival horror idea, but morphed into a more surreal and dream-like, Alice in Wonderland affair. The game has been in development for six months on the Unreal Engine with the three person team. I cannot wait to see how it turns out, you can visit the game’s official page and see some of the early screenshots and designs. It sounds stunning and I hope to see it at the next meeting. 

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