This past weekend was PAX East, and for those of you who attended the Boston con, you may have noticed Devolver Digital’s jam packed booth. For those who didn’t, I’m happy to relay info. PAX attendees eagerly crowded around the four games there, with one, in particular, getting the most attention.
But we’ll get to that. While Devolver Digital will publish each game, the four were each by different developers and had different genres and styles. Nevertheless, it seemed the one thing that united them was weirdness. My Friend Pedro focuses on a young man’s friendship with a sentient banana. Gato Roboto features an astronaut who also happens to be an adorable cat. Katana Zero has you slicing and dicing enemies and then rewinding time to do it again, but better. And Heave Ho has all sorts of game characters… attempting to throw each other across large gaps. Delightfull bonkers all of them.
My Friend Pedro
My Friend Pedro tells the heartwarming story of a young man and his trusty talking banana, who also happens to have extensive knowledge of fighting techniques. Naturally, it’s a 2D shoot-em-up sidescroller.
The demo started with Pedro (that’s the banana, who is also your friend), telling me about how to somersault and do various acrobatics. While it sounds like he wants you to join the circus, he’s actually training you to take down a mob boss who runs a restaurant as cover. Infiltrating the restaurant, you do all sorts of kicks and flips in order to gracefully take down bad guy after bad guy. The game rewards you for how fluidly you can do this, with consecutive kills increasing your score multiplier.
Clearing room after room of goons, the demo taught me how to aim and shoot in two directions at once with a gun in each hand, as well as other combat mechanics like slowing down time. While the matrix-like gunfights were cool, I wondered about variety. Luckily the following section involved a shootout on motorcycles, culminating in a boss battle with a butcher throwing explosive meat from his truck.
Developed by DeadToast Entertainment, My Friend Pedro will debut on PC and Nintendo Switch later this year.
Gato Roboto
Gato Roboto features one of the cutest space explorers ever, in the form of a small cat. Of course, this cat also inhabits a large mech suit that allows it to fight dastardly flora and fauna in this Metroid-style sidescroller.
With simple controls, the demo was easy to pick up and play. B to fire, A to jump (and sometimes roll?), and Y to eject from the suit and just be a cat. I wasn’t entirely sure of the point of this last command, but I liked seeing the suit open up to reveal a much smaller cat that just walks around and does cat things. It also appeared that I may have started in the middle the demo, but when you’re a cat shooting stuff in space it didn’t appear that I missed too much.
The game features a delightfully retro art style, and looked to be light on story but heavy on sidescrolling cat action.
Developed by Doinksoft, Gato Roboto will also release for PC and Nintendo Switch later this year.
Katana ZERO
Unfortunately, due to time constraints I didn’t actually play this one, but hey, it looked cool. A more sword-orientated sidescroller, Katana ZERO involves dodge-rolling, hack and slashing, and messing around with time.
Players can slow down time and even turn back time, just like Cher always wanted. The game boasts a dark, tongue-in-cheek sense of humor and a lot of blood. I wish I could say more, but here’s a gameplay video that should give you a pretty good idea.
Developed by Askiisoft, Katana ZERO arrives on April 18 for PC and consoles.
Heave Ho
While all the games at the booth received a solid amount of attention, one game commanded it. Partly because it was projected on a big screen, but how could you turn away from watching a goofy two-arms-and-a-head 2B accidentally drop an equally goofy and legless Solid Snake to a bright, splashy doom? With difficulty, I’d say, and since Devolver revealed this game at PAX East this weekend, it made sense to give it a bigger display.
Heave Ho managed to be one of those games that were just as fun to watch as it was to play. Okay, maybe even more fun to play, but still really fun either way. In fact, even watching my character fall to his to demise when my friend accidentally dropped him was hysterical.
Four players are given the seemingly easy goal of swinging and tossing each other across each level in order to reach a finish line. Easier said than done. In the demo, I actually found it pretty intuitive and easy at first, until I was informed that we had completed the tutorial. The actual game throws more challenges your way as the levels are much longer and filled with more hurdle to cross and things to avoid.
Developed by The Cartel Studio, Heave Ho comes out on PC and Nintendo Switch this summer.
