Every Day of the Dev Announcement from Summer Game Fest 2021

Keep an eye on this article to stay up to date on all Day of the Devs announcements


Published: June 10, 2021 3:52 PM /

By:


Day of the Dev 2021 Preview Image

Summer Game Fest has kicked off, while technically tangential to this years remote E3, we’re officially into the time of the year of big games announcements and more. Part of Summer Game Fest is the Day of the Devs, this collaboration between Double Fine and iam8bit is meant to be a showcase of indie talent from across the world. 

Day of the Devs is no stranger to showing off a variety of interesting titles, some of the games shown during this segment in previous years include My Friend Pedro, Untitled Goose Game, CyberShadow, and Hyper Light Drifter.


Day of the Devs 2021 - Axiom Verge 2

The first game shown at Day of the Dev is Axiom Verge 2. The trailer shows the protagonist landing in a snowy tundra and exploring the world in the same 2D Metroidvania style of the original game. Creator Thomas Happ explains that while Axiom Verge was all about ranged weapons the sequel will focus on melee weapons like ice picks. The protagonist is able to use her mind and hack enemies changing their directives allowing you to play the game non-lethally if you’d like. Even bosses will be susceptible to these hacking techniques, if you want you can also just run right past boss encounters. 

While there’s no set release date Axiom Verge will be releasing soon. The trailer ended with the announcement that the game will not only be releasing on PC and Nintendo Switch the game will also release on PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5. 

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Toem: A Photo Adventure

The next game to be shown off is Toem, from Swedish developers Something We Made. Toem has players setting out on the adventure of an amateur photographer setting out into the world to find the strange phenomenon known as Toem. You’ll be riding a bus to Toem, making frequent stops to help out denizens of the world to earn your next bus ticket. You’ll be asked to take photos of a variety of things adding them to your compendium. There are all kinds of challenges that you’ll be presented with. The developers set out to create as peaceful a world in Toem as is the town in Sweden they develop from. For updates on this game, you can wishlist it on Steam.

Toem Image

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Phantom Abyss

Phantom Abyss is a procedurally generated tomb raiding gauntlet where your aim is to get to the relic at the end of a temple. You only get one chance at each temple you complete so you’ve got to be cautious, but you’ll also be racing against others across the world to be the one to complete it. If you die in a temple then you can’t replay it, when someone does complete the relic then it will be sealed up and no one else will be able to compete in it going forward.

You can use a whip to interact with the world and climb. The phantoms of other players will also interact with the world for better or worse. Each temple also has a guardian that will begin chasing you down. Phantom Abyss will hit Early Access on Steam ‘really soon.’

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Garden Story

A new trailer for Garden Story was shown next. In it we see the main character, a grape, exploring the village and world doing favors for the locals. Garden Story is being developed by Picogram. Through the course of helping the islanders, and working to develop the island itself, you’ll learn more about its history and the relationships between the characters. It’s your job as the island’s guardian to fight off the rot, a strange entity that’s wreaking havoc. It’s not all about combat though as you can do things like go fishing, and farm. Developer Picogram was trying to create a game that feels good and makes people happy. Garden Story will release this summer.

Garden Story

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Soup Pot

Soup Pot, from Chikon Club, is a game all about cooking recipes from the Philippines, Japan, and Korea. While it’s a cooking simulator the real focus of the game is that there are no wrong answers, just different results. The gameplay shows the character chopping ingredients, throwing them into the Hot Pot, and trying out a few of the 100 recipes. The game has no fail states, so even if cooking doesn’t go quite as expected much like in real life you’ll just end up with a unique concoction. You won’t only be using the Soup Pot either, grilling and skewering are also part of the game.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - A Musical Story

Taking a different approach to rhythm games is A Musical Story that follows the story of a boy named Gabriel who wanted to share music with the world. The trailer starts with the main character in a hospital bed slowly remembering his band. The game has you playing music to a rhythm, with no indicator, to slowly unlock all of the memories and uncover the story of the game. The game shows off its gorgeous art style through a variety of scenic landscapes, and shots of the band traveling in a car to get to the Pinewood Festival. The journey won’t just be a happy cross country romp though as it will also delve into Gabriel dealing with his addictions. The game will be out later this year on PlayStation, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, iOS, and PC. There’s also a Steam demo that you can check out right now.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Vokabulantis

The next game from Wired Fly Stop Motion, Kong Orange, and Morten Sondergaard is a stop motion adventure game called Vokabulantis. This is a puzzle game where you play as mouthless humans in a strange world. The real focus of the trailer was given to how the entire game was created in stop motion, they even took photos of each frame of movement with light at different angles allowing them to get more realistic shadows on the in-game models no matter where they are in relation to light.

Vokabulantis

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Road 96

A new trailer from Road 96 is next to be shown. This procedural road trip generation puts you in the shoes of a teenager trying to escape from his country of turmoil by making their way across hundreds of miles hitchhiking. Along your journey, you’ll encounter a variety of characters, each with their own personalities and storylines. 

