BitSummit 2023's 10 Most Impressive Games

ign.com:

With its debut in 2013, this year indie game festival BitSummit celebrates a full decade of operation in Kyoto, Japan. That first show, a one-day invite-only event, bears little resemblance to the spectacle that BitSummit has become, one that filled the first floor of the Miyako Messe convention center and drew thousands of paying visitors.

As a longtime resident of nearby Osaka, I look forward to BitSummit each year for my chance to play new games and meet new developers in my proverbial neighborhood, an event that still maintains its independent spirit even as it seems poised to outgrow its primary venue. I saw so many exciting and unusual projects in Kyoto this past weekend that it was a genuine challenge to whittle my list down to just 10 games; feel free to check out my Twitter feed for a look at everything I played over the three days of BitSummit Let's Go.

Algolemeth

Artificial intelligence has graduated from the pages of science-fiction to the cusp of modern society, sparking debate as we must decide what tasks we can ethically remove from human hands and assign to machines. Thankfully, Algolemeth presents an unambiguously positive set of circumstances for using AI, as it tasks players with programming a party to fight their way through a dungeon.

Solo developer Tomohiro Iizuka explained to me that Algolemeth is a portmanteau of "algorithm," "golem," and "emeth," the latter word infusing golems with life in Jewish folklore. Algolemeth completely automates what we usually consider the primary draw of the genre: Turn-based combat against underworld creatures. By default, your four adventurers march forward and attack whatever they face, inevitably falling to stronger, more prepared monsters. Iizuka told me the full