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Preview: Rising Star Games Indie Roadshow

Stevivor recently had a chance to visit Surprise Attack Games’ office in Melbourne to get hands-on time with four upcoming games being published by Rising Star Games. Rising Star is celebrating its 10th anniversary as a publisher this year. That’s a significant milestone for any company, but especially impressive for a publisher that doesn’t handle triple-A games.

Getting hands-on time with the Rising Star Games Roadshow reveals why the publisher is still around after a decade. Rising Star publishes some great games and the four on show were no exception. Spanning multiple genres, the Roadshow shows that Rising Star are still leaders in the indie publishing field and why they’ll likely be around for another 10 years.

Kromaia

Kromaia

Kromaia, from developer Kraken Games, is at its core a frenetic space shoot-’em-up. Think Rez, but not on rails. In Kromaia anywhere you can see, you can go. I wasn’t able to play any missions in the preview build, but I did get hands on with survival mode. Basically, keep your ship going for as long as possible against waves of increasingly numerous and difficult enemies. Movement is fast. Really fast. It’s also incredibly fluid. Flying through the intensely and brightly coloured world is disorientating initially, especially as the slightest movement sends your ship hurtling through space. Quite quickly though, you’ll learn to finesse the controls and soon enough will be blasting away dozens of enemy ships as if they were nothing.

A pulsing soundtrack accompanies you while you’re hurtling through space and gets increasingly intense and the difficulty ratchets up notch upon notch. A unique AI is present in Kromaia that learns and adapts to your playstyle, meaning you’ll have constantly adjust and be on your toes just to stay alive. Kromaia will be a huge hit with SHMUP fans, but casual players may find the whole package a little overwhelming. It’s a lot of fun, but there’s a lot to take in. That being said Kromaia is definitely worth a look.

Tulpa

Tulpa

Tulpa exists directly as a result of games like Braid, Limbo and Knytt UndergroundTulpa — developed by Encryptique — features Ophelia and her male Tulpa (Oliver) traversing though a striking, matte-coloured nightmare. A hybrid point and click adventure and platformer Tulpa relies on the combination of Ophelia and Oliver solving puzzles and moving forward through an ever changing and constantly dangerous world.

Ophelia can run and jump and that’s about it. Whereas, Oliver can interact with objects, move them and create new paths for Ophelia. Being an otherworldly spirit, Oliver can fly and move through solid objects. As Ophelia and Oliver are linked though he can’t stray too far or Ophelia starts to suffer mentally and will eventually die from mental anguish is Oliver is too far away for too long. Combining Ophelia’s physical platforming with Oliver’s ghostly powers leads to some interesting and tricky puzzles initially which will undoubtedly ramp up in difficulty as the game progresses. Tulpa isn’t a fast, action-packed platformer. It’s a slow, creeping, moody thinker. More puzzler than platformer fans of those previously mentioned indie platformers will definitely find something they can enjoy with Tulpa.

La-Mulana EX

La-Mulana_EX_1

La-Mulana EX — ported by Pygmy Studios — is for the Spelunky crowd. A wickedly difficult action-platformer, Lu-Malana EX is a port on PS Vita of the original game, released in 2005 for PC. Professor Lemeza Kosugi has spent his whole life searching for the mysterious cave of La-Mulana. Kosugi’s father Shawn sends him a letter claiming to have found the ruins. Upon arrival he’s greeted with hundreds of murderous enemies and monsters and a labyrinthine underground cavern that he may never escape from.

La-Mulana is as much about twitch gameplay as it is about precision jumping, puzzle solving and caution. One false move and Kosugi is dead and you’re back where you started. The ruins of La-Mulana are enourmous and exploring them fully is going to take a very long time indeed. With a wide selection of melee and ranged weapons, Kosugi isn’t entirely helpless, but prepare to die and die a lot. Games like La-Mulana are perfectly suited to the PS Vita. It’s responsive, fast and looks great on the handheld screen. The build I played was letterboxed, but I was assured it would be fullscreen on release. If you like Spelunky then La-Mulana Ex will be right up your alley.

Tri

Tri

Tri is my favourite of the four games I played at Rising Star’s Indie Roadshow. Part Portal, part Okami and all gorgeous, it’s a first-person puzzler from Rat King. Upon awakening in a strange, ancient Japan-esque world, you’re guided by a fox mask clad spirit to find the titular Tri and thus be able to travel through this weird world. With the power of the Tri you’re able to place an anchor point on any solid surface and then by placing two other points create a solid, triangular platform. The triangle can be flat or angled. Large or small and steep or shallow. If you try to create a triangle that’s too steep the onscreen indicator will be red and you won’t be able to create the platform until you level it out a little.

Tri is wholly devoted to traversal puzzles. In the initial stages of the game it’s quite easy to figure out what needs to be done to proceed, but very quickly the puzzles become difficult. On solving them that sweet rush of self satisfaction sweeps through you and spurs you onto the next and then the one after that. Left clicking creates the anchor points, while right clicking deletes whole triangles. These two mechanics are cleverly intertwined for maximum puzzling.

Along with the simple, yet incredibly effective concept, Tri is very pretty. The graphics are minimalist by design, but they evoke simple geometry, clean lines and really reinforce the nature of the game. Each level is timed so players who want to challenge their friends to a time-attack can replay them over and over again. Additionally, hidden throughout each level are a number of fox statues. Some are quite easy to spot while others are deviously hidden and will take a significant effort to discover. Replyability is going to be high for Tri and it’s definitely looking like a game worth investing in.

The Rising Star Games Indie Roadshow featured four very promising games that demonstrate a thriving independent game development scene. Stay tuned for a more in depth preview of Tri in the near future.

Tri, Kromaia and Tulpa will be available on PC. La-Mulana EX will be available on PS Vita.


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