(Courtesy of BitSummit)
BitSummit Punch was the 14th edition of my favourite indie game event, held annually in Kyoto. This year's BitSummit yet again shattered its past attendance record, with 68,208 visitors filling every last inch of space at the Miyako Messe exhibition centre.
The show was more packed than ever, with 496 exhibitors showing hundreds of games—and since the quality bar keeps going up, that meant more excellent demos than you could possibly play within only three days.
IGN Japan was once again an official media partner. We broadcast a livestream on the last day of the show, where we played demos of games from the show, plus a few interviews with developers and publishers shot at our booth on the show floor.
Among the games we showcased on our livestream were Finding Polka, which tasks players with finding a missing dog within its black-and-white hand-illustrated world; and Mina the Hollower, a new action-adventure game from the makers of Shovel Knight.
The Challenge of Picking One Winner
We also select one game each year as the recipient of the IGN Japan Media Highlight Award, part of the official annual BitSummit Awards.
It's extremely difficult to select just one game out of several hundred. Over the years we've settled on some internal guidelines to help us select—we tend to pick a game that is not already on sale, and we look for something that reflects the indie spirit of BitSummit.
But that doesn't really narrow it down much, and we always wrangle up until the last minute, playing as many demos as possible in the run-up to the event and on the show floor.
A Tanuki Delivers the Prize
This year we selected Tanuki: Pon's Summer by local Kyoto-based developer Denkiworks as IGN Japan’s game of the show.
It's a heartwarming, family-friendly game that recreates a nostalgic and idyllic time, in which the player guides a tanuki (raccoon dog) postman around a quaint town to deliver parcels and help the townspeople with chores. There's an undeniable air of Kiki's Delivery Service about the game, and watching protagonist Pon the tanuki waddle around the town is an adorable experience.
The venue was notably packed this year, especially on the Saturday and Sunday, as the venue filled with gamers and families looking for fun new indie games to fall in love with. Luckily there were plenty of great games to discover.
Brewing Coffee and Derailing Trains
As always, Nintendo and PlayStation were among the headline sponsors at BitSummit Punch, each showing a selection of cool indies available on their platforms.
Some highlights at Nintendo's Indie World booth included Coffee Talk Tokyo, the latest game in a series that is hugely popular in Japan, where you play as a barista listening to the problems of your customers while serving them hot drinks to soothe their spirits; and Denshattack, a bold and colourful game where you make a runaway train do skateboard-like tricks that are figuratively and literally off the rails.
PlayStation Highlights
PlayStation, meanwhile, hosted demos including the deadly beautiful survival-horror game The Florist; and Akiba Lost, a mystery game set in Tokyo's Akihabara district and featuring full-motion video graphics.
Beyond Palworld
As one of the headliners of the lower floor, Pocketpair also had a large booth with lots to play. Palworld is still the company's flagship, and the stall was abuzz with playful cuddly mascots to take photos with.
Meanwhile, Pocketpair publishes titles by smaller independent developers included the newly released Windrose, a co-op survival game set in a land of pirates—which sold some 1.5 million copies in its first two weeks of early access; and Normal Fishing, a bizarre retro-style game whose creepy horror-adventure tale is laced with deadpan British humor.
A World Tour of Indie Games
While these larger sponsor booths are a great place to start for newcomers especially, the BitSummit show floor was densely packed with interesting games.
Some of these were on display at pavilion-style booths dedicated to games from South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, China, and so on. This is a great way for smaller developers to be shown on a bigger booth than they might be able to afford alone, and to shine the spotlight on games from places you might not expect.
Among these, I enjoyed the demo for a game called Teeto, from New Zealand developer Eat Pant Games. Very much inspired by the 3D platform-action games of the 1990s and early 2000s, Teeto lets you loose on its extremely vivid and colorful world, picking up different abilities from the environment that unlock new actions to help you progress, leading to varied play styles that make exploration fun.
Not a themed pavilion but hosting dozens of games, the ever-growing booth by marketing company Ukiyo Studios featured a ton of interesting games. Among these was Rain98, a psychological thriller by Japanese developer C#4R4CT3R set in 1990s Shibuya. The game's atmospheric pixel art visuals and mysterious story promise to deliver an intriguing experience.
Treasures Between the Aisles
Deeper into the show floor, many developers showed their games on single tables, with ramshackle setups and minimum fuss. But this still left plenty of opportunity for happy discovery.
One such game shown this year was FEAR FA 98, a football game based on the old FIFA games of the 1990s, but reimagined as a nightmarish collection of grotesque ghouls and bucketloads of blood.
Another was Dancing With Ghosts, a cosy adventure game from the creator of Toejam & Earl about a young girl coming to terms with the death of her parents through the healing power of friendship and music.
In other cases, it was fun to catch up with new demos for games I've seen at past events. Cosmic Race: Galactic Showdown is an arcade racing game from Indian developer Psypher Interactive, offering fun kart-racer multiplayer gameplay with more realistic physics and a range of creative powerup items that let your car attack opponents or even sprout swings and fly.
A demo for HellHeart Breaker showed an updated version of this dungeon-crawling roguelite in which you meet a selection of monster girls—and either date them, granting you new abilities, or reject them—turning them into bosses you must fight later.
And then there was Kidbash: Super Legend, a slick platform-action game inspired by the Mega Man series of old, whose high-skill gameplay is matched by its gorgeous Toy Story aesthetic.
The Heart of BitSummit
BitSummit is all about the games, of course, but it's also a hugely social event, where indie game developers from around the world can rub shoulders, share inspiration and learn from one another.
The show continues even after the venue at Miyako Messe has closed for the day, with formal and casual parties all across Kyoto, including gatherings at the banks of the Kamo River, running deep into the night. What I lacked in solid hours of sleep, I made up for in new connections, surrounded by friends old and new.
This is the energy that gives BitSummit its spark, and makes it one of the most vibrant and exciting game expos anywhere in the world.
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Author: Daniel Robson
Daniel Robson is the Executive Producer of IGN Japan.
