The Now Play This festival took place this weekend at Somerset House in London, bringing together a vast array of interesting experimental game projects. Organisers Holly Gramazio and George Buckenham arranged the exhibits into themed rooms, with quieter areas for more intimate projects, and open spaces for a range of raucous physical games.
Here are some of our favourite titles from the weekend.
Chambara (Team OK, consoles)
Team OK’s minimalist local multiplayer death match game takes place in an almost monochrome world where a player in white and a player in black hide from each other by blending into the stark backgrounds. The aim, of course, is to take out your foe, either with a sword or a projectile weapon. It’s all about watching for the slightest movements to pinpoint your enemy’s location, and, cleverly, if you try to peek at their side of the screen for clues, there’s a ‘close eyes’ button which blanks it out entirely. It’s tense, fun and makes you think about the environment in very different ways. It’s due out on console later this year.
Slam City Oracles (Jane Friedhoff, PC)
Described by creator Jane Friedhoff as a kind of Riot Grrl mash up of Katamari Damacy and Grand Theft Auto, Slam City Oracles is about smashing up everything on screen by pummelling the “slam” button and letting your cute avatar collide with as many objects as possible. It’s exhilarating, confusing and sounds amazing thanks to the punk rock soundtrack from Brooklyn-based group Scully. Slam City Oracles is available for online for whatever you want to pay.
Hidden Folks (Adriaan de Jongh and Sylvain Tegroeg, PC/mobile)
The result of a collaboration between Fingle and Bounden creator Adriaan de Jongh and artist Sylvain Tegroeg, Hidden Folks is like an animated Where’s Wally in black and white. Each level is a crowded scene with a list of targets to track down, all with their own look and a clue to their whereabouts. Some are hidden in plain sight, while others lurk behind interactive objects like garage doors and vehicles. Absorbing and lightly funny, it’ll be perfect to play on a tablet in front of the television or with a friend on the TV itself.
Forager (Nate Gallardo and Cat Burton, PC/Mac)
You play as an unidentified woodland creature in this gentle exploration sim. There are no predators and no hazards, you simply gather the resources you need to make a nest to hibernate in, while snacking on mushrooms and other forest foods. The environments are filled with natural colours and are fun to explore and experiment in. Co-creator Nate Gallardo says that a key inspiration for the project was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skate, because he wanted to create an environment that was similarly fun to interact with. It’s out soon on PC and Mac.
It’s Spring Again (Asya Yurnia, iOS/Android)
Originally created as a puppet show by Asya Yurina, this beautiful app lets you guide a small orchard through the seasons, clicking on the bare branches to form blossom and eventually picking the apples that grow throughout the summer. When winter comes the clouds open their arms and release giant crystalline snow flakes. All the subtle interactions are accompanied by gentle musical notes so the user forms their own seasonal symphony. It’s available now for Apple and Android devices and works as both an educational toy and a relaxing aside.
Engare (Mahdi Bahrami, PC/Mac/iOS)
In this puzzle game, you’re presented with one or more moving shapes that spin and pulse, while along the top of your screen there’s a target: a different shape formed of a continuous line. To solve the puzzle you click on a point on the moving shape, which acts like a drop of ink that is then set on a path by the shape’s movement. Guess right, and that path will draw the target shape. A gentle, beautiful game to sit and puzzle over. It’s coming out soon on PC, Mac and iOS devices.
Inks (State of Play, smartphone/tablet)
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The talented studio behind award-winning adventure Lumino City further cements its reputation for beautiful, stylish games with this digital pinball table in which the ball gathers up paint and streaks it across the board. For Now Play This, State of Play ran the game on a large screen placed in a pinball table they designed and built themselves – but it will still be beautiful played on a tablet.
Action Painting Pro (Ian MacLarty, PC/Mac/Linux)
Super Mario meets Jackson Pollock is a pretty accurate description of this gorgeous platformer in which you must maintain your inspiration, money and passion gauges while slathering the backdrop in paint. At times during Now Play This, huge crowds gathered around the screen to watch skilled players create near-instant abstract artworks.
Pico Park (Tecopark, PC)
It was fascinating to watch Now Play This attendees work together to beat this multi-stage co-operative puzzler. Up to ten people can take part, forming human chains to reach over chasms, or working in exact synchronisation to jointly control one character on a simple platforming stage. There’s also a great Breakout challenge, where everyone has to keep multiple balls in the air while taking out blocks. The perfect team-building exercise. Developed by Japanese indie Tecopark, it’s just awaiting Steam approval.
Push Me Pull You (House House, PS4/Mac/Lunux/PC)
There’s something almost grotesque in the aesthetic of this top-down sports game, with two pairs of players each controlling a long worm-like creature with a head and arms on each end. But its combination of co-operation and competition is fascinating. Each team must keep the ball on their side of the court for as long as possible, but to do so involves working together to wrap the worm’s body around the ball, each player only able to move their own end and stretch or shrink. Weird but wonderful, both to play and watch. It’s due for release soon.
The World is Flat (Aubrey Hesselgren, PC/Mac/iOS/Android)
The developer, Aubrey Hesselgren, refers to this project as a “Mesmerising Geography Training Toy”, which is a perfect description. Players see a strange warped version of the globe, which keeps all of the countries in view, no matter where you zoom in on. The challenge is to find a series of countries and capital cities as quickly as possible by manipulating the map until the correct location is at the centre. For Now Play This, Hesselgren created a special version which used a giant rotating gym ball as the interface, which added a lovely level of tactility to the game. It’s due out this summer.
Snake Pit (//////////fur////)
One of the most popular games with the crowds of children at Now Play This was a giant version of a game that came out before they were born. It is essentially a multiplayer version of Snake, which graced mobile phones years before Angry Birds. The game screen is displayed on the floor, with the directional buttons placed around the edge of the display, two on each side. To guide their snake toward dots, and away from the edges or their opponent, each player ends up running around the display to stamp on their buttons. Naturally there’s a lot of real-world interference in the form of shoving and sabotage, creating an interesting, very noisy, dynamic.
Guppy (Christiaan Moleman, PC/Mac/iOS/Linux?Android)
This simple, pretty game has you swimming around as a fish in a stylistic 2D environment, collecting food and avoiding objects and enemies. It’s viewed from a top-down perspective, and perhaps the most interesting feature is the way your fish is controlled by waggling the analog stick to flick its tail. Steer left or right by favouring one direction, and move faster by waggling more fiercely. It can be tricky to get the hang of manoeuvring around the lily pads, but with a little practice it soon feels strangely satisfying.
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