advertisement
Facebook
X
LinkedIn
WhatsApp
Reddit

Three upcoming South African games at rAge 2017

South Africa’s largest gaming convention is back in rAge 2017 and while most of the floor space is dedicated to large international games, there’s still a strong showing of locally-made games.

The Home Coded stand is where you’ll find the titles made in South Africa. There were some familiar faces such as Celestial Games (developers of Battle Arena Drones), but many new faces were in the crowd.

In addition to in-development games, there are also a few full release titles available to play, and student games that need some testing and feedback.

Below you’ll find three games we played on the floor which are due for release in the future. Take a look and maybe add them to your wishlists to pick up later.

Jengo

Jengo is a true love letter to the the point-and-click games of the past, with ample references and Easter Eggs packed in to take you back to the 90’s. How far does that go? Well, the foil to protagonist Jeff is Dave, who is very clearly King Graham, but very clearly not (“for legal reasons”, as the developer showing us the game said).

The visuals and animation on show here are really impressive, and the short segments of writing we saw were great too. As with any game in this genre, the puzzles are the real show and Jengo does something a bit different with them. There’s a lot of cutscenes in the game to break up the problem solving and to reward you for solving them.

On the show floor you can actually audition to be in Jengo as a voice actor, so make sure you get down to drop them a few lines. They’re also offering individuals and companies the chance to put themselves into the game, provided they’re up for being drawn in the game’s signature style.

Developer: Robot Wizard

Status: Releasing August / September 2018 | Go to Steam page

Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse


What if we told you there’s a game coming out soon in which you get to pilot a mech to kill herds of crazed llamas? If that sounds like a perfectly acceptable idea to you, Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse is what you need to play.

This top-down, twin-stick shooter supports up to four players on a single screen with each player wielding two weapons, an AOE stomp attack, shields and boosts. Yeah, it gets messy very fast. There’s also some roguelite elements like random loot and levels, and unlocks for completing objectives outside of Llama destruction.

Oh, and the freeze ray is absolute trash and should be avoided at every cost. The missile weapons are great, though.

Developer: RogueCode

Status: Releasing sometime this year  | Go to Steam page

9L17CH

This game is pronounced “Glitch”, if you’re a bit lost. The name of the game is also the main mechanic as this platformer uses your character’s ability to freeze the game to interact with the environment.

The glitch can be used to jump higher, activate platforms and push parts of the environment around. It also freeze time, allowing you to wait out lasers and other environmental traps.

9L17CH is unique in this list as it’s a student game made for Wits University’s game design course, and the finished segments are available to play right now on Itch.io.

Developer: Rohun Ranjith

Status: In development | Go to Itch.io page

Honorable Mention: Codex Knights

Still in very early Alpha, Codex Knights is aa game designed to get kids (and adults) reading. Parts of the game cannot be passed without knowing key parts of literature which can be read inside of the game, or in print if you own the right books.

In the demo on the show floor, parts of Jock of the Bushveld are recreated and the physical book is right next to the PC if you want to pick it up to get through.

The game will be entering crowdfunding very soon – it was supposed to be at the start of rAge if not for a few problems – so you can throw some money behind the idea if you like it.

Developer: Mattador Starfish

Status: In crowdfunding | Go to official site

See the South African games which were at rAge last year too:

https://htxt.co.za/2016/10/07/south-african-games-at-south-africas-largest-videogame-expo-rage-2016/

advertisement

About Author

advertisement

Related News

advertisement