I was gifted with the opportunity to demo several games today at the Choice Provisions booth at PAX Prime. Who are Choice Provisions, you ask? You might know them better by their previous moniker – Gaijin Games! But don’t let the name change fool you, they are still dedicated to putting out great, simple yet challenging games. I got to meet with Alex Neuse, who patiently explained the game mechanics of each for me. I will gloss over the highlights of the three I got to play, starting with Tharsis.
Tharsis is a bit hard to explain. The basic premise is you’re on a space station en route to Mars, and things go horribly wrong. Cannibalism wrong. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The game is slated to release on iPad, and plays very well using touch controls. It is a turn based perma-death affair, and every action you take is governed by a dice roll. Better yet, you get to play as various astronauts with different strengths and weaknesses in your attempt to survive. I only got to play an early section, but I can already see the tension and drama building in the story. It was a great experience, and should make for an worthy game when finished.
Next up is Destructamundo.
Also slated to release on iPad, Destructamundo is all about blowing things up and making chain reactions. This is done by touching the screen to initiate explosions on rotating landmasses, even getting to blow planets up from the inside out. It wasn’t quite as impressive to me as Tharsis, but should appeal greatly to puzzle fanatics. I did, however, enjoy the visual flair of the game.
Last up is Woah Dave!
Woah Dave! is frenetic old school goodness at its finest. Your goal is to gather change from fallen monsters and survive as long as possible. The catch? Alien eggs keep falling onto the screen, and once they hatch you’re going to be beset by beasts. You can toss the eggs at hatched aliens to crush them, but if you aren’t careful they will fall into the lava. Why is that a bad thing, you ask? Simply because, instead of killing them, it evolves them into more dangerous forms. The game is beautifully simple, much like Bit.Trip.Runner, and is a lot of fun. Better yet, it is slated to release on both 3DS and Vita! So portable gaming fans of both stripes will be able to get their frantic retro fix.
I want to thank Choice Provisions for the opportunity to try out so many choice games, and encourage all you reading this to try them out! They made my inner gamer happy, and are sure to satisfy those of discriminating tastes.
