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The PAXpocalypse List: The Best of PAX East 2014

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PAX East 2014 was a different type of show than in years past. Some big publishers, such as Nintendo, skipped the show completely, while others, like Microsoft, only brought a handful of unreleased games. This shift in the show floor allowed the indies to take center stage, and the majority of our PAX East 2014 PAXpocalypse List reflects this year’s status quo. But that’s not to say the big publishers skipped PAX East 2014 altogether. Towering displays from 2K, Bethesda, and Ubisoft dominated the exhibition hall map, and we definitely had some fun with a few games that will demand your time during this Summer and Fall.

So if we were cut off from the outside and trapped within the walls of PAX East 2014, which games would we return to over and over again? Well… (more…)

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Tetropolis is a literal puzzle platformer that will be playable at PAX East 2014

A few weeks ago, I mused on the characters that inhabit our favorite puzzle games, including the belief of many Tetris players that the piece randomizer secretly has feelings. Apparently, the developers at NextGen Pants operate on the same wavelength as they’ve revealed Tetropolis, a literal “puzzle” platformer that stars a sentient Tetris piece rebelling against the piece randomizer:

Tetropolis is a non­linear puzzle platformer set in a world obsessed with falling block puzzles. In the city of Tetropolis, thousands of game pieces are manufactured every minute in order to meet the demands of “the game.” You play as a square­shaped tetromino that has failed the quality check and has been discarded for not being perfect. Unlike other discarded pieces, you obtain the ability to change into different shapes, each one possessing its own unique ability that you can use to traverse the world.

In addition to Tetris (even the rooms themselves can be realigned like Tetris pieces), Tetropolis has taken plenty of inspiration from the “Metroidvania” genre of side-scrolling exploration games. Using your ability to change into different Tetris pieces, your Tetris piece will battle enemies, solve puzzles, obtain new abilities, and advance through the world.

Tetropolis sounds like my dream come true and it’ll be playable at the Indie Minibooth during this year’s PAX East expo on Sunday, April 13.

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