While Summer Game Fest is a lot more online-focused than the E3 it has replaced, it has begun to hit that scale where it’s hard to keep up with everything on display. Despite being structured around a parade of high profile live-streams, such as the indie-dedicated Day of the Devs, the event is supplemented by a number of other showcases through the week. To make sure nothing slips through the cracks, here’s a collection of games announced, updated, or waved hello during the hype-soaked affair.
About Fishing
I had already put the upcoming fishing sim from The Water Museum as a certified lock, but in case you still need convincing on About Fishing, a new demo is available on Steam. You play as a woman whose skills with the rod verge past supernatural. In a strange, sleepy town you’ll uncover uncanny, dormant mysteries while reeling in the big one.
Cassette Beasts 2002
Announced at the PC Gaming Show, the Cassette Beasts are back, or at least, were back, in this new prequel. A riff on pocket monster collecting that didn’t skimp on the depth or number of creatures, you’ll be heading back to millennium-era London to capture analogue creatures in an increasingly digital world.
Dungeon Lurker
First off it’s worth mentioning that the team at 13AM Games asked me to patch them through with the artist Plastiboo to make a handsome print ad. But even if I was lurking into this damp dungeon completely cold it would still catch my forbidden gaze. Inspired by Saturn games like Guardian Heroes, you’ll descend into a lost retro game with layers of secrets to startle with.
Duskers 2.0
A sequel to the cult, bleak sci-fi strategy game, you play as a drone pilot whose job is to scavenge wreckages, survive the unforgiving universe and secure survivors whose bodies are frozen in cryosleep. All presented in eerily sterile interfaces, your command post lightyears away from civilization.
Prison of Husks
What’s an indie game round up without a low-poly soulslike. And ooo this one looks like a keeper. Revived in porcelaine, you and your blade must make your way through a baroque world of doll-like soldiers to reunite with your beloved.
Signet City
Little of Signet City has been shown during its Game Fest debut. However, the pedigree from Citizen Sleeper creator Gareth Damian Martin and the promise of a cyberpunk RPG overrun with fungal strangeness makes this gothic, Thatcher-inspired nightmare an easy one to watch.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer
I appreciate that we’re at the point of general praxis where “smash it to bits” has become the default philosophy. In this action game, you return to your home town to discover its overrun with androids, an army exploiting local history and memory for their own needs. Having to survive robot onslaught and your own complicated nostalgia, you must rely on the only thing truly dependable in this world: a large hammer.
