Gaming gasm UK: Rubbing shoulders with LEGENDS and newbies

University challenge

As an educator it was my teacherly duty to drop by the various universities promoting their lead games development incubator programmes. I checked out the Unreal Engine 4 demo too, which is now free for academic use and likely to kick Unity’s ass as the academic standard for development courses.

Unreal gets academic

Then it was time to visit the gaming coalface in the form of REZZED, the indie gaming area. The Leftfield collection featured included the stunning exploration game A Light in Chorus – dubbed “The prettiest game you’ve never heard of” – and Mushroom 11, an upcoming puzzle platformer where you control a unique amorphous organism.

I could have played Dungeon Keeper-esque RTS War for The Overworld by Subterranean Games all day but then Verdun caught my eye and made me come over all Red Orchestra.

Subterranean Games: War for the Overworld – make no bones about it

The Sun and Moon, a unique platformer made by Daniel Linssen, used gravity as a gameplay mechanism and had me in 8-bit heaven. There was no escaping the satirical/political undertones of Big Pharma developed by UK studio Twice Circled.

I'm a huge hearthstone addict, so Eminence: Xanders Tales definitely caught my eye with an attractive mix of story-based exploration, MMO and card war. Cute anime characters doing battle through beautiful card decks appealed to me.

Team17 Digital: Flockers – you herd it here first

Team 17 were the heavy hitters of REZZED with lots of games on show – Flockers, the new Lemmings, stole my heart with its mutton-legged lovelies until I was instrumental in many of my herd meeting gory deaths.

Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker, in person

Kitty Powers’ Matchmaker for Android and iOS is a dating/matchmaking sim, which isn’t a rare species on mobile platforms but its fast pace and awesome sense of humour will hopefully charting high on the app store.

With so many Kickstarter games out there, it’s no surprise this online fundraiser was in for abuse in the recent season premiere of South Park.

Finally, reaching the board game corner, I managed to sneak in a game of Ca$h and Gun$, where the aim of the game is to psyche out your opponents for cash. Just watch out or it could suddenly go all Deerhunter.

There was no way I was getting in the hour hour queue for five minutes on the Oculus Rift, so before the clock struck seven, like some arcade game Cinderella, I had to leave EGX to hit The Four Quarters in Peckham for a dose of Puzzle Bobble.

Oculus queue: wait an hour for five minutes of fun? Perhaps not

Admittedly, I did think it had been a shame I hadn’t managed to get any one-on-one time with the Borderlands Pre-Sequel and Evolve. Still, as EGX ably demonstrated, there are plenty of new and exciting titles out there to keep gamers occupied and many more to come. ®