PAX East 2025: Part Deux

It’s a kind of cruel irony that my boyfriend was sick the week leading up to PAX, but I felt fine. I was urging him to get rest, drink liquids, shake that thing off… and by Thursday night, I was feeling under the weather; Friday, I had the full-blown cold, and Saturday morning, we both knew I wasn’t going to be doing more PAX-ing. How could I sit down and game with others with a dripping cold? It would be wrong.

We checked out early, probably having to still pay for a room we won’t use, and I slept most of the way home.

Anyway, here’s more games we looked at while we were there.

Just Shapes and Beats: You and up to three other players are little motes in a world ruled by sick beats and fluorescent shapes. You’re trying to pick up sound energy while dodging everything else. It’s co-op, so other players can help you if you get lost in the music. It was plenty chaotic but everyone seemed to be having fun.

God Save Birmingham: You’re the last survivor of a zombie plague that swept the medieval hamlet of Birmingham. Bad news for the zombies: you’re a peasant with a pitchfork. This is one survival-crafting game where you start out with the village already built; you just have to turn it into a fortress. The will to survive, and all that. I saw this just after seeing Jonathan Coulton sing “Re: Your Brains“, so maybe I’m wondering why all the fight?

Section 13: Ever spend an afternoon reading through the old SCP wiki? That’s the special containment procedures for all the world’s weirdest, most dangerous creatures and devices. Well, Section 13 is where they store them, they all escaped, you’re the only one of your team left, and it’s your job to revive them (there’s a time loop involved) and do a perfect run that will save everyone.

It’s co-op, too. Twin-stick shooter, rogue-“lite” action. What’s not to love?

Lost Eidolons: Veil of the Witch — First time I ever saw a game that used the word “eidolon” was when an old friend showed me a game he wrote called “The Eidolon“. Second time was here at PAX. Never heard the word at any other time. I guess that’s why they’re lost.

I didn’t see a lot of the game at the expo; looks to be a pretty standard tactical RPG. The graphics are really nice, and it’s clear the game has had a lot of polish. I put it on my wishlist; it’s exactly the kind of game I love, but I haven’t even finished Those Who Rule yet…

Beloved Rapture: The beloved here are all the games that inspired this game — Zelda, Final Fantasy (the pixel ones), Chrono Trigger. It definitely looks fun, if not really super original. The artwork is amazing.

Hoard’s LLC: Limited Labyrinth Corporation: The person who pulled me in for a demo asked, “do you like puzzle games?” I just finished Blue Prince. I suppose I probably do.

In Hoard’s LLC, you play as Barry, a low level office flunky minotaur who just wants to do something about working conditions in the local maze. You select four dungeon bits and rotate them in order to clear the path for Barry to escape the maze and maybe save some friends along the way.

It’s a cute twist on the puzzle game genre.

Heroes of Mount Dragon: I watched this game for awhile and never got the sense that I would ever be able to follow what was going on in the actual game. The closest I could come was Gauntlet meets Raid: Shadow Legends? Throw in those old Japanese D&D arcade games, and I think you’d know what to expect here.

There are dragons, too. It is, after all, Mount Dragon.