Microsoft’s recent push for indie development was on full display at this years PAX Australia. Whilst Xbox’s massive booth devotes a fair proportion of space to Sunset Overdrive, Minecraft: Xbox One Edition and Halo: The Master Chief Collection, the rest of the space is dedicated to indie developed games. The ID@Xbox space featured many locally developed games such as the popular Screencheat, and E3 2014 showcased games such Ori and the Blind Forest and ScreamRide.
Amongst the vast array of different indie titles, games such as #IDARB and Knight Squad stood out as fun mini party games. #IDARB is a soccer/basketball hybrid that can involve up to 8 players attempting to outscore each other in a multi-round contests. The game has a pixel art style, giving you a wide variety of quirky characters, whilst the gameplay is an interesting mix of platforming and Rayman Legends’ soccer game mode.
Knight Squad on the other hand is another 8 player top down battle-game featuring a variety of different game modes such as: last man standing and soccer. Players start out initially with a sword but can pick-up such as items as crossbows, shields, longswords, minions and even laser beams. Another simple party game that is loads of fun.
There was a mix of upcoming Xbox games, and already released games, there were also a number of single-player story driven games that couldn’t work in the loud PAX environment, with games like D4 and The Wolf Among Us being overshadowed by the fun multiplayer games. One of the things we loved about the Xbox area, was how easily people would pick up a controller and party up with other random players or groups, and just have an enjoyable time.
Microsoft’s indie developer push seems to be paying-off and we can’t wait for these titles to release on Xbox.