Games and Gaming from Southeast Asia
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.
Due to this year’s pandemic, many gaming events had to be canceled or replaced by online presentations. Therefore, probably more game developers than ever decided to contribute playable versions of their PC games to The Steam Game Festival – Summer Edition 2020. In addition to live streams and Q&As with the developers, the hands-on experience is the main focus of this event. Fortunately, there are also many titles from Southeast Asia, for example from Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines and Vietnam. So that you don’t lose track of all those games, we have this list of 15+1 game demos from Southeast Asia that you can try out from home and for free between June 16, 2020 (10 AM PDT) and June 22, 2020 (10 AM PDT).
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.
Stronger together – this applies not only to many social movements around the world, but also to projects in indie game development. Not only effectiveness but also creativity are boosted when creative people from different countries and cultures come together to develop games together. Southeast Asia is a very diverse region with many cultures, languages, religions and of course also different possibilities and approaches to game development. While individual countries already have a very distinctive development scene, there are also regions in Southeast Asia in which game development plays a subordinate role, if at all.
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!
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.
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.
