PAX East: The Indie Developers

Thought we were done? Not quite. I spoke to a lot of indie developers and saw a lot of neat stuff while at PAX East, and I’ve put together a slideshow of the video interviews, as well as links to some of the more interesting games, and a few videos of what it was like on the show floor. Games that involve seating arrangements for robots, eating your friends, and new ways to play with playing cards.


Skallops are a toy that use laser-cut birchwood clips to build things out of playing cards. As you can see, it’s a great addition to your pile of toys to build other things out of.

Super Crate Box is nostalgia at its best: namely, nostalgic without having the drawbacks. It plays great, and like a lot of games, it’s available on iOS.

A fixture of Boston indie gaming nights, Girls Like Robots is an addictive puzzle game that I’m not ashamed to admit I spent way too much time playing at PAX instead of working.

D&D had a huge booth on the floor, but they also had, right off the queue room, this little oddity, where you could climb a wall with magnets.

This video really does not do this game any sort of justice. The interview is fun, but here’s a better video of it:

If you love old-school 8-bit RPGs, you will love this game. Hopefully we’ll have more in-depth on this soon; the sequel came out in January, and this is a game that needs more love.

“Tanks for the Memories” is kind of classic tank gameplay crossed with “Psychonauts”, something Brandon enjoyed a lot at SXSW. It’s a lot of fun, and you should check out Minicore’s upcoming “Laika Believes” as well.

This is a quiet day for the booth. By the way? “Natural Selection II” looks spectacular.

This game has a strong “Myst” vibe, but the controls make it stand out: it’s got two “analog sticks” on the screen, and it makes for a really clever solution to transferring the look and feel of those kinds of games to a tablet.

Webseries had a surprisingly large presence at PAX East, and “Transolar” is a lot of fun.

Finally, a version of “Oregon Trail” where you can eat the idiot who dies of dysentery. And yes, it has the classic Apple IIe graphics.

This company moved its entire design studio to PAX East for the show: they’re currently building “Birdopolis” for Facebook.