It’s July 2024. And it’s super hot outside. Hot and humid, the bad kind. Step outside, and your body will very quickly let you know ‘Man, you should not be there, get back in!’ in various ways. But that’s also the time of the BitSummit in Kyoto, like every summer. It’s often a good preparation before the Tokyo Games Show (taking place in September) as there is a great amount of overlap between the games you see in both events, at least for the indie scene. So I was on my way to the BitSummit, again.

In this edition BitSummit continued at the Miyako Messe, probably one of the largest convention centers in Kyoto available in a central location for this kind of show. Usually BitSummit only allocates a single floor (the first one) along with some additional space for business meetings (underground rooms), yet this time they managed to secure a much larger event space, with the 3rd floor fully used as well. While it was clearly indicated on the posters in the first place, I did not pay attention as I had always experienced the event as being a single-floor thing only. This was a cause for confusion.

After a long queue (I joined during the public days this time), I could get in the event on the first floor, and it was as dark and gloomy as usual: lots of small booths with a few larger ones at the center. One of the corners of the floor was also dedicated to board and card games, which is a first time, I think.

Here you can a few folks trying some of the board games:

Not too far from there, you could find shops selling pretty cool game-derived goods (often sold for a large sum of cash) but that’s what fans are for. You had game soundtracks on vinyl, for example:

And you could also stumble upon some very nice little branded items, as you can see below for Cuphead. I was almost going to get one until I came back to my senses - these things are expensive. Ouch! I guess it’s much cheaper to play games than to buy game-derived goods.

After a brief glance at the goods, I went to look around for the real stuff. After spending an hour on the floor, I had a strange feeling.

That’s it? I know it’s an indie games event, but the quality of the titles shown at the first floor was one of the worst I had ever seen. There were a few gems, yet 90 to 95% of the rest was borderline shovelware garbage. One of my friends who came to the show later told me he talked to one of the devs on that floor, who boasted ‘I made this game in three days!’.

Well, that would explain everything then. Half-baked concepts, awful framerates, no art whatsoever shovelware galore. And then as I was talking to a publisher on another booth, they told me ‘you can see more of our games on the 3rd floor’. Oh you mean there’s more? I did not need any other reason to move on.

The Third Place

The third floor was just an escalator away. Once in, it felt like a totally different show. This was the realm of indie games with publishing contracts, and boy oh boy, the gap in quality was huge with whatever the first floor was about. Not only that, but the whole floor was properly lighted. Instead of the gloomy setup of the first floor, on the third you were welcomed by bright colors, attracting visitors to check out upcoming games. Devolver had a huge booth for example. You could also spot Shuhei Yoshida (ex-Sony) talking during the event, as a big supporter of the indie games scene.

While it was a public day, it did not feel too crowded. There was definitely a way to play several games on the day if you really wanted to.

Steam Deck

First observation - there were a lot fewer Steam Decks around this time compared to last year’s. Shockingly so. You could still find quite a few here and there, but somehow a majority of devs have moved on to other devices (mini-PCs or Switch) to showcase their games. I have spotted the ROG Ally only once, so it’s not like they went for a competitor instead.

This time Komodo (the official distributor for the Steam Deck in Japan) was not at the event so it could be that there used to be some kind of sponsorship before to have the Steam Deck on display on as many booths as possible.

Well, that time is gone.

The Games

I only tried a few titles at the show, while I watched many played before me. In short, there were a lot of good titles, while nothing earth-shattering either.

Last Time I saw you

A 2D adventure game set in the Japan of the 80s, made by a foreigner (probably living in Japan? I did not ask him). Very beautifully crafted, it plays like a platformer with a narrative arc added to it. You play the role of a little boy who sees an older girl in his dreams and goes on looking for her.

Such a shame that a noisy event floor is one of the worst places to check this kind of games out.

Steam: Last Time I Saw You

Cult of the Lamb: Unholy Alliance

This is a planned free update for the well-known title, that will be bringing 2-players local co-op mode with new powers and abilities. Devolver made a big deal out of it as you can see from the size this took at the event:

Not something I was personally too interested in, but it looked fun.

KKCKC

This was by far my favorite game of the show. You play the role of a keycap, and you go thru levels fighting enemies that are PC-hardware based, like cables and other shit like that. What’s fun and disorientating at the same time is that when you shoot, you don’t use the direction keys or anything, but you use your keyboard to point into which direction you want to shoot.

