The most striking of the games I played was Blind, a virtual reality title rooted in a great concept. The art deco design, the futurism, the supernatural element, Close to the Sun does enough to pull these off without feeling like a pale imitation. The developers may not like it being mentioned, but the BioShock influences are clear to see. Called The Helios, the ship was built for scientific endeavour, but its shiny surfaces belie a rusty, bloody underbelly. In this story-driven game, players are cast as a journalist called Rose, who is looking for her sister on a huge ship complex designed by Tesla in an alternate history at the turn of the 20th century.

The Italians like Nikola Tesla apparently, because he's a core part of Storm in a Teacup's atmospheric horror Close to the Sun. Storm in a Teacup Close to the Sun (Storm in a Teacup) Digital Tales Close to the Sun boasts a creepy atmosphere aided by some great lighting. At Gamescom, the team told me they were also eager to get the game on Nintendo Switch, which seems like a natural fit.īookbound Brigade's heroes stack themselves to take on enemies. With Dean Wilkinson, the writer behind LittleBigPlanet, on board, the game also has a strong sense of humour to match the visual panache.Ĭurrently the game is looking for a publishing deal, with Digital Tales targeting a release next year on PS4, Xbox One and PC. In our demo, we needed a tall stack to attack an enemy, sending it up along the stack and then up and other an obstacle. Players can shuffle the group into different formations (stacked rows of four, all eight on top of each other, a big circle) which will come in handy for certain situations. The distinctly cartoonish style is striking and the Metroidvania formula seems a good fit as you move through a world rich with references and more than 50 other characters to meet and battle. Controlled as one unit, the group consists of Count Dracula, Nikola Tesla, Monkey King, Dorothy, Queen Victoria, Robin Hood, King Arthur and Cassandra. In Digital Tales' Bookbound Brigade, players control a group of famous faces from history and literature as they try to find the missing Book of Books and save the literary world.

While big hitters like MotoGP and Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle were developed in Italy and are sure to succeed, we wanted to cast a spotlight on a few of the smaller games being made in Italy right now. Read more How Italy plans to storm the video game industry by giving developers freedom to create

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