The Queensland Games Festival (formally known as Game On/GO 423) is the biggest celebration of games made right here, in sunny Queensland. Held on the 22nd of July at the Brisbane Powerhouse, this year Zed Games got to witness more games, more developers, more teams, and more interest in this wonderful event.
Our role? To host the Game Dev Hot Seat throughout the day, interviewing devs live on stage so that they may tell us all about their projects. With a massive variety of games, from narrative to first person shooters, to VR games to board games, and games that blend the borders between them all, at this year’s Queensland Games Festival we got to see it all! And after a long day of gaming, it was a tonne of fun to wrap up with an End Game session, with notable figures in the games industry duking it out against the game-master (with a bit of help from the audience!).
On top of that there were also a number of workshops, and discussions, such as the Emerging Developers Room, for those taking their first steps into the industry, and Gameloft Creative Kids, where children had the chance to meet the artists behind My Little Pony, and create some art of their own.
Missed out? Want to know what was shown? Got there and had so much fun and want to check out the games? Here you go:
AND Metal Evil, Halloween Cat-tastrophe, On Point VR, Maiwar VR, Curses and Covens, Gem Hunters, Battlemage vs MechaDinos, Scarlet Pages, and Fossil Diggers VR!
The Queensland Games Festival is made possible with government support through Screen Queensland’s Culture Funding program.
An event organised by Springfield Gamers, SpringCon’22 is the culmination of a tremendous amount of effort, organisation, and heart in order to create a fun, newbie-friendly tabletop extravaganza.
SpringCon is a celebration of everything to do with tabletop role-playing games, board games, card games, and all the gear, loot, and community that surrounds these hobbies. There is also an emphasis on introducing these hobbies to people who are new, curious, or seeking a new community to join. There were tournaments with some impressive prizes, workshops for learning how to make terrain for tabletop games, demonstrations for various tabletop systems, a bring-and-buy event where attendees could bring in their old boardgames and get something totally new, and so much more. Zed Games got to experience the first ever SpringCon this year, and we are looking forward to seeing what’s on next year!
WHO ARE THE ORGANISERS?
A community effort requires a community, and SpringCon’22 was no exception.
Primarily organised by Neal, the club president of Springfield Gamers, he has a tonne of experience with sharing games, but also teaching and guiding new players, organising regular gaming days and nights, and creating a welcoming environment. He is pictured here with the tournament grand prize, a full tabletop map.
The primary sponsor and vendor was Epic Ipswich, an amazing play space and game store with a fully equipped cafe, perfect for those who want to make an afternoon of it. Whilst having a look at their stall, which was stocked with absolutely everything anyone could possibly need to get into tabletop role-playing games or board-games, we took the opportunity to chat with the stall handlers, who were hugely welcoming, had a lot of information for us, and has instilled a desire to visit Epic Ipswich at some point.
We were able to chat with some of the guys from the Ipswich Tabletop Association who gave some great insight into where to get started with miniature painting and were super keen to offer tips.
WHAT WAS THERE?
We’ve mentioned some of the events, but also here are some of the vendors who were there!
Making Morrigan, who creates detailed tabletop pieces that incorporates LED lights and some really cool tricks, including a magic dice box!
Dragonfire Resin & Gaming, a small business that creates 3D printed models, gaming scenery, and just cool stuff.
Caitlin Fairchild dice bags, who had a tonne of creative, hand-made dice bags that were both very cute and very funny.
Geektastic Accessories, full of detailed, clever, and really funky accessories (including fabulous d20 earrings).
Terrain workshops were run by Corrupted Quill, and she was so booked out we didn’t even get a chance to chat with her, but we did take a tonne of photos of some of her work.
In addition there were plenty of food and drink stalls available, such as BBQ, potato tornadoes (a personal favourite), gigantic cups of iced tea, and coffee of course, all available outside with plenty of shaded seating. Perfect for recharging after seeing everything in the hall!
WAS IT FUN?
SpringCon was a tremendous amount of fun, but more than that it was engaging, interesting, and inspiring. Even if we couldn’t participate in everything that was available, just chatting to vendors and participants was fascinating as we asked how they got into this hobby, how they started, and their favourite creations or moments.
