Interesting Indies From Play NYC 2022

Hello wonderful readers! As is tradition around here, another year has come and gone which means another year for one of our favorite local events, Play NYC! First off, if you’ve never heard of Play NYC, you can find out more on their website, but the gist is it’s a fun mini PAX-like event run by the locally started PlayCrafting company founded by the oh-so-charming Dan Butchko. Here’s a small list of a few games we think are really cool.

Romancelvania

I mean, come on, the title alone should grab you and pique your interest. It sure did for us! This gem was easily the best game we played and had both Daney and me laughing on the regular. Here’s the premise straight from their website:

Take a bite into Romancelvania, a darkly comic genre mashup, combining side-scrolling action and tongue-in-cheek romance into an absurd and unforgettable adventure.

Play as a lovelorn, brooding Drac who, after a century of moping around post-heartbreak, is thrown into a monster reality-dating show, hosted by the Grim Reaper! Explore Transylvania’s perilous countryside as you slay absurd baddies on your hunt for the most eligible monsters. Will Drac find “Love at first Bite”, or will he discover “Love Sucks”?

The writing had us rolling on the floor in laughter thanks to the witty one-liners and ghoulish banter and the genre mashup felt natural with the storytelling. I was personally impressed with the amount of polish for a demo. It’s set to release in 2023 on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and Steam (wishlist here). This is a definite buy for us.


Shoulders of Giants

I was both surprised and happy to run into Shoulders of Giants again. It was a game that caught my eye at PAX East before the pandemic and one that would surface every now and then in my mind. It was difficult to find any info when I stupidly lost the card, HOWEVER, I made sure to grab a new one and am dropping a link to their website if you’re interested. You’re a frog in a mech suite with a sword and a gun. Here’s their description:

Simultaneously control a sword-wielding robot and a gunslinging space frog in Shoulders of Giants, an explosively colourful sci-fi roguelike. Play alone, with a friend, or as part of a four-person team, cutting through waves of enemies on a quest to rescue the galaxy!

If the sound of that interests you, they’re offering a beta containing the first act from the game if you sign up on their Discord. You can wishlist the game now on the Epic Games Store. Hopefully it will make it’s way to Steam now that I’m a Deck faithful.


Lucky Yu

We also stumbled upon this very chill and very beautiful game called Lucky Yu (link to site) made by one dude, Mike Ren, with help from his family. Lucky Yu has you sitting on a boat, listening to serene music, and fishing for five fish of varying sizes. The visual style is beautifully hand drawn and painted by his badass mother and is very much inspired by Mike’s Chinese culture. We talked back and forth and, for now, the game is available on itch.io (demo here) but Mike has plans to expand the gameplay, while keeping it simple and relaxing. If you’re thinking, “Man, this would make an excellent mobile game.”, we thought that too and when we brought that up, he said that’s something he’s thinking about. It sure would be the perfect fit for those of us who have one free hand on a crowded train! Here’s the description straight from the itch.io page:

Lucky Yu is a meditative fishing game with a unique hand-painted Chinese black ink art style. My mother is the artist for this game and spent over a month drawing all of the things you see.

We took her hand painted art and scanned it into the game, hoping to create a unique organic feeling within the world.

Grab a copy of the demo and see what you think.


The Newton Mystery

Okay, so we gotta level with you were, we didn’t actually play this game but we wanted to mention it because the art style instantly reminded us of Adventure Time (or the awesome Adventure Pals game). Here’s a link to the game’s website.

A cartoon platforming action adventure. Solve puzzles, make friends, and explore tThe Newton Mystery is a 2D puzzle platforming adventure where you play as a group of friends who have formed a rag-tag monster crime-solving team. Join them on their journey of self-discovery, wacky interactions, and realizations that everything is not as it seems in the sleepy town of Newton…he town of Newton and it’s many secrets.

If this sounds interesting to you, here’s the link to wishlist it on Steam.


Blinks by Move38

Last but not least, we have Blinks by Move38 (link to site). This is more of an interactive gaming platform where games can be bought via pieces that are then loaded across your normal Blinks pieces. It’s a cool concept, but what’s even more cool is the prototype Blinks piece they had called Blink Link. This new game piece allows any game to be downloaded to it via NFC from a smartphone using an app. As of writing, there are over 41 games for Blinks. We played Darkball and Puzzle 101, both of which were a lot of fun There’s no doubt Blinks is both a very cool concept and fun to play, however, the $149 initial asking price gave us a bit of sticker shock, especially in the current climate. If they want to send us a review unit though, we’d be more than happy to dive in and test a slew of games as it beautifully ties in tech and gaming.


Well, that’s all we got! We hope you enjoyed our wrap-up and found a new game or two to look forward to! See ya next year Play NYC!

Antonio Worrall
Antonio Worrallhttps://antonioworrall.com
I'm a Senior IT Support Engineer, every day tech geek, gaming enthusiast, world traveler, and foodie living with my wife and cat in the NY/NJ area.

Must Read

Mastodon