One of the interactions shown in the trailer is with Jarod, a cab driver for Happy Taxi cab company. This character is quick to anger so depending on how you handle interacting with him can greatly change the outcome of the story. What might be a casual cab ride, could turn into arson and running for your life.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - The Wandering Village

Stray Fawn Studio showed their new city-building simulation game The Wandering Village. Chop down trees, farm, and build up your civilization… that’s also on the back of a giant wandering creature. This game is a lot like other civilization-building games, but you have limited space due to being on the back of the creature. As the creature walks he’ll head into different biomes constantly changing what you need to be looking out for, as well as what you’re able to harvest. You can also talk with the creature by using a tower near the creature's head and can offer different commands like ‘run’ or ‘lay down.’ It won’t always listen to you though. The Wandering Village is planned to hit Steam Early Access in Q4 2021.

The Wandering Village

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Unbeatable

D-Cell games show off the second musical game of Day of the Devs but with a very different approach. This anime-inspired game follows Beat and her band who learn songs and take on the world. The art style gives very heavy Studio Trigger vibes so if you’re a fan this is one to check out. Through the story, you’ll fight off monsters, compete in eating contests, and just generally rock out to a crowd. You’ll need to control Beat and follow the rhythms of the songs to get high completion percentages and defeat each of these challenges. For each show you perform you get to pick your own tracklist, what tracks you have are based on what Beat has been able to write based on how you’d done in the story and challenges so far. There’s a free demo available on Steam right now.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Death’s Door

Acid Nerve, creators of Titan’s Souls, return with their new game Death’s Door where you play a sword-wielding crow who needs to make their way through a variety of challenges to reap the souls of the dead. The combat showed highlights fast-paced combos, reflecting enemy projectiles, and doing what you can to stay out of the line of fire. Not only is the gameplay intense and enjoyable, but players can also look forward to unraveling the story of the world learning what led it to this state in the process. Death’s Door will be out this Summer.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Behind the Frame

Silverlining Studios out of Taiwan showed off Behind the Frame, the next new reveal to come from the Day of the Dev 2021. There are a lot of times you’ll hear a game is “Ghibli inspired” but this is one game that gets extremely close. Behind the Frame is an interesting puzzle game where you play as a painter in her apartment. As you interact with the world and other paintings around you you slowly unlock more of the story and secrets around the apartment where the game is set.

Behind the Frame

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Asobu

Day of the Dev took some time to highlight Asobu, a Japanese company that helps Japanese indie creators create a community together. It allows these creators to have a space to work on their projects, share ideas, and connect with other indie communities around the world. Some of the games that Asobu is currently helping with were shown off like Elec Head by NamaTakahashi, Demolition Robot K.K from Takaaki Ichijo from Thrown the warped code out, and Walk from Kazumi Games.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Moonglow Bay

Set in the 1980’s Canada Moonglow Bay is a relaxing slice of life fishing RPG. Developed by Coatsink this game follows the life of a girl who is wanting to become a fisher like her father/grandfather. In this game, you’ll explore the seas, catch fish, cook them up, and also encounter monsters. The trailer shows off the town exploration as well as fishing mechanics which give you free access to the bay where you can set your line wherever you want. The game's cycle seems to be catching fish, cooking and selling the recipes, to purchase upgrades and ingredients to further expand your abilities in the town. There will also be an aquarium that you can donate fish you’ve caught to and see them in the wild.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Lootriver

A new action rogue-like Lootriver from straka.studio is next. Combining top-down roguelike action and Tetris players will be able to fight off hordes of enemies, but will also have the ability to move the platform you’re standing on. These moveable platforms can allow you to retreat and take a breather when necessary, or even split up groups of enemies. There are some enemies that seem to fuse together platforms that you’ll need to defeat before moving on, no mention of any other types of special enemies though. You’ll always know which way is ‘forward’ even though the levels are randomized. Through your journeys, you’ll also encounter beings in the lair, but also a variety of vendors that can sell you upgrades.

Lootriver

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Despelote

Another completely unique experience from Julian Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena is Despelote. You are a child in school waiting for the day to be over to play soccer with friends, Set in 2001 Ecuador is about to qualify for the world cup, a morale boost that Ecuador doesn’t really even know it needs at the time. You spend the game interacting with people of the world and kicking a soccer ball around with your friends.

 

Day of the Dev 2021 - Last Stop

Published by Annapurna and developed by Variable State Last Stop is an interesting supernatural story-based game. Giving almost Twilight Zone/Stranger Things vibes the trailer shows off body-swapping, paranormal entities, and teleportation. Not much is really shown, but what is there is extremely interesting. This game will be released on July 22nd, 2021.

A teaser trailer for Annapurina’s own showcase on July 29th at 3:00 PM est is also shown. Here we see hints of known and unknown games but we’ll have to wait to see more.

 

If you want to check out more of TechRaptor's E3 2021 and related summer event coverage check out https://techraptor.net/topic/e3-2021

Have a tip, or want to point out something we missed? Leave a Comment or e-mail us at tips@techraptor.net


Andrew Stretch Headshot
| Senior Content Manager

Andrew has written Video Game and Entertainment news, reviews, and guides for 10+ years. As Senior Content Manager, he assists in creating and editing… More about Andrew