One of my favourite gaming events each year is BitSummit. Held in Kyoto, it sees developers from all over Japan - and indeed, the world - descend upon the former capital to showcase what they’re working on. This year saw the return of a physical show, and I spent two full days playing games on the show floor. Even so, there was too much for one person to tackle, so what follows is a selection of the games that most jumped out at me, with apologies to the projects I didn’t get to. Oh, and I should also note that I’m not including games that have already been released - upcoming titles only.This one only just squeaks in, as it’s due to be released on August 18. Coming from a small team at Kyoto-based Chuhai Labs - a brand of Vitei Backroom - it sees the unlikely pairing of the roguelike genre and golf. The twist, however, is that the player is in golf purgatory and must get through 18 increasingly difficult courses in order to escape. You only have a limited number of shots to beat each hole, but there are numerous ways to supercharge your run to the cup, with power-up cards that can be spent to take a mulligan or change the ball’s course in mid-air, as well as the ability to put backspin on the ball in the air to finesse your shot.
Unlike many roguelikes, the levels in Cursed to Golf aren’t procedural - each has been handcrafted for optimal golfing challenge - but the fact that there are 70 overall means that each run will be largely different from the last. With a number of options on the path through the game’s four biomes, as well as having to best utilise power-up cards as you acquire them along the way, there’s a tonne that will make each playthrough feel unique. Lovely pixel art, too.
Cassette Beasts
Developer: Bytten Studio | Platforms: PC, Switch, Xbox | Release Date: TBA
BitSummit was the first hands-on for Cassette Beasts, a game heavily inspired by Pokemon, but with monster collecting and battling gameplay seen through an analogue lens, and a dash of Persona in its character interactions. What does this mean? Well, you capture monsters out in the wild, but they’re cassettes, and instead of sending them out to battle for you, you pop the cassette into your tape deck and transform into said monster. From there, the play button lets you choose a move (which are represented by stickers on the cassette, and can be peeled off and replaced), stop lets you switch cassettes, pause is used to choose an item, fast forward is flee and record lets you try and capture the monster you’re fighting.
It’s a cute overlay, and you’re always fighting alongside a partner, which then ties into what could be Cassette Beasts’ biggest point of difference - the ability to fuse your two monsters into one. This creates a brand new hybrid that has all the moves and abilities of the constituent parts, but charges up for its attacks twice as fast. Given that there are 120 beasts to collect, that adds up to more than 14,000 combinations, each of which will have its own procedurally generated sprite, not to mention the possibility of finding truly busted loadouts.
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