I went to Tokyo Game Show 2016 today. It was a near thing — I was feeling a bit down in the dumps in the morning, but I had a promise to keep, to meet Alex Rose who was showing Rude Bear in the Indie Corner.

When I got there, I first walked through the main wing, where the big companies (Capcom, Konami, etc) were. To my surprise, nothing there really attracted my attention. Another Final Fantasy, another Mafia, another slew of idol games. I was starting to wonder if I had become an old codger that would never get excited about anything ever again — oh the drama!

Fortunately, I eventually went to the secondary wing of the expo, with the Indie zone. Maybe I am a hipster, but those tiny two-man booths with games made of spittle and dreams grab my interest much more than any giant screens and booth babes could.

A few games from my steam library were there, such as Moon Hunters and Read-Only Memories. Some others made their way to my wish list today:

* Lanota is actually a free mobile game. It is a mix of rhythm game and RPG.

* Blockships is a shoot-them up where you build your ship from blocks (lasers, energy, engines) as you go. The game is still a bit away from completion, but it was a concept that I always dreamed of making, back on my game-making Jam days *grumblegrumble*

* Star Mazer was the most attractive of the bunch. The dev at the booth called it a “roguelike shoot them up” (a rogue-like-like-like-like?), but the idea is that each of your lives (pilots) have different characteristics (powers, upgrades), and you line-them up before beginning the game. This one will probably bubble up to the top of my wishlist, since I need a new shoot them up.

* Campus Notes is a Visual Novel that takes place at the University of Tsukuba. I’m not usually big on Visual Novels, but one of the devs at the booth today was actually a former student from my lab, which I found really neat.

Time to re-order my wishlist :-)