A common theme? Nearly everyone had, at some point, taken the dive to get into a game that they were curious about, but had no idea where to start, but thanks to friends or a small leap of faith, have been able to put their heart and time into something so detailed, interesting, and a little bit niche. That was a similar story, whether they were creatives, players, or organisers. Of course, a few people had simply grown up with it, but their open-arms approach makes it a lot easier for newbies to make that dive.
Truly, the best part of SpringCon is that there will be another one next year!
All the hottest events to check out over this year’s E3 period!
This list will be updated whenever possible. By default all times are in AEST(UTC+10) but if you subscribe to the calendar you can alter it to any timezone you wish.
There’s never been a better time to dive into the world of Tabletop Roleplaying Games but there’s so much information out there it can be hard to know where to start. Especially if you want to look beyond the mammoth that is Dungeons and Dragons. We’ve got a list of some great systems you can try to expand your horizons, and a list of tools that can be used with any system to enrich your game experience.
Game System Recommendations
Blades in the Dark
Blades in the Dark is set in a gritty industrial-fantasy world. It boasts a fast-paced system, and requires minimal preparation compared to other games were talking about. Players become a crew of daring scoundrels, seeking their fortunes through whatever means necessary. There are heists, chases, occult mysteries, dangerous bargains, bloody skirmishes, and riches to be claimed.
Pathfinder is a direct descendant of the 1st and 2nd editions of Dungeons and Dragons, splitting off before 4th Edition it’s a cousin of the modern-day phenomena. Pathfinder is now in its own second edition and has carved out its own identity. Paizo provides a great number of choices in character creation, allowing for highly specialised characters (especially compared to D&D’s broader strokes)
Pathfinder is a good choice if:
Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t let you customise characters enough
You want a more involved combat experience than systems like D&D can offer.
You want to try your hand at new systems but don’t want to go too far from the familiar.
World of Darkness is a horror fantasy TTRPG set in our world. Not just modern fantasy, but the real world tinged with supernatural secrets. World of Darkness excel at telling stories about paranormal power struggles, and the edge between mystical and mundane.
In my experience with World of Darkness, I sometimes found myself getting overwhelmed with the mechanics and the rulebook. If you struggle with learning heavy systems like me, you might want to find someone or an online guide to help explain. If you enjoy diving into rich mechanics, this will be a delight for you. Either way, don’t let this be a dealbreaker as they serve as a framework for World of Darkness’s rich gameplay.
World of Darkness is a good choice if:
You want to explore supernatural characters and settings
Now, quite simply, the Fate system is entirely set up with 2 assumptions: you want to roll less dice, and you want to do more roleplaying. I have to say, it accomplishes these things fantastically. The very first session had us a little nervous because there were so few numbers involved, but it was so refreshing to be able to just focus on roleplaying, investigating, settling into our characters. Plus, once you get the hang of the mechanics, it’s a lot more immersive and engaging than you expect.
Essentially, you have a long list of skills and you’re mediocre at all of them, except for a few depending on your character. Each skill can do 1 or more of 4 actions: attacking, defending, overcoming obstacles, or creating an advantage. Aspects is something notable about a character or the scene, and it can be used to give you a bonus to a dice roll, which usually costs a Fate point. For example, if I snuck upon someone on the toilet, then the aspect would be the fact that their pants are down, impairing their movement. So, I get a bonus since my pants are up and secure. It’s flexible, but it has a cost.
Stunts are more mechanical and are pre-defined, but they grant characters a mechanical benefit. For example, you might have established that your character is extremely strong, and once active then you may get a bonus for an arm-wrestling competition, but you underestimate your strength and accidentally break the fragile glass relic. It’s not that it’s simpler, but that it has done away with a lot of frivolous rules and numbers for the sake of allowing you to focus on your character, and to approach all situations from a role-playing and characterisation perspective
FATE is a good choice if:
You want a simple system that wont hold you back with rules.
You’re looking for a highly flexible system to play a atypical setting within.
Now, it’s always tricky getting the party together for a game. It might be a schedule conflict, distance, or finding time and energy, and in these past couple of years that has only become truer. But there are ways to remove some of those issues. Roll20 is one such option, allowing you and your party to play together over the internet, and it can be just as immersive, or even more so! Essentially, it acts as a virtual tabletop.
You can create your characters, put together the maps you need, and make it as detailed or as simple as you want it to be. And it supports just about every tabletop RPG system there is. It’s all in-browser, sign up for free, and you can either create the maps, encounters, everything you need, from scratch, or even buy an adventure with all that already created. For art assets, you can upload your own, or use what’s available from the Roll20 library.
