E3 2015: Hands on with Wii U and 3DS Nindies at MIX

At this year’s event there were over 20 games being shown off, quite a number of VR games as well which was nice to see, but right by the door as you walked in were five Nintendo related indie developers spruiking their wares and after getting some hands on with them, I am happy to see them dedicating their efforts on Nintendo’s platforms. First up was Image & Form showing off the new Steamworld Heist on Nintendo 3DS.

Brjann Sigurgeursson, the CEO of the company was the man on point talking to everyone who wanted to know about the game and then letting people actually play it. I picked up the machine and settled in for a great sample of a game that I now, cannot wait to play in full. While I was playing the game I made mention of how sore I was from walking the show floor all day, which resulted in Brjann going and getting me a chair, talk about service. After sitting down, I was sucked into the game and it was good.

Moving around is performed with the d-pad, while the circle stick moves the camera, which between the two allows you to scout out the best place to move your characters and then locate them there. When you are moving, you get two coloured zones to use, an orange zone and a blue one, once you character leaves the orange zone they won’t be allowed to attack this turn, which means you will need to rely on a good defense position, if you stay in the orange, you can attack and then move into the blue. To attack you simply press the R button to bring the gun up, use the d-pad to line up your shot and press A to fire. The controls are really simple and I never had any issues in using them.

The other thing to note is that bouncing bullets off of walls and such is crucial and beneficial to your success, as doing so will give a small increase to the power of your attack. The other element to the game, which is something I was not aware of is hats, the wearing of hats is very important. In the Steamworld hats are a sign of power, the more hats you wear the powerful you become, but the more fearsome you become, as if you wear a number of hats, you might actual un-nerve the enemy as in you will literally see the shake. Steamworld Heist is a game that I am very much excited for, my time with the game was brief, but it gave me a taste and now I want more.

The second game to be found along that line up was Mutant Mudd Super Challenge from Renegade Kid and it’s CEO Jools Watsham was there demoing it and taking questions from those who wanted to know more. Super Challenge is not just the games subtitle, it is the most accurate way of describing the game, it is based off the popular Mutant Mudd title, Super Challenge has a whole new batch of levels that will test everyone like never before. This is not marketing speak, nor is it hype to get people to play until the hard levels, in the entire time I played, I never beat a stage and in the entire time I was at the event, neither did anyone else. The challenge is that you have to collect every gem in the stage while making it to the finish, there are creatures along the way that will damage you if you touch them, but you can take three hits from them before you fall, the spikes on the other hand are instant death.

What is different about this game now though is that some gems are hidden in new hidden areas that will challenge you to take your time and look for them, but don’t take too long as there is also a counter, working its way to zero, so many runs through might be in order to discover all of the secrets. But even more than that, the Mutant Mudd series will now feature bosses for the first time, each one will require some thought on how best to proceed and then of course you must defeat them.

As another bonus characters from other Nintendo Indie titles will also make their way into the game, with Rusty from Steamworld Dig being the first to be announced, this won’t change the way the game plays, but it is a nice touch. The game also continues to count the number of deaths and when I placed the controller down after my many tried it was around 112 deaths, but you know what, I loved every moment of it, because the game never made me die, it was always my fault and I knew it, but because I knew it I kept pushing back, trying again and again to clear whatever part I was stuck on.

The next two games on display were Runbow and Typoman, both drew crowds and both games could not be further apart. Runbow is bright and colourful, whereas Typoman is a dark and surreal game, I chatted with the dev guys for Runbow, but never played it. The final game in the line-up was Fast Racing Neo and if you like F-Zero you have to get this game.

Fast Racing Neo is all about speed, the moment that a race starts it becomes so evident, each slam into the wall will have you coming an halt so fast that it’s jarring. So keeping off the walls and staying on the track is critical to your success, thankfully the controls were spot on, using the left stick you move your vehicle around, the a button accelerates, with ZR and ZL acting as strafe, a move you will need to use in the harder courses in order to make the tighter turns.

The other gameplay element that draws inspiration from F-Zero are the boost pads, there are two types in the game, orange and blue and by pressing X you can actually swap the affiliation of your ride to the other colour, which is something you will need to do in order to use the boost. If you race over a blue boost section and your vehicle is orange, you will actually be slowed way down, but if you match the colour, the boost you get is incredible. But that is not all the boost you will get, as you race, you can collect orbs that provide you with additional boost you can use at any time, though I used it more for when I crashed and needed to get going again.

Fast Racing Neo is the F-Zero game that Nintendo won’t make and whenever it does release, I can’t wait to add it to my collection. In fact that is a running theme of all three of these games and for good reason, these indie developers are creating games that are fun.

Luke travelled to E3 to cover it for his own site Maxi-Geek, he was nice enough to write this for us too.