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Indie games on show at PAX Australia

Forget the big booths and booming sounds. The indie area at PAX Aus was a hive of innovation and excitement.

Nic Healey
Nic Healey is a Senior Editor with CNET, based in the Australia office. His passions include bourbon, video games and boring strangers with photos of his cat.
Nic Healey
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1 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Toy Mania

One of the big surprises of PAX Australia was the indie developer section in the main hall.

The incredible range of games on display — from addictive mobile puzzlers through to immersive PC titles — was awe inspiring, as was the sheer level of excitement from the attendees.

Here's just a tiny smattering of the indie titles that were on display.

From Voxel Agents, the guys who gave Puzzle Retreat to a grateful world, comes Toy Mania. Playing almost like a combination of Tetris and Bejewelled, you can try it yourself on Facebook right now.

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2 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Wander

One of the secret stars of PAX Aus was the Oculus Rift, with a number of stands showing off gameplay via the headset. Those titles were guaranteed to have a queue a mile back as attendees clamoured for a peak into the world of virtual reality (VR). Wander, a collaborative multiplayer exploration title was one of them.

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3 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Framed

With its noir art style, Framed is a story-driven puzzle game from Melbourne-based team Love Shack.

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4 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Framed

The gameplay takes play on comic book-style squares, with you adjusting elements to reach your end goal and progress the story.

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5 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Black Annex

Black Annex, from one-man-band ManFightDragon, is a detailed infiltration and sabotage game, which amazingly was written entirely in QBasic. Check out the trailer below.

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6 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Lunar Flight

Remember what we said about the Oculus Rift? Lunar Flight is an ongoing project from ShovSoft that now has Rift integration, as you can see by the screen in the lower left of the photo.

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7 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

TownCraft

From Flat Earth Games, we have TownCraft, a compelling and surprisingly complex village simulator. It's out now for iPad and we'd recommend giving it a look.

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8 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Burden

Still in the early stages of development, Burden is almost a mobile tower defence game that has you defending an enormous two-legged beast of burden as it trudges along with its delivery. The art style appealed to us, adding a strange level of pathos to the beautifully designed beast.

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9 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Deck War

While there's no shortage of Collectible Card Games, we really appreciated Deck Wars' naive art style. You can play the prototype in-browser with the Unity plug-in.

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10 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

InFlux

If you only play one puzzle/platformer that casts you as a "mysterious metal sphere", we reckon this is the one to choose.

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11 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Epoch 2

A sequel! A rare beast at the show, but this is a worthy one. Epoch 2 is "a frantic cover shooter set in a ruined world where only robots are left to fight". From what saw of gameplay, it's a riotously enjoyable explosion of colour, gameplay and actual explosions.

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12 of 12 Nic Healey/CNET Australia

Bitrave Games

Jelly Run is a fast-paced platformer where you play a character called Totes Jelly. Smash Mash Monsters has been described as a "frantic puzzler". Both look fun.

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