You can manage rolls, roleplay, act out your actions and battles, and there is a tonne of customization that is available. You can even create your own code to make some repetitive tasks a bit easier. Between Roll20 and your own imagination and patience, in a lot of ways it can be more immersive and easier than face-to-face games, but it does take a little bit of time to get the hang of things.
Music and sound effects is probably the easiest way to get some instant immersion in your game, but it can be frustrating to not only maintain the game and do your rolls and roleplaying and keep track of all your NPC voices, but to also manage music from your music app of choice, and you get blasted with an ad right in the middle of the boss fight. Well, a local dev created the perfect little tool: Grandpa’s Audio Helper.
It’s quite simple to use, load it up and you have access to a library of sounds and music for all sorts of settings. Busy village, a quiet night around the campfire, a horde of zombies. But more than that, you can layer the various sounds in order to build the perfect soundscape. On a ship in the middle of a storm and there’s zombies? Sorted. In the middle of a forest, only birds for company, when you hear a strange chanting in the distance? Done.
You can adjust the volume for each aspect individually, and you can even create groups of sounds, allowing you to load the perfect, pre-prepared scene when you need it. Can’t find the sound you need? You can import your own sounds into the app. It just makes building the auditory experience so much easier, whether it needs to be on the fly, or if you’re planning something epic and need the scene to be just right.
Heroforge is a store that sells customisable miniature figurines. While the store is a great option if you’re wanting to purchase one, I want to specifically recommend Heroforge for it’s free-to-use creation tool. You can create a digital 3D model using the hundreds of assets they offer across many genres, pose it dynamically, and paint the whole thing to complete the look. If you aren’t artistically talented this is a great way to design your character and share with others.
There are far more tools available for your TTRPG than we could list here, very few of which are a good fit for all the available systems. With a near endless list, how could they be? This conundrum is why our last recommendation for you is Drive Thru RPG. Drive Thru RPG is a huge online marketplace selling all manner of digital TTRPG content: sourcebooks, supplements, battle maps, and inspiration. The range extends from official Dungeons and Dragons to Homebrew rulesets, to the most obscure, indie title you can imagine. If you’re looking for a way to spice up your TTRPG experience beyond what we’re talking about tonight, I have no doubt you’ll be able to find something that scratches your very specific itch on DriveThruRPG.
The Game Awards took place on the 10th of December, and showcased the best games released this year! Game Of The Year went to Hazelight Studios’ It Takes Two, which also took Best Multiplayer Game and Best Family Game. Some of the other winners included; Deathloop, Kena: Bridge of Spirits, Life is Strange: True Colors, and Forza Horizon 5.
We also got a look at a bunch of upcoming games, with Star Wars Eclipse by Quantic Dream, the new Sonic game Sonic Frontiers, Alan Wake 2, Slitterhead, and more! We also got to see some more trailers for Senua’s Sacrifice:Hellblade 2, Forspoken, Elden Ring, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League, and Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands.
Financial Modeling World Cup Winners! –
In some exciting news, Australian competitor Andrew Ngai (Nyai) has beaten out Canadian counterpart Michael Jarman in the Financial Modeling World Cup this year. In this competition, participants are required to solve a business case study, answering several questions by creating financial models in a spreadsheet in Excel. Consisting of 128 participants from all around the world, qualifications began on November 13th with the finals taking place on the 12th of December.
IGN recently published an article outlying yet more allegations of “sexism, boys’ club culture, crunch, and HR protection of abusers” within the gaming industry, with Bungie being named and shamed. The article claims that many employees believe that Bungie’s recent initiatives to improve working conditions have come “Too little, too late”. It points to several instances of narrative leaders “making life miserable” for the writers underneath them. Despite these many issues, several of the employees that have spoken out have expressed the belief that the studio is slowly but steadily improving with the new initiatives.
This article comes after several similar stories about an array of studios, including Activision Blizzard, Ubisoft, and Quantic Dream.
Paul sat down with developers of Unpacking Wren Brier and Tim Dawson about their success, the inspirations for the game, development and what didn’t make the cut.
If you’ve heard of Dungeons and Dragons then you’re probably aware of the role of the DM, otherwise known as the Dungeon Master. The mastermind behind the game, the one who holds your fate in their hands, all-powerful, all-knowing, yada yada yada.
