Well, we did it. PAX Aus 2018 has been vanquished. The fight was long and hard, but the vicious beast of unplayed games were surrounded, studied, and slaughtered — with their carcasses dragged back to be plastered on the screen for you now! Here are some of our favourites from the show.
Sneaker by Three Beak![]()
First off! Sneaker, a game about sneaking about and hitting people with your sneakers! Oh, and you also have time travel powers.
Set in the olden times of the 50s you are a super secret agent armed with two shoes, because well, you’ve only got two feet and this secret agent isn’t one to put shoes on their hands. With a variety of shoes to wear, shoes, socks and laces are promised to be used in puzzles. Sneaker has a lot to offer.
Using your sneaky sneakers (honestly the jokes write themselves) and your time travel powers, your job is to sneak through levels, knock out the bad guys and get the secret plans, short, to the point and with a nice charm to it all. On Steam Greenlight, it has a claimed release for 2018 (better get a hurry on guys)
Tech Hunter by Split Symmetry![]()
Lost on a desolate world, alone and confused, you must use your fleet of ships and drones to explore this strange world and solve its secrets in Tech Hunter.
After being stranded on the strange unexplored planet you must use your assortment of drones to explore, collect artifacts and complete puzzles in ancient structures. Currently early on in development, Tech Hunter promises an open world to explore and discover with a wide array of vehicles to solve the puzzles in front of you.
If you want to stay up to date with this one, you can follow the developers on Twitter: @Splitsymmetry
Lethal Lawns: Competitive Mowing Bloodsport by Dime Studios![]()
I’ve been told that, back in the olden days, children mowed lawns to earn money to buy video games. But, these days all the kids are playing battle royales… So let’s mix them together! That’s is what I must presume is the thinking behind Lethal Lawns: Competitive Mowing Bloodsport, a game where you compete to earn money by mowing a lawn and also killing the other competitors with large razor blades attached to your mower.
A brutal, fast-paced couch competitive game with a slew of modes and support for up to eight players locally, Lethal Lawns sounds like a treat. It’s out now on Steam.
Scouts Honour by INCA Studios
As a scout, the best part of any camp as a child was all the fooling about all day, and then the mad dash late at night to put up the tents before all the light disappeared and… ‘oh lord why is there one tent pole missing AAAAAAAAAAH’. Scouts Honour encapsulates this perfectly, with Overcooked-style couch co-op gameplay where you are tasked with unpacking packs, setting up tents and a fire, and then cooking dinner.
You must collect resources from around the campsite and stick them all in blueprints before night falls to ensure you have happy campers. Coming out on Steam and consoles in 2019, it’s well worth a look.
Dissembler by Ian MacLarty
An ingenious puzzler, Dissembler is a fun little thing focusing on giving you a grid of little colours, then making you flip tiles with each other to make groups of three or more to clear them from the board.
With Dissembler’s great design, even early levels are fiendishly difficult, while still having incredibly simple gameplay. Once you finally get the solution you can execute it very quickly and smoothly, which feels amazing; Flipping everything over, moving over the board to finish with a nice clean empty screen.
Out on the PC, Android and iOS now, Dissembler is a challenging and beautiful puzzle game that will look grand on your home screen.
Ashen by Aurora 44![]()
With one of the longest lines in all of the PAX Rising section, my expectations couldn’t be higher for Ashen, a 3rd person action RPG ostensibly about relationships.
Once it is done starting off with a nice bit of lore the game drops you straight in, sending you to go beat up some other people to get the McGuffin of the level. With heavy, meaty combat, Ashen promises to build up a world, all while meeting other people — both human and AI. It is a compelling idea centered on exploration and trust.
I am quite excited to see what Ashen has to offer when it comes out on Steam and Xbox One in 2018.
Little Reaper by Little Reaper Games
Winning my ‘Cutest Game of PAX Aus 2018’ is Little Reaper, an adorable little platformer putting you in charge of the Grim Reaper’s child, Ollie.
After a parkour session gone awry, the big bottle of souls — that, apparently, is very important — was knocked over, setting the souls loose in the world. Gameplay consists of platforming around levels and collecting souls with a magic scythe, which you can throw and teleport to, to move around.
While it currently has an undisclosed release date, Little Reaper is one to wait for; it is a fun and cute little platforming game.
Projection: First Light by Shadowplay Studios
Back again from last year, Projection: First Light (now with a new name) is here again, sporting a fresh console port for the current generation, and some seemingly updated graphics.
As before, Projection tasks you with platforming through a shadow-puppet world, using a moveable light source to create shadows to jump around on. The demo available at PAX featured a subset of levels from the full game — giving a nice introduction to the difficulty curve which runs through.
puzzles were hard but satisfying, which was a little bit hindered by how you control the light — an exercise in futility due to control sensitivity.
Due for a release in the first quarter of 2019, Projection is still very fun, cute and tough.
That’s it for my PAX AUS summary. In the coming weeks I’ll be hopefully doing reviews of some of the games, so have a looksy around, keep reading and I will hope to see you at PAX AUS next year!
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