Day 3 impressions
The Swindle
So, after that presentation by Dan Marshall yesterday, I decided to check the game out considering I agreed with some of his criticisms towards stealth games. Here is a steampunk/cyberpunk (finally!) caper where you're going into locations and stealing things while also hacking or remote detonating or bombing through the destructible levels. The hacking prompt is awesome, cause once you start hacking, then the camera keeps on zooming on you while QTE button prompts are required making the affair quite tense. The AI is purposefully dumb so that you can be stealth bombing all the time, which makes for hilarious fun. If you get spotted, you can start whacking enemies with your RB attack using the baton. It's not quite an action game per se cause you'll still die pretty easily so it's more about just jumping around like a monkey, wall flipping around, bombing levels and murdering everyone. There are multiple entrances much like Mark of the Ninja, and the sliding down will remind you of that game too but it's not game over if you're spotted. There's not much waiting around, it really is an arcade stealth-action game and I was impressed.
The Flame In The Flood
For a survival game, I wasn't expecting much from 10 or so minutes of play but this surprised me thanks to the amount of direction and proximity to events. Once I checked my bag and made a better jacket, I caught me some wee rabbits in snares, cooked them, and ate them. Even though I wasn't hungry

Rafted around for a bit, the cool thing is the water rapids will force you in certain directions if they're strong so you've got to direct the boat as best you can. Got off at some other places until it got dark and was warned about wolves. A big wolf did come, and lightning would make the game go black-and-white while the wolf is coming at you making it feel more cinematic. I shooed it away enough but then I died. The art direction is astounding. Some nice southern American sounds when you're on the raft.
SWORDY
Two player versus gladiatorial game where you're dumped in an arena and pick up weapons on the ground to flail at each other. It's a physics-y brawler, so you can use momentum on your side to make your weapon spin around like olympians do with the hammer throw. You can stab with the triggers but spinning around made you more of an unpredictable force. The blood splatter was fantastic, spraying the entire arena. Sometimes you can even stab yourself and die just like that. Played it with my friends and it was loads of fun.
HUE
You can flip around colours on a wheel to make levels look certain colours. If there's an obstacle and you turn the level into the same colour as it, then you can get past and switch back to another colour to then revert it. That changing of colours is a fun loop. It's a short demo, only been 3 months of development, but is a cool proof of concept. I did love that unlike most games, this cute little (tough) dude can just elbow blocks rather than needing to put all his arms into it.
Screencheat
Very retro feeling FPS. This game is already out, but it's fun playing it with a friend. There was loads of shouting at each other and exasperated confusion. If you don't know the concept, you're invisible. You can only tell where the opponent is by looking at their splitscreen and using that location to shoot them. There was a lot of variety of weapons, from a grenade launcher to a candelabra that spits out a fire wave or my favourite, the hobby horse that lets you charge but leaves a fiery trail that can give away your position. The death names as play on retro MP FPSs are hilarious, like one is "You cheesecake'd [Opponent]" or "You Tony Abbotted [Opponent]".
Magnetic: Case Closed
It's a first person puzzler with magnets. With left mouse, you get red which moves you away from objects, and right mouse is blue which moves you closer. Except there already is Magrunner which does the same thing and plays better. The graphics on this weren't so hot either. Overall, bit of a meh feeling but I did like going really high with the magnet-controlled jump pads.
Ronin
This is basically Mark of the Ninja's pause when you're usually in the air made into a full game thanks to the turn-based nature. You can move your character but you can only jump by aiming your trajectory much like Gunpoint. If you've played either game, you'll be very comfortable here. There is light and shadow, so can use that to acquire more stealth takedowns. You can hack computers, but that just involves a button press and nothing more. Getting a death-from-above is always satisfying because there is the stun when you drop on them, then the A button prompt to execute them. The stun itself is actually real-time so if you stun but don't do anything, they'll get up therefore incentivising executions. There is one part where you drop into a place and are ambushed by three enemies at multiple angles. Since it's turn-based, you can strategise on the fly like jumping onto an enemy, stabbing them, then maybe using a grappling hook (indicated by black dots rather than a white arc) to manipulate them further. Eventually, you'll start making triangles of movements as you're darting about making you feel like a badass when properly executed.
Sublevel Zero
Very Descent. 6-degrees-of-freedom ship shooter. Lots of tunnels left and right, up and down. Played it on Oculus Rift which made it more impactful when you rotated around. I got the hang of the controls quite easily, strafing and yawing around enemies with satisfying explosions. It's early so don't shoot the glowy ball and I mentioned that the reticule is a bit small. Short, cool little demo and just moving around felt great.
De Mambo
For a local MP game using just one button outside of the D-pad for movement, it's pretty skill-based. A is the main button which you use to attack. It can be held so you let out a three-pronged array of projectiles, and an even further move that I couldn't quite master. There's a ground pound if you're mid-air and just press down. There's momentum to your movement, and the developer mentioned Mario. You can actually triple jump. It's a bit like Super Smash Bros where the level can get destroyed and you can fall off-screen. Definitely a game to which playing reveals more nuance than from just the looks. The dev there is a GAFer here (he mentioned for me to check out the game and only did when I had friends and my sister around today).
I asked if his username was about the filmmaker and so we geeked about Jodorowsky

Playstation first, then Steam later. Seems the process to Playstation is really easy.
Tembo the Badass Elephant
I
almost missed out on this game until my sister and friend praised it, but what an absolute delight to end the whole event on. The art is cartoonish heaven. I HAD to take video of it, so my sister obliged with 9 minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEeH7SIq2Lc
As you see from the video, Tembo has a lot of moves. Ground pound, uppercut, diagonal dive bomb, a bit of a dash fly. I couldn't help but laugh at the slide tackle with Tembo's legs!
Super responsive controls, very satisfying audiovisual feedback, and just a joy to play. It's not very challenging which makes sense for the first few levels. You can unlock some humans so you can have many of them riding on your back. It overall felt like a more action-y Rayman Origins/Legends. Now that I've looked it up, Game Freak are the Pokemon devs. Glad to see they're branching out with this kind of game.