Here’s a secret. They’re actually just another player! Take a moment to absorb that. The DM might be guiding the game, and they might be managing multiple characters, and they do know what’s around the corner, but really they’re just another player. I’m demystifying that role now.
Dungeon Masters don’t know everything, they don’t have all the rules memorised, they don’t have everything planned out, and they absolutely do not have enough unique voices for every NPC your party runs into.
It’s understandably a rather intimidating role, but it doesn’t have to be. And hopefully by the end of Zahra’s Very Brief Intro to DMing, you’ll feel ready to take it on. Because really, you’re already ready, you just need a bit of prep.
So, quickly, what is Dungeons and Dragons? It’s a tabletop roleplaying game where a group of people create characters, and using dice and modifiers you play as those characters, overcoming enemies, solving puzzles, and learning about the world you’re in. It’s a lot of fun! It can be as dramatic or as silly as you want, it can be a single session or a campaign that lasts years, and it’s a collaborative experience, where all the players all contribute to gameplay and the story. It’s customisable, and unique to every party.
But you need a Dungeon Master. They’re the one who creates the setting for your party. They are in control of enemies and non-playable allies, they adjust the game as you play depending on the desired experience, and they often have a story that they want the party to play through.
This doesn’t mean the DM is in control of everything! They are also subjected to the same rules that the party must abide by. If their big bad evil guy rolls badly and trips over a rock, they can’t just say no, I’m not letting that happen. Likewise, if the party turns down the wrong path (that has loads of warning signs plastered all over it), and end up falling into lava, well, they can’t really stop that.
Every game is different, and every group is different. But you remember what I said about DnD being a collaborative experience? The DM may put you in a setting, filled with vibrant and cool characters. And they may have a story they want to tell, but the party also decides on where they want to go, what they want to do, and will influence the story in their own way.
That’s not always the case, you might want more of a Party vs DM kind of game, which can also be quite fun with its own unique challenges.
But at the end of the day the most important thing is that people are having fun, and they’re engaged.
So, now that you know what the DM does, just how do you DM?
Depending on your group and the desired experience, outline a world. It might just be a forest with little villages in it, could be an undersea city. Don’t get bogged down by details right now.
You’ll need to create various characters, some may be villains for your party to go up against. A lot of them might be allies, annoyances, just silly little guys. It’s up to you! Think about your players and your goals, and create obstacles to challenge them, and helpful folks to nudge them in the right direction. This bit is a lot like creating characters as a party member, and for minor characters you can just have the most basic sheet with their stats and attacks on it.
For more important, major characters? Making them is exactly like creating a party character. Feel free to flesh them out as much as you wish. Give them goals, strengths, weaknesses.
For longer campaigns, outlining story beats is helpful for me to do upfront, and then before each session I will flesh out that beat. I’ll give my players a quest or two that will either move them through the story or act as a way to round out their experience. How do I give them that quest? I might simply say ‘This ragtag group is on their way to defeat an evil wizard who has been terrorizing the local population! What will they do?’. It can be that easy.
Often though you’ll give your party a handy inn nearby with an innkeeper who knows about everything and everyone, and will have a quest or two on hand. It’s a bit cliched, but it works, and it’s nice for your party to have a homebase and an NPC who welcomes them.
And finally, make a map. Will your party be going through a dungeon filled with traps and dangers? Or a swamp where one wrong move will have them walking into the jaws of a monster? You’ll want to make a map, it can be crudely drawn it just needs to be clear, so then your players can more easily understand the space they’re in. You don’t need a map for everything, like the long boring walk between towns, but for anywhere where having a space visualised will be useful. And keep a couple of pieces of grid paper nearby for those unplanned fights.
It doesn’t sound like a lot of prep, right? And here’s where I reveal the biggest secret for DMs. It’s all improv! Think about it, you can’t predict what your players are going to do, who they’re going to talk to, where they’re going to go. You can make them a super clear path, but they may decide to just slash their way through the forest. They might decide that they need to help a little girl find her pet dog, or they might want to try to seduce the innkeeper. Give them some space to explore and do their own thing, improvise as you go, and when you need to give them a nudge then have a messenger run up to them with a request for help.
But what about when you’re playing through the session and your players ask if they can do kickflips off the back of the enemy ogre but also they want to convince the ogre to let them do that? What skill check is that? What numbers do you need? You didn’t prepare for this, you’re feeling the pressure, is it persuasion or acrobatics? Both? Don’t panic! Here is my other secret.
