Virtual SEA
Games and Gaming from Southeast Asia
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.
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.
The time has come to look at the upcoming games from Malaysia. If you check out our list, you might not even know where to start. In any case, there is something for every gamer, whether on playing on console, PC or mobile device – so let’s go!
The year 2020 has already started so it is about time to look at the upcoming game releases. And what a year it will be for fans of the Indonesian gaming scene! Indonesia has by far announced the longest list of games for 2020. In recent years, it has been shown that Indonesia can produce quantity as well as quality. Will this trend continue in the new year?
The end of 2019 is very close, so let’s look forward to the upcoming year! After Vietnam, which gaming highlights await us from the Philippines? The country has been producing many titles of ever-increasing quality for all kinds of platforms and is known as a pioneer for Southeast Asian game development. Among the best games of 2019 from the Philippines were Bayani, Towertale or Love Esquire. Let’s now take a look at some confirmed releases for 2020!
The end of 2019 is approaching, so let’s look forward to the upcoming year! Which gaming highlights await us from Vietnam? The country is best known for its free-to-play games for smartphones and tablets, and one of the particularly good representatives last year was Boom Battlefield. But what about the developers who develop for PCs and consoles? Here are two exciting games that have been announced for 2020.
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.
It’s clear that inspiration for this game was the popular platform adventure Limbo. But unlike its role model, Incubo fails to achieve its brilliance. Too immature are the mechanics, too dirty the programming and too simple the style. Nevertheless, Incubo is perfect for those who are not afraid of any challenge and are interested in scary stories outside the mainstream.
Actually, Virtual SEA is indeed a platform for games from Southeast Asia. Rarely enough, however, Southeast Asia is used as a venue for games from other regions. The British studio Cloak and Dagger Games dares to leave well-known settings and publishes with Sumatra – Fate of Yandi a point’n click adventure set in Indonesia. We would like to take this opportunity to take a closer look at the game.
Monster Slayers! “What a generic title for a videogame.”, was probably the first thing we thought when we heard about this game. But its tagline intrigued us: A Deckbuilding Roguelike Adventure. This combination of probably some of the most popular genres today seems worth a look. Is it a great mixture of all those or simply a potpourri of half-baked ideas to jump on a hype train? While Monster Slayers has originally been released on PC by Malaysian developer Nerdook in 2017, we are now looking at the recently ported version for the Nintendo Switch.
Some games are easy to learn and easy to play. Then, there are games that are easy to learn but hard to master. And then, there is Retrograde Arena by Indonesian team Freemergency.
Towertale by Misou Games is an ambitious project for a dev team of only five people. A sidescrolling hardcore boss rush about four adventurers fighting their way up a wish-granting tower, the game boasts a story mode for each adventurer, complete with their own unique dialogue, endings, and cutscenes, and a free mode that lets players fight any unlocked boss with any unlocked character. It certainly aims high, and I’m glad to report that Towertale actually hits its lofty goals. Mostly.
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?
When you browse the Steam catalogue, especially the “indie section”, you’ll get quickly overwhelmed by the number of roguelikes available. As another game in that genre, is Dungeon Souls from the Philippines really worth your time?
If you have been playing videogames for a while, you will undoubtedly encounter a certain fatigue either of recurring gameplay or – as in the author’s case – of uninspired recycling of settings, topics or locations. Is seems like the videogames industry is repeatedly offering the same experiences inspired by either North American or Japanese cultures and regions. Here at Virtual SEA, we strongly believe that game developers from under-represented areas of world such as Southeast Asia can offer new and refreshing ideas to videogames. Can She & The LightBearer from Indonesian studio Mojiken satisfy this expectation?
