Last Wednesday, RogueCode announced that its top-down shooter, Vicious Attack Llama Apocalypse (VALA) will be pushed to mid-March for reasons unknown.
However, this did not hamper the studio as they went ahead with the game’s launch on Steam today, which we know this has been a long time coming for the studio.
VALA is set in a post-apocalyptic world where players control a mech that must fight for waves of vicious llamas. The game has some touches of tower-defense mechanics as players can build and upgrade towers to protect you from said savage llamas. According to the studio, VALA is the “world’s best mass llama-slaughter roguelike-lite-ish couch co-op top-down twin-stick shooter.”
XBPSA’s Jannie Jordaan sat down with RogueCode founder Matt Cavanagh two weeks ago for a live stream to discuss the game and the journey the studio undertook to its current state currently as an Xbox Play Anywhere title.
VALA is the right step forward in game development and growing the community in South Africa, we scoured the Google search machine to find locally produced games that are changing the landscape of SA gaming.
Volantia (Tangled Mess Games)
Volantia is a beautiful kingdom management game, somewhat similar to Mojang’s Minecraft minus the sandbox element, where fragments of a broken continent are in the transitional process of reforming into one, unified world.
Developed by Cape Town-based studio, Tangled Mess Studios, the greenpunk world of Volantia is based on three core elements: building, exploring and optimising where technology is nurtured and developed.
Volantia will be available mid-2018 but for more information, check out the game’s official site or game designer Marc Luck on Twitter
Semblance (Nyamakop)
Another game with checking out on Windows PC is the puzzle platformer, Semblance.
In Semblance, players will immediately recognise a unique detail about this game: the player and the environment are made from playdough! Yes, play dough! This beautifully ingenious world will allow you to create your character and solve puzzles along the way.
Semblance provides a unique take on a genre that may have been redundant and stale over the years into a more invigorating and playful experience to date.
Tyd Wag Vir Niemand (Skobbejak Games)
Intriguing, ominous and uniquely challenging is best to describe Tyd Wag Vir Niemand from Skobbejak Games.
But the developers had a better description of the indie puzzle abstract game published on their site:
“Time, how do we define it?
Is it determined by our failures or successes?
Does tragedy affect our perception of time?
The only thing that is for certain is that time waits for no one.”
Tyd Wag Vir Niemand is available on Steam plus it will be receiving VR support despite it announcing that it should’ve arrived last month. Either way, players will have a rush exploring the dimensional and distorted world by using the laws of physics to manipulate time to solve challenges, escape out of sticky situations as you try to survive till the journey’s end.
We’re very much looking forward to the releases of all these fantastically awesome titles this year as we look to the future of SA game development. But we would like to know if you could develop your very own game, what would it be? Let us know in the comments section below or follow Xbox Players SA on Facebook and Twitter.