You can just google it, look it up in the handbook, consult a cheatsheet, or you can even just go ‘this sounds right, does that sound fair?’ and make a decision. It’s fine! You can’t know everything, and it’s stressful being put on the spot constantly. Some DMs will have a ‘Rule of Cool’, where if a player proposes something extremely epic then you’ll do what you can to make it work. I like the ‘Rule of Keeping Momentum Going’. It’s more important to keep the game moving than it is to make sure every single move is perfectly legal. It really doesn’t matter all that much.
It doesn’t mean just do whatever you want, but you can just use your best judgement, and if it sounds fair then your players will be fine with it. Let’s keep this fight going!
And finally, you don’t need to create this perfectly unique, epic, homebrewed story with your own language and tonnes and tonnes of details and lore. You can just find an adventure or campaign that someone else made, and use it! There are adventures specifically for new DMs that will give you all the information you need for a successful session, gently teach you, and give you advice as you go. You can still put your own spin on it, introduce customised puzzles for that one person who is really good at moving tile puzzles, and make a friendly wolf character for your party to adopt. It’s all fine!
So let me just recap:
The DM is just another player, just with a lot more paperwork.
The DM does NOT need to know everything, they don’t need to know all the rules, they don’t need to plan for every possible decision the players might make.
You can just improvise.
You can just make up reasonable rules, or make a decision based on your own judgment in order to keep the game moving.
You can use pre-written adventures.
Maps are very important.
Have fun! The party should have fun, but the DM also needs to have fun too!
You’re all playing make-believe. It’s not that serious.
You find yourself in a room that is 5m by 5m. It is empty, except for the people there with you, also waking up, and the long bench against one side of the room that supports 4 bundles of gear, including weapons. The room itself is made out of smooth stone tiles, off-white against the light coming from the ceiling. You see a door, it is solid and heavy. Next to the door is a hook, with a similarly heavy key hanging from it.
You find that you have no recollection of what brought you here. You don’t know who the other people are, although when you see each other you feel a sense of knowing that you SHOULD know who they are. It is on the tip of your tongue, but it doesn’t seem to want to leave.
A piece of paper falls from your pocket. When you look at it, it has a name. When you read it outloud, you know it to be your name. How could you have ever forgotten your own name? And as those familiar strangers stir, you wonder…
What do you do next? Open the door? Question those in the room with you? Grab the nearest weapon and start swinging?
In the world of Dungeons and Dragons, all that, and so much more, is possible. All that really limits you is your imagination. And some rules, guidelines, and mechanics to get you going.
First things first, what is Dungeons and Dragons? It is a tabletop roleplaying game, where a group of people all create characters to play as. A Game Master will control enemies, allies, and create the world and setting for the players, as well as guide the players through a story. But the players aren’t just witnessing a story, they are experiencing and changing it. Dungeons and Dragons, or D&D for short, is a collaborative experience. The experience might be a slapstick comedy, an epic heroic tale, or a truly tragic story of heartbreak and betrayal. That’s up to you.
Now, there is a lot to this game, but it’s a lot easier to get started than you would think. So here is Zahra’s Very Brief Intro to D&D!
First up, you and your group will want to decide on a setting. Maybe you’re going to be pirates on the high seas, or exploring ancient ruins at the top of mountains. Knowing where you’ll be playing is a good start. This is mostly up to your game master, but like I said, this is a collaboration.
Next, building a character! Ideally, you and your group will want to have a balanced party, with at least one healer, one tank, and at least one for dealing damage. You can be extremely flexible with this, there are so many classes to work with.
Tank types can be barbarians and paladins, spellcasters tend to be clerics, druids, sorcerers, warlocks, and wizards. Damage dealers may be fights, monks, and rangers. Choosing your class depends on what kind of character you want to build. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.
On top of classes, you’ll have to decide on a race to play. Humans, elves, dwarves, and orcs are probably the most recognisable ones, but you can also play as halflings, goblins, drow, tieflings, cat people, bird people, and so much more. Each has their own strengths and weaknesses, and can compliment and round out your character.
Finally, you can build the rest of your character, which starts to involve dice. Depending on your decisions, and the numbers you roll, you can build your stats. The main ones are your hitpoints, which is your health, and your strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence, wisdom, and charisma. These numbers will grant you modifiers that you will apply to your rolls during gameplay.
