Tokyo Sandbox 2023

Sorry to be a bit late on this, but back in April (the 15th of that month to be exact) I had a chance to stop by the Tokyo Sandbox event in Akihabara.  It wasn't a major gathering when compared to the likes of GDC or PAX.  Nonetheless, there were a lot of interesting indie games being showcased.  I was also impressed with the variety of people in attendance.  There were of course a few "otaku", but also several women game developers (one of which was a mother), a couple of fine folks from the U.K. and even one from Germany.  Obviously, it was a bilingual smorgasbord of English and Japanese.  Anyway...about the games themselves.

Rat Cage is a 3D platformer wherein you play as (you guessed it) a rat.  Not an anthropomorphic rat, just a plain old rat.  As far as I could tell, the goal was to escape from a laboratory.  Sadly,  some major screen tearing issues kept in from being fully playable, but I suspect it's a problem that the developer will remedy in due time.  Someone mention this to Grim Beard of Youtube fame.  I'm sure he'll like it for the premise if nothing else.

For fans of J-horror, there's Crimson Moon by Spear Soft.  It's set to release this autumn and appears to be about the classic premise of two students (a boy and girl) trapped in a haunted school.  The game seems very story-driven, but also has some RPG mechanics baked in.  Additionally, one of the developers is a tall pale Japanese woman who (at the time) was wearing a long black and red dress.  Maybe she's a vampire?...I kid, I kid.

Two games, I want to mention solely because of their art style are Thunder of the Demon King by teamHOLIDAY and LO-FI ROOM by Bearmask.  I didn't have much time to look at them in detail, but the former had a really good choice of contrasting colors while the latter featured a lot of painstakingly hand-drawn original art that only after the fact had been scanned into a digital environment.  

On a funny note, there was Scared Little Ghost - a game in which the player takes the role of a ghost that must avoid being photographed by a bunch of smartphone wielding poltergeist hunters.  The twist here being, the ghost is, contrary to expectations, afraid of the dark.  It's a stealth game first and foremost, but based on the gameplay I saw the player-controlled ghost eventually unlocks the ability to sneak up on and scare away its harassers...so, your not completely defenseless.

As an avid player of strategy games, I was excited to see Athena Crisis.  It's a bit like Advanced Wars or Hybrid Front, but with a few interesting innovations.  One thing in particular that stood out to me is the lack of cutscene transitions whenever two units engage each other in combat.  Instead, the game handles the battle with animations happening on the strategic map.  That might not sound especially noteworthy, but it does a lot to improve pacing while retaining enough visual flare to avoid turning the game into a spreadsheet simulator.

The last game, I want to highlight is I am Yours.  It's a very simple game that harkens back to the days of point-and-click adventure games like the Déjà Vu duology or Scratches.  It's also a very personal story about an old man who has to move to a new home and, in the process, decide what to take with him and what to leave behind.  You aren't going to save the kingdom or conquer the world in this one, but it might give you a new perspective on life and the things you've acquired over the course of it thus far.

There are many more games I could mention, but these are the ones that stood out to me most.  Thankfully, you don't have to be restricted by my personal tastes because all the games that were there have trailers and (in some cases their own) websites the links to which can be found by scrolling down toward the bottom of the page found here.  As for me, I'll be revisiting a few of these titles when they get closer to completion.