This week on Zed Games Hazel and Zahra with special guests Tex and Mars from Owl Machine talk the week in Gaming News from Caroline. The team then chats with Tex Barnes and Mars Bleach about their upcoming game Key Fairy. Paul then manages to pitch to Jackbox Games CCO, Allard Laban at this year’s PAX and interview them about the upcoming Jackbox game Survey Scramble.
And mixed in are some promos from Ascending Inferno from Oppolyon Studios and Fishbowl from Imissmyfriends.studio.
PAX Aus 2024 Indie Showcase Winners
PAX Aus has announced the winners from this year’s Aus Indie Showcase, all made by independent creators around Australia. The showcase will be a part of PAX Aus 2024, from October 11-13.
The six winners of the Digital category:
Untethered by True Anomaly Entertainment
Anticitizen: Red by Queebly Software
Ascending Inferno by Oppolyon Studios
Rita by SporkTank
The Rewinder 2 by Misty Mountain Studio
And last, but not least, Max Mustard, the VR game developed by Queensland studio Toast Interactive.
The six winners of the Tabletop category:
Fight with Spirit by Storybrewers Roleplaying
Oracle by Oracle Games
Glade by Teafrog Games
Frayed Ally by Button Fox
Nimbus by Neural Forge
MEAN! by Mean Games
The Olympic Esports Games
The International Olympics Committee has announced a 12-year partnership with Saudi Arabia to host the Olympic Esports Games, a standalone event. Saudi Arabia had hosted the Esports World Cup, which did result in a number of people boycotting the event over human rights concerns.
Esports has been ramping up over the last couple of decades, with schools and universities creating their own teams, competitive events gaining more and more popularity and viewership, and the introduction of esports events in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, where people from the Olympic Committee attended and were like ‘ok, now we get it’ according to Alban Dechelotte, CEO of G2 Esports.
Keeping esports as a separate event is intended to ‘give more space for a celebration of gaming and esports’, rather than being one of the additional sports.
Rocket League, League of Legends, and Street Fighter are likely picks considering that they were a part of the Commonwealth and Asian Games.
Gotta’ Croc ‘Em All
If you are a wearer of Crocs, and a fan of Pokemon, listen up. We’re getting four new designs inspired by some generation one Pokemon: Charizard, with a flame-like marble print; Gengar, which is giving ghostly ‘glamoflage’; Snorlax, with a dreamy blue marble print; and finally Jigglypuff, all pink and pastel. Each pair of Crocs comes with some jibbitz, with the Pokemon the Croc is based off!
No Console Required
Amazon now has a handy-dandy Xbox “No Console Required” bundle, launching alongside their Fire TV Stick Xbox Cloud Gaming app. What this means is that Xbox Game Pass users can stream games straight to their TV without requiring a console.
Microsoft has also released an ad that parodies the Scream movies, promoting the rollout with “you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox”, although some Xbox fans do feel that the console itself has been deprioritised by Microsoft, while expanding Game Pass, and their reach across PCs, mobile phones, and now TVs.
Remember that there have been a lot of changes made to Game Pass and the tiers available, as covered in the news last week by Paul. Only the Ultimate Tier will allow for Fire TV integration.
News Nibbles!
Axis Studios, the animation and VFX team, is officially going into administration, affecting 162 employees. The studio has worked on a variety of trailers and cinematics for Destiny, Halo, League of Legends, and more.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed, is the video game continuation of the film, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, which was released last year. A Heartful of Games, the team developing the game, will be keeping that stylised art-direction from the movie!
If you’ve been participating in the early access period for EA Sports College Football 25, you might have encountered a placeholder bug when trying to select your game mode. Players were given two options: a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’, and a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’. Oops.
And now for some upcoming games!
July 18th (that’s today!)
July 19th
July 23rd
July 25th