You will also select weapons, spells, and equipment, best suited to your character and gameplay style.
You’ve created your character, given them a name. Maybe they’re a tiefling bard, or a halfling cleric. It’s almost time to play, but first, a quick overview of the mechanics that’ll you’ll encounter as you play.
I mentioned stats. Your stats, class, race, and background will influence what skills you have. I’m not just talking about attacks and spells. You can get skills such as animal handling, deception, medicine, performance, stealth, survival, and so much more. You can also be bad at some of these skills. After all, if you’re in full plate armour, stealth isn’t really going to be your forte.
Spells and attacks are pretty self explanatory. Depending on your character, you will have a range of spells and attacks you can use. For magic users, your strength will be with spells. For others, you’ll be using weapons. You can get skills in both areas, but you’ll generally focus on one or the other.
Spell users, do be aware that you can only use a limited number of spells in battle. Some spells will have special requirements, like requiring you to concentrate for a minute, or you’ll need materials, like precious stones, or even skulls. So don’t just start launching fireballs everywhere.
Now, outside of combat you’ll be wandering around, exploring the world your game master has put you in. You might need to break out of prison, solve a murder, or find a rare book. You’ll talk to characters and your party, and this is your opportunity to roleplay, acting out as your characters. Are you the lone wolf type who doesn’t want to be part of a party? Are you trying to find your lost family, and you need your party to help you? Are you just tagging along to beat up baddies? It’s up to you, and don’t be afraid to act it out.
Uh oh, you’ve run into a group of goblins who have been robbing travellers! It’s time to roll for initiative. This will determine the order in which everyone will act. The goblins are also establishing their initiative order. The higher the number, the sooner you act. And when it’s time to act, you have a few things you can do.
Your turn will generally have three things you can do. You can move, how far you can move depends on your speed, you can perform an action, which might be an attack, casting a spell, or using an item. And then you’ll have a bonus action, which can sometimes be another attack, but is usually your opportunity to do something minor. Maybe yell an insult. Whatever you do, you’ll need to use your stats and abilities to see if you succeed or not. The higher the roll, the better… usually.
Each turn lasts 6 seconds, but you’ll have more time than that to make your decision. Not that much time though, other people are waiting their turns and you need to keep the game moving.
Thankfully, with the help of your party members, and some health potions, you have defeated the goblins, although one managed to run away. That probably won’t be a problem later. But you got some experience and some loot, and a cool story for later.
Actually playing is fairly straightforward, once you’ve got your character all set up. Don’t be afraid to ask questions, like ‘can I try to swing on these vines to get across the ravine?’. There is usually a way to try to pull off what you want to do, but do keep your character abilities in mind. Vine swinging is usually easier for a ranger than it is for a paladin.
So, how do you get started?
You’ll want to find a group of people, at least 4, but you don’t want to have more than 6 people, not to start with at least. One person needs to be the game master, but don’t worry, we’ll be doing an intro to being a game master later. It’s not as intimidating as you’d think. You can find tonnes of adventures already written up, with story, characters and enemies, maps and dungeons, and any relevant information, online. Some for free, some for a small cost. Or you can even buy one of the official campaigns, such as Curse of Strahd.
Having the Player’s Handbook will contain all the information you need to build a character and play them effectively, but you can use online character creators to build your character. The D&D 5th Edition community wiki will also have all the information you need on weapons, armour, classes, races, backgrounds, spells, and so much more. Once you build your character, it’s a great reference.
After all, at the end of the day, we’re all just a bunch of nerds playing pretend. And it’s a lot of fun. So go pick out some dice, bring up a name generator, and get into it!
We asked the crew at Zed Games what their highlights of this year’s show were and they were happy to oblige.
Ezie
Tiny Tina’s Wonderland: Gearbox Software creators of the famous Borderlands series have a spin off shooter looter that requires no prior knowledge of the Borderlands’ universe. I’m new to having a Borderlands addiction and the excitement I have for a spin off with a fantastic and fantabulous character like Tiny Tina is very exciting. Expected to drop in 2022 with BUTT STALLION!
Halo Infinite: Master Chief is back with what appears to be a ‘new Cortana’ and I’m so excited to see out more of his journey, fight more evil aliens and venture further into unknown threats. I’ve been playing Halo since I was kid on the very first Xbox this is my most nostalgic game drop AND IT’S ON GAME PASS! Expected December 2021 along with the free online multiplayer that also looks like a while ride with friends.
