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This story contains some spoilers for the end of the fourth season of HBO’s Game of Thrones as well as for parts of the book A Dance with Dragons.

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The Boston Festival of Indie Games held its second convention on Saturday, September 13 after a successful Kickstarter. The convention features up-and-coming indie developers making games for consoles, PCs, mobile devices, virtual reality and tabletop. XBLA Fans had the opportunity to attend and see what goodies might be in store for Xbox in the near future. These are the games that we got to see in that short day.

Keep in mind, while most of these are in the works to come to Xbox platforms, not all of them are confirmed Xbox releases yet.

High Strangeness

This paranormal adventure game from Crystal Labs swaps between game console generations. By pushing the right trigger, you swap between eight bits and 16 bits with authentic graphics and mechanics from that generational “dimension.”  For example, in the SNES-stye 16-bit dimension, you can move diagonally and use more combat moves, whereas the eight-bit dimension leaves you with a simple jab attack and only four directions to move in. While the world stays the same, you will have to occasionally swap to defeat certain enemies trapped in a particular dimension. However, most of the game can be completed in both bit variations, so you can enjoy the game in whichever generation feels more comfortable.

Retro fans will notice the resemblance to classics like The Legend of Zelda once they experience some of High Strangeness‘ puzzles and combat. You will need to throw switches, move blocks, catch patterns and uncover secrets to get through it. During the demo, I experienced that classic moment during which a friend figured out the puzzle over my shoulder and walked me through it. That’s what lead developer Ben Shostak was going for. “A lot of retro-like games out there are using a lot of the style and references, but we’re using the actual design and gameplay,” he explained.

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There isn’t much love in the developer world for the ID@Xbox parity clause, which requires independent game developers to release their games on Xbox One at the same time as on other platforms. Some developers have lodged public complaints about it, and rival Sony has lambasted it.

It’s not that Xbox head Phil Spencer hasn’t heard these complaints, it’s that he believes that despite these objections and ridicule, the parity clause takes care of his most important audience: Xbox One owners.

“The thing I worry about is — because I look at all the people who buy an Xbox, and they invest their time and their money in Xbox One, and, as millions of people obviously own Xbox Ones, I want them to feel like they’re first-class, because they are,” Spencer said on The Inner Circle podcast. “When a third-party game comes out, it comes out on all platforms at the same time, and when indie games come out, I want them to come out and I want Xbox to feel like it’s a first-class citizen when an indie game launches.

“So, for me, the parity thing is, if you own an Xbox One, I want to work for you to make sure that when great content launches, if it’s coming to Xbox and another platform, that you kind of get it at the same time everybody else does.”

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The new update for World of Tanks: Xbox 360 Edition adds a collection of artillery for Britain, “including the iconic Crusader, ConquerorGC, Bishop, and Sexton II,” as well as …
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It didn’t work out the first time, but Lab Zero Games is trying again, this time with what should be a different result. The studio announced today that its …
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Microsoft has announced via Twitter that ID@Xbox titles will now release at 12:00 am UTC which is 6:00 pm in the CST. This is a positive change for U.S. …
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On a recent edition of The Inner Circle podcast, Xbox boss Phil Spencer dished on some of the features he’s seen floating around the office. As Phil says, “I …
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Defense Grid 2 was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment and published by 505 Games. It was released on September 23, 2014 for $24.99. A copy was provided for review purposes.

Defense Grid 2 (DG2) is the long-awaited sequel to Hidden Path Entertainment’s popular tower defense game, Defense Grid: Awakening. The familiar alien-blasting action takes place on the Xbox One and looks great at first glance. A shining addition to the title is co-op and online play: the first game was a single-player experience with leader boards being your only interaction with friends. DG2 is not trying to break any molds or re-define the genre; it’s simply fulfilling the need for a solid tower defense game, and doing it relatively well.

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After almost a year in Beta on PC and an Xbox One Beta stretching from March through October, Project Spark has finally hit the big time. The game-maker provides …
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Get ready, Whovians! As of Friday you can now take the form of over 50 of your favorite Doctor Who characters while playing Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition. The skin pack has been in the works for a while, and is available for $2.99 from the Xbox Marketplace. Minecraft is certainly fond of releasing new skin packs, and we can hardly wait to see what fanbase they’ll appease next.

Check out the trailer after the break.

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