For example, if you are at the ground level on the right and you want to shoot on your left, you could hit the left control key to do that. If you want to shoot around the middle of the screen, you would use the key H or T. And every time you move across the screen, you need to use different keys to adapt to your changing location. You can see below that this gamer took a while to really understand the concept:

In the end you could see he started to grasp how it works. It’s so alien that you really need to fight your brain that tries to map one command to one key - it messes with your mind. Would absolutely recommend.

Steam: KKCKC

Cassette Boy

The game looks like a 2D 8bits title but elegantly mixes 3D in surprising ways. When you turn the camera around, you can impact the world by making objects disappear if they can’t be seen anymore.

It’s planned for 2024 and it was playable on the Steam Deck (and Switch) at the show.

Steam: Cassette Boy

Minds Beneath Us

The game’s presentation is very cool, but this game loves texts a bit too much. I was following one person playing through the demo, and it was just a bunch of never-ending dialogs from the beginning.

This may have caused my interest in the game to drop a little. It’s now out on Steam at the time of writing, and it has very positive reviews. Still, I can’t shake the impression that this is just a game where you have to read walls of text before you can do anything.

Steam: Minds Beneath Us

Undefeated Genesis

Progressively well, we have now been able to check a new build following last year’s discovery at Bitsummit 2023 and our follow-up interview at the TGS 2023 as well. There was not much new to be seen in this version, but it definitely looks more polished and playable.

Last I know, this game should not release before 2025. So there’s still time to see it in a couple of more shows, with more levels and different types of enemies.

Steam: Undefeated Genesis

Cyborg

It looks like a 3D fighting game between cyborgs, that you can apparently customize. And they sprinkled roguelite elements on top of that.

Quite well done based on what I believe is a small development team behind the title. No idea when it will be released.

Steam: Cyborg

Wizardry

Wizardry had a huge booth at the entrance of the second floor, with the game running on multiple formats. It’s very similar to older 16 bits dungeon crawlers where you are in charge of a team of 6 characters and explore dungeons a la first person, with restricted movements - this time, unlike older games like the real Wizardry series or Eye of the Beholder, it’s in 3D of course, with very pretty effects for magic and environment changes.

The game is already out since May 2024 (I was not aware of it) and you can find it on Steam.

Steam: Wizardry

Loopstructor

Yet another tower defense game, with roguelike elements, and a twist on the genre. Your towers are not fixed in space, but they have to evolve on loops that you create on the map. The more points your loop connect on the map, the more you can chain shooting elements on your train of defense.

Simple game, but well executed. You can find the demo on Steam if you want to try it out.

Steam: Loopstructor

Tokyo Underground Killer

Katana, FPS, Tokyo and Cyberpunk with a lot of neon lights, that could sum up pretty well what this is all about. I’m not sure I am not too interested in the gameplay itself. But it’s very colorful.

Steam: Tokyo Underground Killer

AI Limit

A new 3D action RPG in which you control an immortal girl, who enters the city of Havenswell where the very last humans live. The art style is very decent, and it may be worth checking out later on in this year.

It clearly has somewhat of a Nier Automata feel.

Steam: AI Limit

Palworld

Palworld is a big success worldwide and it’s no surprise they could afford a huge booth at the Bitsummit to make their game even more popular.

It’s still in Early Access at the moment.

Steam: Palworld

Unique controllers

The BitSummit is a great place to see some unique craftmanship from Japan. There was this game (probably more a demo than anything) where you had to hit a Famicom (a Japanese NES) on the head to make your character jump.

More special, a DJ-like controller to play a game what looks like Vampire survivor, where you use the discs to change the direction of your bullets.

Not sure about the game itself, but the accessory was COOL!

Overall Impressions

How was this “DRIFT” summit? A good edition. It feels a lot more standard than the earlier editions of the show, where things were disorganized and more chaotic. Bitsummit feels like a regular trade show nowadays, a trade show where you mostly see indie titles, but a trade show nonetheless. The thing it kind of lacks is the element of surprise. There are a couple of places like the Tokyo Games Show where companies prepare something that they show for the first time. Digital channels have gone a long way and everything can already be seen online way before the show even starts. The point of the event is to be there, to talk to indie developers, and this is a great opportunity to be able to do that.

Oh, and VR is still as dead as ever. There were a few VR titles, but just a couple. If indies don’t even think it’s going anywhere, I’m afraid there is no so much hope to grow the market anytime soon.