We Are OFK: A making-of-the-band series & Interactive EP about dreaming, dating, and paying rent in Los Angeles.With colourful animations that give me Spiderman Miles Morales(the movie)visual vibes.A coming together making music kind of story, as a lover of interactive narrative games this is my biggest hype for indie releases fromE3this year.Developed by Team OFK and expected Spring 2021.
Woodo: A 3D puzzle game with heart. It’s everything you could want in a wholesome puzzle game. I’m excited to sit back and piece together wonderful little wooden rooms filled with cute animations. Looking to release in 2022.
Zahra
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2: Breath of the Wild is a stunning, immersive game,and I loved exploring, finding my own trails, puzzle solving, and uncovering the events of the past. And Breath of the Wild 2 builds on from that beautiful foundation, with a tantalising peek into the adventures and trials that await, while promising to be bigger and better, with new enemies and abilities to face and conquer.
Redfall: A 4 player co-op game with cool characters, each with unique abilities, personalities,and fun banter? Count me in! The trailer seems to indicate dynamic gameplay, with lots of opportunities to pull off cool attacks, while assisting and backing up your crew.I can’t wait to see more, and to find out more about this world with vampires, magic,and student debt.
Riders Republic: I have far too many breakable bones to get into extreme sports IRL, but extreme sports in a video game where I can participate in massive races, events, and game-modes where doing the most the best is the aim of the game? That I can do.And the fact that there is a lot of customisation,and that I can play it in my own style just makes it much more appealing.
Paul
Trek to Yomi: Just look at it! Taking notes from samurai cinema of the 50’s and 60’s this gorgeous looking game, I mean. Just look at it. Geez. Anyway this game looks pretty sweet which is unsurprising as it come from Leonard Menchiari who developed the incredibly cool and vastly under exposed The Eternal Castle [Remastered].
Warioware – Get it Together: Every WarioWare game is a classic which means this game has a lot to live up to but also an extremely strong base to build on. It’s a real twist to the formula (not to be confused with WarioWare: Twisted) where for the first time you interact with the microgames by playing a character that moves around inside them. Also it’s designed to include 2 player in the games. Boy I am excited and nervous!
Somerville: Inside is one of the best games ever made. Some might call that an opinion but I believe it to be a hard fact. While this isn’t Playdead’s new game it is the new game by one of Playdead’s founders who split off to start a new studio (Jump Ship) but the sensibility of Inside and Limbo are plain to see in this extremely evocative trailer. A family living surviving in a world gripped by and alien invasion? Get ready for feelings!
Elden Ring: I wasn’t hyped. Now I am. Open world. freaky designs and a horsie. Thank you From Software.
Honorable Mentions: Death’s Door, Replaced, FAR: Changing Tides, Metal Slug Tactics, Battlefield 2042, El Paso Elsewhere
Rani
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2
Metroid Dread
Trek to Yomi
Honorable Mentions: Elden Ring
Maylee
Anacrusis: Nothing quite like a good co-op shooter, plus this game shares some of its team from Left 4 Dead. That and Anacrusis’ aesthetic make me pretty confident this will be a fun ride.
Slime Rancher 2: Maybe it’s cheap to pick the sequel of a game I really love but how can I not be excited for more slime. They’ve got bunny slimes this time!
Bear and Breakfast: I’ve known about this one for a while but seeing the new trailer got me excited all over again. It’s a cute, cozy, management game with spooky sinister undertones? Sign me up!
Tobi
Book of Travels: This tiny multiplayer online RPG (TOMRPG) aims at creating a new online community with high stakes. The aim? Shaping your own journey and finding your own story in the vast hand drawn world of Braided Shore.
Despot’s Game: Because a game with premise of creating an army and watching the outcome in an auto-battler tickles both the idler and the sadistic warmonger in me. ATTACK PUNY HUMANS!
WarioWare – Get it Together: With a new kid flailing on the floor the ability to play this alone or in multiplayer with over 200 minigames and multiple playable characters just clicks for now… and for future battles with the bub.
Honorable Mentions: Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Silt, Haunted Space and a heap from the Wholesome Direct (Venba, Dordogne, Hoa and Letters – a written adventure)
All the hottest events to check out over this year’s E3 period!
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