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This open-world action RPG won for Best Visual Art at the Indieplay 2019 awards. Set in ancient world with lush, vibrant landscapes, players control Kaku, a diminutive god stuck in a primitive body who has also lost his memory. For now, Boundary will focus entirely on PVP content: customizing loadouts, upgrading weapons, and manipulating a delicate system of pressurised air jets and grappling. When you die, you respawn in an impervious cocoon, a brief but exhilarating reprieve from the madness of gravity-free combat. In space, it’s challenging to maintain a basic sense of direction, much less in a high-octane 5v5 free-for-all. Shenzen-based studio Surgical Scalpels has managed to spin a straightforward combat genre on its head by adding the technical trickery of a well-tuned flight sim.
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Taking place entirely in zero-g space, Boundary is a fresh challenge for multiplayer FPS fans looking to break free from terrestrial physics. Here are a few notable releases to look out for: “I’ve seen a few party-like games but most never go past the prototype stage, mostly at game jams,” Ren said over WeChat, noting that his observations are limited to his local scene.įor now, it sounds like there’s nowhere to go but up for Chinese games, and 2020 still has a few surprises up its sleeve. His upcoming party pack can be played by one to four people with controllers, and includes the nostalgic mini-game GEOGIFS, which features a Britney Spears gif as the final boss. Ren, for one, is riding the indie momentum and energising Shanghai’s social scene through installations and mini games for events via his Touch Our Buttons collective. Several exhibiting developers are graduates of NYU’s games program, including Nick Zhang (Unheard, 2019), Mike Ren (Hazy Days, 2016), and Dong Zhou (Moncage, TBD), and they’ve brought their experiences and creative visions back to the mainland.
Deepsea, due out in early 2020 from INDIECN, is a similar detective-style game that uses FMV.Ĭhina’s indie scene continues to grow in confidence, something that Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail mentioned during his talk at CiGA and a noticeable difference from previous years of uncertainty. Visitor, which involves poring over videos and crime scene documentation, has a distinctly Chinese take on the murder mystery, with moments of borderline camp humour that you’d find on a sitcom or soap opera.
From the first chapter of VisitorĬhatting before the WePlay convention ended on day one, the devs from Zhongce Games expressed admiration for Sam Barlow’s cult hit Her Story and its influence on their work. Its second chapter was released in late 2019. Visitor, an episodic FMV detective game that launched in 2018, was nominated for Best Narrative at the IndiePlay 2019 awards. Over the past year or so, the universal elements of the police procedural have merged with the phenomenon of jubensha or “script murder” escape games to create a culturally specific subgenre. But the real stars of the show were from smaller studios, each offering an intriguing look at the range and depth of the Chinese indie landscape.įor example, full-motion video games are making a distinct comeback in China. There were also, of course, international names like Blizzard, Ubisoft, and 505 Games. Paired with the China Indie Game Alliance (CiGA) conference, the annual convention is a highlight for the mainland’s relatively young game scene.Ĭhinese heavyweights like Next Studios, TapTap, bilibili, and Coconut Island held court on the floor – the latter had a booth styled as a nostalgic classroom with a blackboard and wooden desks.
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In December 2019, China’s indie scene was out in full force at WePlay in Shanghai, arguably the most significant developer-focused event in the country.