Games and Gaming from Southeast Asia
Code Atma is a free-to-play mobile Idle RPG made by Agate Games from Bandung, Indonesia. This mobile game lets you collect mystical creatures called ‘Atma’ and train them to defeat your enemies. In this world, Atma is the primary source of life, every person has Atma inside them, but not everyone will realize it.
The Last Transmission: Home (TLTH) is a prototype puzzle game where you pilot a rocket through space on your way home to Earth. Developed by Ultimapwn from the Philippines for Global Game Jam 2019, TLTH is a part of their itch.io games library, also comprising of other experimental titles such as Minimum Security Prison and Welcome, Galactic Fix and Jeepney Frenzy.
In the era of old Wild West: One bullet in your revolver is all you need to survive and earn respect. One Shot is a mobile game from Mike Studio, a solo game developer based in the Philippines. The game is pure and simple: kill the enemy and earn your score with just one bullet.
Sometimes it’s only short moments that have a big impact: When The Past Is Around is just a short game, but rarely has the experience been so impressive and emotional. This point ‘n click adventure by Mojiken Studio from Indonesia tells a story about love, loss, pain, and moving on, which doesn’t get lost in depression but also manages to remember and celebrate the beautiful things in life.
We particularly liked two aspects about Short Creepy Tales: 7PM: The setting and the visual design. In addition, 7PM is an exciting, albeit very short, horror adventure that shows the potential that lies dormant in games with unused scenarios and creative design decisions outside the mainstream.
Waking up and leaving the house is just the beginning of the nightmare the player goes through in A Day Without Me, the debut of Gamecom Team. You get out of bed and must find out about your existence in an empty, chaotic neighborhood. Following a vibrating noise through the doors of your house and after finally switching it off, you’ll find yourself in front of a demonic ritual circle. The other doors are locked, protected by devils’ faces on the door plate. What the heck is going on…?
In a world where electronic sounds dominate the music business, our task is to bring rock back to its former glory. Action adventure No Straight Roads by Malaysian studio Metronomik received a lot of praise and expectations for one of the most important games from Southeast Asia are huge. In this review, we will clarify whether the game lives up to these expectations and can claim the rock ‘n roll throne once an for all.
The buns are ready! After some development time and a successful Kickstarter call Bake ‘n Switch was finally released for the PC on Steam. Can the cute co-op scuffle from Malaysia meet the high expectations?
Did you think this was one of those games that would be stuck forever in the Early Access nimbus and then be silently released at some point? Well, you were dead wrong! Instead, developer Toge Productions and publisher Modern Wolf have followed a stringent plan and now officially released their game Necronator: Dead Wrong after only 5 months of Early Access. Is this version any good now and is the project really finished? Let’s find out!
Imagine living in a world where people who have sex without loving each other go up in flames. What will happen to our relationships? The narrative adventure Fires At Midnight gets to the bottom of this question and sends us through a thrilling fever dream in the life of a young couple against the backdrop of the turn of the millennium in Malaysia.
Flickering neon lights. Skyscrapers wherever you look. This city is sinking into a swamp of crime and violence. Right in the middle stands a young woman with colored hair. Pumping electro beat. Slash! Before you know it, a room full of corpses. Welcome to Lithium City. This game feels like a fever dream: confusing, sweat inducing, overwhelming with stimuli and yet somehow gripping. Lithium City manages to combine fun and frustration like no other game without forcing you to put that gamepad down for good if you take the challenge.
A young girl wakes up in her bed. Is she in a hospital? She leaves the room and we quickly notice that something is wrong here. Clinically clean environments, strange machines and dangerous robots on patrol. What is going on here? Let’s leave this unpleasant environment as soon as possible! In Timelie, the first game by Thai studio Urnique, we are looking for a way out and how to get there is the puzzle we have to solve. Fortunately, time is on our side!
Rocky Rampage: Wreck ’em Up is an arcade game for mobile devices (Android and iOS) in which we try to launch our “hero” Mr. Boulder boulder through a level at the most dizzying speed possible. He doesn’t run himself, but is rather catapulted through the air like a wrecking ball. He constantly loses speed and ultimately just comes to a stop like a rock. However, the goal is to get particularly far, or to defeat the final boss of each level by bumping into it.
Ciel Fledge, the latest game by the Indonesian developer Studio Namaapa, offers the unique opportunity to raise a daughter without having to ruin a real person’s life. As a cross between visual novel, match-3 mini-games and simulation, the game allows you to extensively manage your new kid’s activities and influence the career path she will take. Let’s take a deeper dive into the game and see how this mix plays out.
What do you get when you combine the tactical mechanics of XCOM with the card-based gameplay from Slay the Spire? If it is up to Drix Studios from the Philippines, the result is called Grand Guilds. This concept was also able to find enough fans on Kickstarter and the finished game has now finally been released. You can find out in this review whether Grand Guilds successfully linked the popular mechanics of its role models and how we liked the rest of the game.
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.
