Games and Gaming from Southeast Asia
We don’t know much about PRETA แดนมรณะ yet, a game made by the Thai studio 7Evil, but the first trailer already gives us hope for an exciting horror survival adventure. The mix of story and short gameplay is visually impressive because the graphics are driven by the powerful Unreal Engine.
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!
Due to the current corona pandemic, UOW Malaysia KDU has decided to have this year’s summer showcase of its student projects take place digitally. It is an ideal opportunity for us to introduce you to the games made by students of the Bachelor of Game Development at the School of Computing & Creative Media. It is impressive what Malaysia’s future game designers have achieved already: from a culturally inspired point & click adventure, to a musical brawler or even a Souls-like, everything is there to delight a gaming enthusiast’s heart and what’s the best: all games can be downloaded free of charge, the links can be found below. We have picked five highlights for you, but the other projects are also definitely worth a look.
In Stray Alloys we will control a boy named Raymond who’s visual design is strikingly reminiscent of the main character from the Mega Man series. The setting also seems vaguely familiar to us: in the far future, different nations will fight on a planet for the abundant resources and of course we as players are right in the middle of 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.
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!
Southeast Asia is famous for its impressively beautiful coral reefs – but unfortunately many of these reefs have already died or are in extremely poor condition due to global pollution and the resulting global warming. To avoid further destruction of these fragile ecosystems, we need to protect the reefs and treat our environment with respect. The issue of environmentalism has so far been underrepresented in video games, but the Indonesian studio Stairway Games has now announced their game Coral Island to change just that.
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.
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.
We’ve probably all been there. Sometimes, you’re just itching to play a new game, but work and life left you tired and stressed out enough – picking up another 30h epic may seem too big a task. Fortunately, there are lots of great, shorter games out there and plenty of them can be found on Itch.io. Browsing through the site’s extensive library can be a task in itself, however, but we’re here to help. We’ve selected 4 games from our collection of indie games from Southeast Asia you should give a try the next time you’ve got that itch.
Is a good thing worth waiting for? When the Kickstarter campaign for Graywalkers: Purgatory started in September 2014, no one expected the ambitious project would have to face such an odyssey. The first release was announced for 2017, but the game never came out. A good six years after the crowdfunding campaign, the first official version of the post-apocalyptic turn-based role-playing game was finally released in Steam’s Early Access program. We have taken a closer look at Graywalkers: Purgatory and will tell you whether the project has arrived where it was supposed to go.
What are we afraid of? This is a question every game developer has to ask himself if he wants to make a horror game. For everyone, fear and creep means something different. Popular horror games usually include the elements of terror, psychological horror, and the body horror of blood and intestines. DreadOut2 from Indonesian studio Digital Happiness serves us a splendid horror cocktail that contains all of these elements. However, one thing is decidedly different: it is a thoroughly Indonesian horror game.
The big challenge with most management games is the difficulty that comes with the act of making busywork, fulfilling orders, and organizing tasks engaging gameplay. Some games push your micromanagement skills to the limit, placing you on crazy strict timers. Others allow for some wacky setups, using the comedic power of a roller coaster that launches people into space to keep its players invested.
Regular customer Freya has a writer’s block. Succubus Lua and the Elf Baileys are unhappily in love. Mermaid Aqua struggles with her self-esteem. These are just a few examples of the characters and stories that play an important role in Coffee Talk. As the owner of a small café that only opens at night, we listen to the stories of our guests, brew the right hot drink and take part in their fate. Coffee Talk is a spectacle of the mundane, a refuge from everyday life – and enchanted us with its warmth.
At the end of our series of the most anticipated games 2020, we are going to Thailand. Here are three indie highlights that could not be more different. Here’s why think you should look out for Gunman and The Witch, Timelie and The Last Bug this year.
