Motherboard

If you’ve already seen our documentary from last year and our recent recap post, you’re probably aware that there was a lot going on last weekend at the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle, WA. But even amongst the countless panels, performances and personalities occupying the halls of the Washington State Convention Center, there were a couple of games on the show floor that seemed to grab everyone’s attention, taking a good portion of PAX’s 60,000+ attendees by surprise with new forms of satisfying and inventive gameplay — And conveniently enough, they were all right next to each other.

Retro/Grade

The mechanics behind Retro/Grade might look similar to well-travelled rhythm games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band on paper. But the really interesting thing about Caret Games’ technicolor space adventure is the way it’s presented. At first glance, Retro/Grade appears to be a shoot-em-up game in reverse: The game opens with you destroying the final boss, but a disruption in the time-space continuum causes the credits to scroll back and forces you to play the entire “game” backwards.

As your ship backpeddles through countless scuffles with enemy forces, you must use the frets of the guitar controller to properly position yourself and “catch” the bullets your past self has shot. Conversely, the enemy’s laser blasts come at you from behind, and by hitting the fret buttons, you can navigate to ensure your pilot’s safety. The game is essentially a skinned rhythm title at it’s core, but it’s still a fairly interesting take on the genre that takes familiar mechanics in interesting new directions.

Monaco

When it comes to selecting promising indie titles for the show floor, PAX’s curators definitely have a good eye for games with simple, addicting mechanics and good execution. This is definitely the case with Pocketwatch Games’ 4-player heist simulator Monaco: What’s Yours Is Mine, which has already generated tons of hype after winning top honors at this year’s Independent Games Festival in San Francisco. _Monaco_’s top-down co-op gameplay puts you and three buddies in the middle of an Ocean’s 11-style diamond robbery set to an old-timey soundtrack and charmingly blocky visuals.

The game allows 4 classes, including a thief who can pick locks, a hacker who can disable security systems, and a brawler who can quickly dispatch guards if things get too hairy. Organizing your team amid the constantly-changing environment seems to to take the best parts of stealth games like Metal Gear Solid and mixes them with simple, satisfying arcade/action gameplay that’s as addictive as it is accessible (the controls are so basic you could play the game with an Atari 2600 paddle). I haven’t had this much fun with 4-player co-op since The Behemoth’s Castle Crashers came out in 2008, and I suspect very deeply that Monaco is going to be this year’s breakaway indie hit.

Spy Party

Sitting right next to Monaco was the game that wound up being the sleeper hit of PAX 2010. Chris Hecker’s Spy Party is unlike any game you’ve ever played: A head-to-head mind war that explores the subtleties of human behavior and programmed intelligence. One player is a Sniper, and in his sights is a room full of Second Life-looking 3D game avatars.

All of these avatars are controlled by AI, except for one: The second player. The Spy player’s goal is to mimic the behaviors of the AI-controlled avatars in order to blend in with the scene while the Sniper player observes the room carefully, looking for signs of human-influenced movement that will give away the Spy’s position, and then taking him out in a single shot. Just watching this game being played was fascinating as every player approached the roles differently, each one surprised at how difficult it was to navigate this thin line between man and machine.

Keep an eye out for more innovative new titles like these at this year’s IndieCade festival in Los Angeles, and find more videogame coverage here on Motherboard.