EGX 2014 - Most Interesting New Indie Titles - Preview
by VGChartz Staff , posted on 27 September 2014 / 4,197 Views
Eminence: Xander's Tales
One of the most ambitious but at the same time deceptively accessible games at this year's Eurogamer Expo, Eminence is an MMO trading card game where players will compete with each other to win cards and become the best.
Although a huge and expansive game, with exploration and social elements, the card combat system will be picked up instantly by anyone who has ever played the card mini-game found in Final Fantasy VIII. The premise is simple - players compete on a 3x3 board and place down one card at a time in an attempt to beat the other cards on the board. The side of the card that is placed down dictates the battle of numbers that will take place, with your objective being to win as many as these number battles as possible.
The final version of the game will hopefully be completed and ready to launch within the next 6 months. The developers are currently seeking Kickstarter funding for the game, so if it sounds like your kind of thing then head on over to their Kickstarter page to back the project.
A light in Chorus
A light in Chorus was arguably the most interesting and unique title at Eurogamer Expo this year. A light in Chorus allows players to wander freely around a particle-driven world.
It’s an artistically fascinating game, with every building, sign and object in the environment being made out of particles, giving the game world a creepy but entrancing look. You'll pick up objects in the environment, replacing them with objects you’ve previously picked up, which adds an interesting puzzle element to an already intriguing game.
If the screenshot or brief description above piques your interest then head on over to the game's official site to find out more.
Toryansé
Toryansé is a surreal but light-hearted adventure game chock full of quirkiness.
The demo I played revolved around a lady who needed to find her keycard in order to get into the elevator outside her office. You explore the environment like you would in any other point and click game, but here things are definitely a lot more abstract; a coin, for example, cannot just be used to buy a can of coke, but also to unscrew a vent cover. In short, you end up trying out all sorts of random ideas in order to get your keycard back. The game’s lovingly-realised world really stands out as well.
No release date has been announced for Toryansé just yet, but if you’d like to find out more about the game you can check out the developer's website here.
Virginia
Shaped by a love of The X-Files and Twin Peaks, Virginia seems intent on telling you a fast and shockingly direct story, but with all of the key details left out, meaning you’re forced to draw your own conclusions along the way.
The seemingly simplistic graphics help to paint a weird nōir world with its own distinct sense of character, where everything's a mystery and you'll eagerly want to find out more in order to get to the bottom of things.
Virginia will be released sometime in 2015, so keep your eye out for this excitingly atmospheric game. If you want to find out more, you can access the official website here.
Poncho
Poncho initially struck me as being a stylistic platformer when I first saw it on the show floor, but given how overcrowded the genre is I wasn't sure that would be enough to carry the game. When I finally sat down to play it, however, I discovered that Poncho boasts a very interesting game mechanic: the ability to jump between 3 planes.
This means that whilst playing through the level, you’ll be able to jump into the foreground and background to grab more gems (the game's equivalent of Mario’s coins or Sonic’s rings) or solve puzzles. The game also seems to have a fairly deep story, but one in which I wasn’t able to delve into too deeply due to time constraints.
Poncho is currently seeking funding via Kickstarter, but after talking to the developers at the show it sounds like it will be released regardless of whether it successfully reaches its funding goal on Kickstarter or not. However, if you’re interested in Poncho you should definitely consider backing the game here; successful Kickstarter backing will allow them to release it that much sooner (and on additional platforms as well).
