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BitSummit: Japanese Indie Devs Are Pushing Some Amazing, Bizarre Games

In Kyoto, farting is in.

Despite being a historic video game development powerhouse, Japan's indie community is under-explored by the Western media—and until recently, generally considered underdeveloped.

Indie game festival BitSummit is determined to change that, having run for the last three years in Kyoto, home of some of the bigger names of Japanese indie development. likes of PixelJunk developer Q-Games.

Motherboard was at BitSummit this year to find the best games at the show, which run the gamut from meta-narratives about 90s nostalgia to farting skunks.

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**Back in 1995 *(Throw The Warped Code Out, PC/TBD)***

Stunning visually for all the "wrong" reasons, Back in 1995 has already made waves online with its pitch-perfect style-parody of the graphics of PlayStation-era Silent Hill. Low-res, flickery and full of clashy polygons (which genuinely requires effort to manufacture with modern development tools) Back in 1995 captures a mood that's been missing from the horror game genre since around that titular year—the fear that you can't really see what's there, and if you did, you couldn't adequately escape it as you struggle with awkward controls.

Farting was in this year at BitSummit.

However, Back in 1995 promises to be more than just a retro-throwback, with designer Ichijo Takaaki saying it will "ask players to consider why they'd play a game like this in 2015."

Unusually, Back in 1995 was actually started as a PlayStation Mobile title, but since that service was discontinued, Takaaki moved development over to PC. Takaaki is still looking for a publisher.

**Bad Smell Queue *(Xionchannel Software, iOS, Android) / Gassy Mob (Flee Punk, iOS)***

Farting was in this year at BitSummit, and it was up to attendees to choose their preferred brand, with a tight score attack game from Xionchannel Software (creator of amazing and odd iOS games Hungrymaster and Electromaster) or a more Katamari-esque "fantastic brutal gas arcade" game. In Bad Smell Queue, players attempt to feed a skunk to the point where his explosive farts will kill enough enemies, whereas in Gassy Mod players simply run around a bright, pastel-coloured world farting on people while evading the, uh, fart police. Both were fun, and far deeper than our childish giggles might imply.

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**MUSE: Together Is The New Alone *(Pygmy Studio, PS4/PSVita)***

Our pick of the show but the one which was most guarded, limited to just the briefest of reveals. MUSE: Together Is The New Alone is multimedia artist Baiyon's first game as creative director. He previously collaborated on Q-Games titles including Pixeljunk 4am and Pixeljunk Eden.

MUSE: Together Is The New Alone is a "love adventure" heavily inspired by his adoration of the Mother/Earthbound series. Baiyon's watercolour paintings are interwoven with classic pixel art to create this tale of a boy on a journey to awaken a sleeping girl, who on the way finds notes and paintings that she's created. While little has been revealed, it already looks unlike anything else.

**Brave Yamada-Kun *(Onion Games, iOS)***

Brave Yamada-kun is an amusingly self-referential mobile game developed by Onion Games, whose absurdist iOS screen-tapper Million Onion Hotel is eagerly awaited by fans of Onion Games' Yoshiro Kimura, legendary for games including PS2 kissing adventure Chulip.

Starring Yamada-kun, a depressed 36 year old game developer who works for a large Japanese company, Yamada finds his reality warping as he tries to develop his dream retro-RPG in his tiny apartment.

Full of amusing cut-scenes and retro references, the game is also a clever twist on path-drawing logic puzzles; the player must choose Yamada's path as he navigates the dungeons he dreams up (trying to visit as much of the dungeon as possible without going back on yourself) watching him succeed or fail based on your decision.

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There's a unique, almost Angry Birds-like pleasure in it—wind Yamada up and watch him go—but with far greater depth and warmth than that classic subway time-waster. Unfortunately, with a large amount of Japanese text, a release outside of Japan is "not currently planned" according to designer Kimura, unless Million Onion Hotel is a success.

**Torquel *(FullPowerSideAttack, PC/PS4/PSVita)***

Imagine a platform game where you don't control your hero—but control the box he's trapped in. And this box has the unique property that each side of the box can be extended into an "arm" that will propel the box forward. Seems easy enough, right? Just alternate extending the box edges until you get to the goal. But what happens if this box is in situated a nightmarish, N++ style masocore platformer level?

Such is the situation you find yourself in with Torquel, an entirely unique physics puzzler that might be basic graphically but which is the most bizarre comedy game of the year, as you use the box's extending arms to manipulate the hero to the exit in an odd manner. Using the box arms to move across flat ground seems easy enough, but once the game introduces moving platforms, conveyor belts and even things that seem as simple as round edges, things get desperate! Endlessly hilarious, it still challenges both your dexterity and intelligence, and Torquel is a gem that hopefully doesn't go overlooked when released on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita.

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**Drunk Room *(Chogetsuku/CyGames, Oculus)***

As we accelerate towards retail releases of the Oculus Rift and Project Morpheus, Japanese developers are starting to get involved with strange games like the like Drunk Room, which casts the player as a trapped, hungover groom, desperately trying to escape in time to make it to his wedding.

VR is disorientating at the best of times, so the sensation of having a heavy head and slowed reactions creates a surprisingly immersive "hungover" experience. There are two Drunk Room games available on iOS in Japan, and while the Oculus version is currently just a proof of concept, Cygames' Arun Mehta considers a western release a "distinct possibility."

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BitSummit made it clear that indie development has arrived in Japan, and it's here to stay (the selection above not a tenth of what was on show) but it's unfortunate that not all these games are likely to see release in the west, with the challenge and cost of localisation often too high a bar for indie developers no matter what part of the world they hail. Here's hoping that western publishers and indie-friendly platform holders like Sony can help get these games into our hands in future.