Destructoid Checkpoint Special Edition #4 - The beauty of independence, or the hidden gems of Gamescom

Morbid Metal is morbidly good

Yesterday, Aug. 28, I wrapped up all my AAA endeavors. With the business center closing for the year, I sped off to Hall 10, where all the beautiful independent developers reside. There, my eye darted to this side and that, having a hard time to focus on any single thin in a sea of indie productions and booths.

But of course, it had to settle on something, and it was Morbid Metal that caught my attention the most. While published by Ubisoft (not a great way to start an indie newsletter, but fine) Morbid Metal is an independent game, both creatively and in every other way you could think of. It’s made by a small handful of exceptionally passionate developers of various backgrounds, but mainly based in Germany.

The game is a third-person hack-and-slash character-action roguelike - what a mouthful that is - giving you control of three characters between whom you can swap on the fly, chaining combos together in a tag-team endeavor or simply sticking to one if that’s your prerogative. You fight large groups of enemies, pick and choose which stage you want to go to next, and take powerful rewards that apply to either all or just one of your characters.

The combo system, like the one in Devil May Cry, rewards your creativity and quick thinking, and it’s exactly where the character swapping mechanic shines the most. It inspired a lot of hype in me each time I played it, and since the devs allowed me to try multiple runs (resetting each time you die) I constantly wanted to outdo my previous run. The combat is meaty, heavy, and visceral, and each of the characters had something unique to offer to each playstyle in the world.

The devs are frustrated, but passion burns brighter than the sun

While I conducted no official interviews yesterday, I spoke with dozens of developers across the board, and many of them told me of their frustrations, but also let their passion slip, with all of them agreeing that AI is a plague to our existence. Corporatist encroachment weighs heavy on the indie industry, and carving out one’s own place under the sun is becoming increasingly challenging.

Navigating markets, capitalist dystopias, and consumer trends is a big hurdle for many of the devs to surpass, but their focus is, across the board, on making good games and hoping someone will pick up on them.

Experimentation is the name of the game with indies

Speaking of which, I picked up on a bunch of these games. They were in all sorts of different genres and coming from either solo devs or small teams, from the West or the East.

All Will Rise combines card battlers and law by putting you in the position of an attorney trying to make a case against a billionaire who poisoned an entire river. You are trying your best to make the river a legal person and defend her as if she were an actual human being, which only tracks since water is the one essential thing we could never go without. It’s simple, makes you use your marbles, and plays out like a highly intriguing episode of Suits than it does as Ace Attorney.

Crownbreakers is another card battler, this one letting you control a rebellious upstart who is taking on “capitalist a**holes” or “a**hole capitalists” depending on your preferred description, as its solo developer said. It utilizes environmental design and interactions with the world to play out its core loop, with characters able to move around the battlefield freely while taking turns attacking with increasingly powerful cards.

In the Korean booth, I was surprised at the amount of high-quality games in so many different genres, and the two that really stood out to me were HellPunk: Purgatorium and Halchemist.

The latter is a smaller game, playing out as a metroidvania of sorts, with you controlling two characters at the same time. You are able to detach them from one another, but you can also use them simultaneously to strike with fervor and increased strength, but you have to watch out for positioning lest you take unnecessary damage.

HellPunk on the other hand probably has the best combat I’ve seen at Gamescom. It’s absolutely brutal, and its smart use of flashing visual effects and screen shaking provide such satisfaction in each combat encounter, even though the game is a 2D pixel-art side-scroller at heart. I loved every bit of its art, music, and horrifying visuals, but you’ll have to wait a bit to know more (that’s your cue to check the site and see if that feature is up yet).

Silver Palace was a pleasant surprise

Now, I also tried one high-budged game in the business center, one final game before it all closed down, and that is Silver Palace. This is a very interesting title to me, especially due to its incredibly high “aura farm” elements and striking similarity in delivery to Bayonetta. Its characters and combat are deeply connected to character action as a genre, but there are Soulslike and open-world exploration elements to boot.

Unlocking new characters to play as and switch to on the fly (much like in Morbid Metal) is also very interesting, since you need to defeat them as a boss first before you gained access to them. I love that as a concept, and will eagerly wait to see more of it.

Friday comes to a close

And so, that ends Freitag, the fourth day of Destructoid’s Gamescom journey. We’ve got one day left, Saturday, which we will spend exploring the Horrors of Gamescom and seek out the most terrifying, thrilling games out there, but also check out the culture of our fellow gamers which is blossoming on the floor in Cologne.

Have a great day, Destructoid.