Apr 27

Apr 27 WASD: What's in a Name?

The birth of a new convention within an established community brings all sorts of opportunities. It's a chance to establish a new vibe, meet a different crowd, and (of course), argue about the slightly ambiguous pronunciation of the event's name until the show floor closes and everyone has to go home.

What if I just installed Valorant on this indie game demo kiosk?

WASD isn't a totally new event —I feel practically mandated to readers that this is “the spiritual successor to EGX Rezzed." It nevertheless comes at a time of new beginnings — for many, this is their first in-person video game gathering since the beginning of the pandemic.

Elaborately dressed and bemasked (as are about 50% of the attendees), Sos Sosowski (“I call it ‘Wazzed’”) is here to show off his pandemic project McPixel 3. He tells me that his experience of WASD has re-asserted the benefit of in-person events for developers and fans alike.

“Now I’m here and physically seeing people play, I can see that [events like this are] very important,” he says. “I can see how they react, see what they like, when they quit, and stuff like that. It’s very important for any video game for the developer to see how people play [their game]. It’s also very motivating.”

Sos’ game is best described as a Warioware-esque action movie trope set of mini games where the eponymous McPixel must save the day, usually in unexpected ways. Throwing hammers out of crashing airplanes; urinating on cars; rocking out with spaceport employees — it's all here in eye-popping 8-bit glory.

“Nobody knows McPixel’s true intentions,” says Sos with what I can only assume is a straight face underneath their mask.

Sos has come all the way from Poznan, Poland, and he's not the only one to have hopped on a plane in order to be here. Liam Edwards and Mark Lentz (who inexplicably call it "Waz-Dee") from Chuhai Labs have journeyed from Kyoto to show off golfing roguelite Cursed to Golf. Along with getting fresh eyes on their indie game the duo likely also picked up the informal award for "furthest travelled to be here" — not least because flights from Japan currently still need to go the wrong way over the North Pole to avoid Russian airspace.

When I die and go hell, I will probably be damned to infinite golfing.

Cursed to Golf’s conflict is as supernatural as the name implies — it’s up to you to escape from Golf Purgatory by completing a random series of holes, with hazards and powerups aplenty. It’s a charming spin on a classic golf game control system, though the presence of three other golf games at WASD suggest that Chuhai Labs weren’t the only ones to see the potential in the “golf but weird” genre since the success of the zany What The Golf.

I had initially approached WASD looking for new forms of storytelling forged in an art form that exploded during the pandemic. Instead, I often found myself struck more by the sheer range of aesthetics on show.

An early eye-catcher was To Hell With The Ugly, a deliciously stylised cross between point-and-click adventure and side-scrolling turn-based beat-em-up which mess together far better than you might think. Based on a Boris Vian novel by the same name, its groovy colour palette and bold shapes show us that exaggerated limbs and geometric structures needn't be consigned to Corporate Memphis. When a game relies on exploration and attention to detail, it’s satisfying to have a world that’s such a joy to look at.

More traditional hand-drawn art styles made a strong showing, too. Point-and-click visual novel Shrodinger's Catgirl tells the story of two friends, an apparently deserted mansion filled with feline paraphernalia, a bloody murder that may or may not have taken place, and plenty of time travel shenanigans thrown in for good measure. Narrative designer at Spider Lily Studios Leah Philpot (“W-A-S-D”) tells me that each decision you make as a player affects the game world itself — these quantum mechanics references aren’t made lightly.

Either the person living here really likes cats or they are a human cat lady.

It wouldn’t be an independent video game event without a Devolver Digital room. Here I found Card Shark and was thrown into eighteenth-century France to learn a thing or two about the art of the grift. It's the sort of game that really shows off what can be done with a collection of comparatively simple inputs and a clever concept. In one chapter, I had to peek at an opponent's cards while refilling his wine glass. Easing the joystick to the side to pour, my eyes flicked between each side of the screen to catch a glimpse of the cards coming into focus while making sure not to spill any wine. Then I had to signal his strongest suit to my partner by wiping the table according to a pre-arranged pattern.

The attention to detail in timing and control sensitivity has paid off even in this early version of Card Shark, as has the whip-smart writing, though I'll be the first to admit that you'll probably enjoy the game a bit more if you aren’t an extremely hungover games journalist.

Thankfully, Post Void was there to knock me back into alertness. It didn’t so much draw my eye as stab it repeatedly, with its combination of DOOM/build engine faux 3D and violently coloured sprites. It's not a game for the faint of heart, either — your health decreases continually, and is only replenished by killing enemies as you race through brightly-coloured zig-zagging corridors to the end of each level. This is a game that’s continually doubling down — it’s a wild, psychedelic ride for those who can keep up.

It’s one of the first games to come from Super Rare Originals, the digital publishing arm of indie physical publisher Super Rare. Head of Words and busiest man in games Twitter Ryan Brown (“W-A-S-D or Wazzed, I haven’t decided yet”) is positively gleeful to be back: “I get so much energy from talking to people and going to events. Not just industry people but also the public. It’s amazing to talk to someone about a game for the first time.”

There is a sense of cautious optimism amongst the crowd at WASD. While the industry’s biggest names haven’t made it this year — Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft are notably absent — drawing enough exhibitors to fill even half of London’s gorgeous Tobacco Dock is an extremely positive sign this soon after the pandemic. There seems little doubt that next year’s event will be even better, even if we still can’t quite agree on what to call it.