Games and Gaming from Southeast Asia
The pandemic triggered by the Corona Virus keeps the world in terror and of course also affects game development around the world. On itch.io, we found three short and free games from Southeast Asia that each deal with the Covid19 threat and the associated restrictions. We hope you enjoy reading and playing – take care, stay at home and above all, stay healthy!
Gordian Quest by Mixed Realms is a deck builder meets DnD game where you control a fantasy hero, grow to a party of three, and set out to kill an evil wizard. You know, as you do with these fantasy games. Now what makes Gordian Quest different from a regular turn-based RPG is that nearly all actions are based on cards, with different characters having separate decks that are further customized via equipment and upgrades from skill trees.
In their childhood days, who hasn’t dreamed of traveling the world as a super detective and chasing bad guys? It was the same with Mark Fillon of General Interactive from Singapore and his dream came true when he first played “Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?” In the early 90s. Now, many years later, he would like to revive this feeling and create a spiritual successor with Chinatown Detective Agency. You can now support Mark and his international team with this project on Kickstarter. We took a closer look at the alpha demo on the game, so that you know what you’re getting into.
What games can we expect from the Southeast Asian metropolis of Singapore in 2020? In addition to many new titles from aspiring solo developers and studios, we also note continuity and progress, because some developers have been routinely publishing high-quality games for years. With gamescom asia, Singapore is finally getting a games convention of international format – the perfect stage for game developers from Singapore and all of Southeast Asia. You can read which games we think are particularly noteworthy now.
Lately, our wordsmith Andreas has been commuting by subway frequently and therefore has more time to play on his mobile phones.This short mobile game mash-up features three gems from Southeast Asia that entertain him every day on the way to work!
Nintendo’s Switch console continues to be very successful, not least because many popular games are subsequently ported. So, it’s not surprising that developers Witching Hour and publisher Ysbryd Games from Singapore have also decided to re-release their tactical role-playing game Masquerada: Songs and Shadows for Nintendo’s Little Wonderbox. The game appeared already in May 2019.
For the second time only, the EGX took place in Berlin. As the little sister of the main event from the UK, the EGX Berlin has proved to be a small, but fine gaming event for interesting indies. The EGX pulls its great strength in comparison to big competitors like the Gamescom from its family-friendly environment, short distances and waiting times as well as an altogether relaxed visit. Although blockbusters such as Cyberpunk 2077 and Final Fantasy 7 Remake were also presented and were largely playable themselves, the focus was, as in the year before, on the small indie pearls. At least half of the show floor was dedicated to these games and there was one or the other highlight to discover and try out. In addition to many German and European projects, two games from Southeast Asia also found their way to the EGX Berlin 2019. We at Virtual SEA seized this opportunity to send Andreas to the event to try out these two titles for you.
CryoFall is a 2D survival game by AtomicTorch Studio (Singapore) out on Early Access, where you and a few dozen other humans crash land into an alien world and attempt to rebuild civilization. The scope of this game is honestly quite impressive coming from the perspective of someone new to survival games. The Tech Tree alone goes from building simple campfires to rolling through the alien world in full on power armor toting sci-fi weaponry, and the game apparently boasts the ability to be able to form entire cities with a working currency. The latter part, I, unfortunately, have not yet seen, mostly due to the small number of players in the servers who all who haven’t exactly made efforts to be friendly.
Transferring own biographies and emotional experiences into videogames has been a hit and miss so far. One of the challenges is to make the story fit with the gameplay. We can often discover a discrepancy between both parts, leaving the narrative and the interactive elements in dissonance. With “She Remembered Caterpillars”, we see another attempt to link the heartbreaking testimony of Malaysian writer Cassandra Khaw with a clever puzzle mechanic. Does it succeed to deliver a satisfying union?
Holy Potatoes! A Spy Story?! Is already the fourth installment in this humorous management simulation series developed by Daylight Studios from Singapore. It is about time to check out what […]
Here at Virtual SEA, we are working hard to represent the vast diversity of Southeast Asian video game development. While we give our best at covering as many games as possible through in-deep reviewing, there are still a lot more games that just fall under the table due to simple lack of time and resources (not to mention each of our own piles of shame). Now we want to give credit to all those little gems we played only for too little time to craft a proper review, but which still deserve your attention. This time, we present to you indie games from Singapore and Indonesia. Go and give these games a chance!
Fans of classic horror movies and geek culture should listen up: Streets of Red: Devil’s Dare Deluxe (DDD) is a multiplayer beat’em up full of parodic references to horror classics and arcade style gaming. With its retro style presentation and unforgiving permadeath gameplay, Singaporean developer Secret Base wants to revive memories of old school arcade brawler sessions.
Here at Virtual SEA, we are working hard to represent the vast diversity of Southeast Asian video game development. While we give our best at covering as many games as possible through in-deep reviewing, there are still a lot more games that just fall under the table due to simple lack of time and resources (not to mention each of our own piles of shame). Now we want to give credit to all those little gems we played only for too little time to craft a proper review but which still deserve your attention. This time, we present to you indie games from Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia. Go and give these games a chance!
Languages and creoles die when they fall out of use and relevance from current contexts. Moved by Kodrah Kristang’s mission to revitalise Kristang, I also wanted to use this local creole in my new game that is based on Southeast Asian culture and folklore. But this comes with challenges due to Kristang’s limited and/or dated vocabulary.
With the rise of indie games in the last years came a wave of new storytelling perspectives to the gaming world. Instead of telling fantastic stories about heroes and villains, game developers started to cope with their personal often traumatic experiences through the medium of video games. Some of the better-known examples here were That Dragon, Cancer or Nina Freeman’s debut masterpiece Cibele. Both of them take the players very closely into the personal memories and emotions of the game developers themselves and deliver intense experiences. Now, solo developer Amanda Lim (known as Sanud Games) from Singapore shares her own story in her debut work For Emery, a story about loss and grief.
We want to give credit to all those little gems we played only for too little time for a proper review but still deserve your attention. This time we present to you indie games from Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam and Malaysia.
