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Bastion preview: Under construction
Hewn handholds and knee-high hedges are there for a reason. Think of them as the worldwide baby-proofing done by game designers, who must ensure that their protagonist is able to make it from one side of the adventure to the other without getting lost, or fatally slamming against an unbeatable obstacle. It's an unrealistic tweaking of life, but there's no fun in Lara Croft going home because that one chasm was just too wide. The hero of Bastion treads literally upon this convenient truth, with a path rising from the earth miles below and solidifying his journey, piece by piece. From a purely selfish standpoint, it's awfully nice to have proof that the world does evolve around you. It's unclear what force has shattered the world, but its savior-to-be, The Kid, isn't in danger of getting lost amid the floating fragments that remain. If the quest expects you to go in a certain direction, an incomplete piece of land will signal you to approach and trigger the rise and assembly of a new environment. Acting as more than just a clever visual effect, it's an effective and immediate way to entangle you in the core of the story. It seems that nothing exists and nothing happens without your presence.%Gallery-101176%
Indies react: PAX East as a showcase for small studios
Like so many PAX shows before it, this year's PAX East showcased a ton of indie games -- the gaming equivalent of a Williamsburg dubstep show, if you will. In our experience at this year's event, larger industry players like EA and Bethesda showed off their titles with hired hands and private theater viewings, choosing to exhibit older demos rather than new content. The indies and smaller studios, on the other hand, were out in force. Beyond bringing playable versions of their games to the show -- even Fez was playable, for the first time in several years of development -- the indie studios brought themselves. They continued the tradition of directly engaging with attendees and, often, solicited game-testing feedback on the fly. "I approached PAX East as a three-day playtest session. I learned so much about what works and what doesn't just from standing in the back and observing how people played the game," Fez co-developer Phil Fish told Joystiq. "It's also an amazing morale boost to be told by so many people that your game is great."
Bastion's story narrated on XBLA this summer
Bastion, Supergiant Games' beautifully hand-painted isometric action-RPG, is coming to Xbox Live Arcade this summer, thanks to a publishing partnership with Warner Bros. Interactive. It'll also be on PC "later this year." Bastion follows "The Kid," who travels through a destroyed world whose paths are constantly rebuilt around him, as he attempts to reach and give power to "The Bastion," a location that will somehow restore the world. Along the way, a voiced narrator tells the story of exactly what is happening on screen.
Bastion is Supergiant Games' first title, playable at PAX
When Supergiant Games opened its doors during GDC earlier this year, it revealed it was working on a digital title to be released in 2011. This week, Giant Bomb unveiled that title -- it's called Bastion and should be available for public consumption by next summer. Supergiant explains Bastion as an "action role-playing game set in a lush imaginative world, in which players must create and fight for civilization's last refuge as a mysterious narrator marks their every move." The "mysterious," somewhat lyrical narrator makes his first appearance in the game's trailer -- which we've dropped after the break. Considering Supergiant's pedigree (ex-EALA Command & Conquer devs) and how beautifully detailed this initial media is, we have high hopes for Bastion. The game will be playable at PAX Prime this weekend as part of the "PAX 10."%Gallery-101176%
Supergiant Games: New studio of former Command & Conquer vets
A new company debuting at GDC 2010, Supergiant Games is largely comprised of ex-EA LA members -- you know, the guys and gals who made those Command & Conquer games you like so much. The new studio's project is something for "digital platforms," destined for a 2011 release. Sadly, there's no more info to go on right now. The studio is on-hand at GDC with said title, so we've contacted them to try and schedule a visit. [Via Big Download]
