Skip to main content

Standout games from the Game Devs of Color Expo

The Game Devs of Color Expo, an annual event highlighting board and video games from “people of all genders, races, and sexual orientations,” held a livestream on September 18.

The roughly 40-minute video showcased games from this year’s attendees. The online-only expo starts on September 19 and runs through September 20, and the livestream acted as a preview to the festivities.

Recommended Videos

Quite a few games were featured in the livestream. Here are a few standouts that caught our eye:

Protocorgi

ProtoCorgi - Announcement Trailer [NA]

Few things are more adorable than a cartoon corgi that shoots lasers. The game is a shoot-em-up retro title in the vein of Gradius, or other similar games from the 16-bit era. The games cutesy art style belies what looks like an involved shooter with lots of variety. It was developed by Kemono Games, is available on PC and releases next month on the Nintendo Switch.

Xenosis: Alien Infection

Xenosis: Alien Infection [EGX 2019] Trailer

This game is a dark, atmospheric top-down shooter that’s reminiscent of Dead Space and the Alien movies. It’s set on a dimly lit spaceship and comes out next year.

OneBit Adventure

Official OneBit Adventure Trailer

OneBit Adventure is a roguelike dungeon crawler that looks like an old-school Game Boy game, complete with the appropriate bleep and bloop soundtrack. It’s a mobile game with the primary objective of survival, and it’s available on the Google Play store and Apple’s App Store.

Museum Multiverse

Museum Multiverse Trailer

This is a game about a young kid who wakes up in an empty museum, from Made in Brooklyn Games. It has a variety of different gameplay modes and looks multi-layered and atmospheric, kind of like if Harry Potter was a kid from Brooklyn. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a firm release date yet.

Don’t Give Up: A Cynical Tale

DON'T GIVE UP: A Cynical Tale Release Trailer 9/16/19

This game has a throwback retro pixel art style and covers topics of depression and daily struggle. Its cute visuals act as a contrast to its subject matter, but it also looks fun in an Earthbound sort of way, with some Undertale vibes thrown in.

The game was developed by Taco Pizza Cat Games, and it’s available on PC right now and coming to Nintendo Switch either by the end of 2020 or early 2021.

Jon Silman
Former Digital Trends Contributor
RetroRealms is the horror mash-up game of your nightmares
Michael Meyers is swan diving on a couple of people in straight jackets in a asylum in Halloween.

At some point, asymmetrical multiplier games became the de facto home of classic horror icons in video games, whether it’s Jason from Friday the 13th or Leatherface from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That’s a fine trend, and games like Killer Klowns from Outer Space are further proof that the approach is nothing if not fun. If you are craving something different from legendary horror figures, though, RetroRealms is a name you might want to keep an eye on.

RetroRealms is equal parts a platform and a universe. It’s a place where you can play games based on classic horror franchises and, uniquely, mix them up with one another. Want to fight the Evil Dead as Michael Myers, or break out of Smith’s Grove Psychiatric Hospital as Ash? That’s the idea, and Digital Trends went behind closed doors at PAX West find out exactly how that works and, more importantly, how it plays.
Tribute to terror
At PAX, I met up with Tim Hesse, executive producer of RetroRealms for Boss Team Games, and Mike Herbster, game director and designer at WayForward Technologies. The team guides me through a demo and explains that RetroRealms is effectively the universe they are making, and it's meant to allow them to bring in and play with any horror franchise. At launch, there are two: Halloween and Ash vs Evil Dead (they also have a lot of ideas for who they could add next).

Read more
This chill music-making tool feels like a lost Nintendo DS game
A train sits next to a synth in Oddada.

When I think of the Nintendo DS, the first game that comes to my mind may surprise you. No, it's not Super Mario 64 DS or Advance Wars; it's Electroplankton. Released in 2005, the touchscreen oddity let players create music loops through toylike interactions. Though its mostly forgotten now outside of its Super Smash Bros. stage, Electroplankton still stands out to me as one of the handheld's most distinct releases.

While I don't expect the series to return anytime soon or even get ported to Switch, Oddada might just be the closest next thing you can buy. The $10 PC game is a colorful music-making tool that turns synths into tactile toys. It has the same charm that I always loved in Electroplankton, but in a more modern package that makes it stand out. If you love toying around with synths, it might be the creative tool you're craving.

Read more
He dreamed of the ultimate boxing game. Now he’s working with champions
A boxer stands ready, with her trainers behind her in Undisputed.

Sports games are a massive business, with annual franchises for baseball, football (both kinds), mixed martial arts, and more played by millions of people worldwide. Yet boxing, a sport with international appeal, has barely been represented in the space in over a decade. That’s what makes Undisputed so intriguing. It looks to fill the void left by big names like EA's Fight Night series, with a massive roster of legendary boxers, lifelike graphics, and authentic action made by an underdog indie studio that’s just ambitious enough to pull it off.

To better understand just how meticulous Undisputed is about capturing the sport, I met up with Ash Habib, founder and CEO of Undisputed developer Steel City Interactive to take in a night of championship fights and dissect the game. It was a night of spectacle, boxing action, and a who’s who of big names in boxing and sports broadcasting who were eager to talk to us about what Undisputed means to them.
The calm before the storm
It's fight night in Los Angeles, as people from all over the world gather to watch Undisputed Welterweight champion Terence Crawford move up in weight class to fight Super Welterweight champ Israil Madrimov. The fights will take place at the BMO arena, but for now, I'm at the JW Marriott's bar. There's electricity in the air as fans, fighters, and their camps mill about before heading to the arena.

Read more