PAX South 2018

PAX South is a part of the Penny Arcade Expo series of conventions. This PAX is located in San Antonio, TX at the Henry B. Gonzalez convention center. This PAX is more intimate than East; with that being said it’s way easier to play games. The most difficult line proved be the one for Monster Hunter. A few indie games that stood out to me are Due Process, Sprint Vector, Shadow Fist and a platformer by Luminosity Mobile.

Due Process is a strategy based shoot em game. The game starts off with both teams staring at a map deciding on how you’re going to maneuver around the other team. It’s also a mind game so players aren’t just shooting one another. They must learn to sike out the other team in the gameplay. However, if strategizing isn’t a strong suit, no worries because being able to pick people off is a necessary skill. At that point the game turns into follow the leader and be support. It’s a 5v5 player game. It’s still in the alpha phase so I guess it’s safe to say it’s going through, due process!

Sprint Vector is a virtual reality racing game available on Steam. In order to sprint in the game pumping your arms mimicking a running motion propels the character forward, jumping and flying are abilities done using the controllers. To move left and right the player can turn their head and upper body side to side Sprint Vector allows the player to run uo hills, jumo and fly off to get a boost ahead of the other player. While flying the player can either turn their head to fly in a certain direction or their hands like a wheel. There is a versus mode that allows two players to race one another. Sprint Vector is available on Steam.

Shadow Fist

Luminosity Mobile’s platformer is stunningly simple. The game starts off in black and white and the character is carrying a paint brush; the world is your canvas. The character’s only weapon is a paint brush that has two attack modes, torpedo in this mode a glob of paint is fired at the enemies. The regular attack is a simple swipe with the paint brush. Sounds simple right, except when there is a bomb coming up on the right and it keeps switching color thus making the character quickly switch in between, red, blue, green and yellow trying to hit the bomb at the right time to diffuse and destroy it instead of triggering it to explode and taking starting over from the last check point. It’s a very zen game because of the simple colors and the fact of swinging the paint brush across the levels coloring the backgrounds; while revealing hidden objects. They have a mobile game out right now more for kids but this will be available in March 2018.

It’s always nice to see the games the devs work on as well as speak to them and learn how they came up with the game. I’m not sure the next PAX I’ll be attending but i look forward to hearing more about the indie games presented.

My initial trip to PAX South 2018 was for a panel, Esports is for Everyone. It was a great experience speaking which such passionate people and big names in the industry like D1 shoutcaster for Smash, Keitaro shoutcaster for Samsh Wii U, Sam, founder of LFG Cybercafe, Harold, owner of San Lan in San Antonio, TX.