Day of the Days returned today with another digital showcase ahead of the The Game Awards 2024. It’s a must-watch for fans of indie games, and it features announcements for sequels to indie hits like Ultimate Chicken Horse, Demon Turf, and more.
As has become tradition around Geoff Keighley’s annual game showcases, Days of the Devs is a live stream event dedicated to independent games. It usually broadcasts ahead of events like Summer Game Fest and includes news on previously unannounced games. This year’s show, which released one day ahead of The Game Awards, is no different, showing off some surprise sequels.
Ultimate Chicken Horse’s successor is Ultimate Sheep Raccoon, and it features the same cooperative and competitive stage-building gameplay as the original. The main difference is that the animals now ride bikes through the mayhem-filled obstacle courses players create. It has no release date yet.
Similarly, Neon Abyss 2 builds upon the foundation of its predecessor, a destructive run ‘n gun roguelike. It will be launching on PC sometime in 2025.
Demon Tides is a sequel to Fabraz’s 3D platformer Demon Turf that goes full-on open world and launches sometime next year. It looks like Demon Tides will feature the same intricate platforming mechanics as Demon Turf while expanding on it with new features. Players can equip talismans to gain new abilities, like a paraglider, and customize their look with a variety of outfits. Demon Tides even has some multiplayer features, as players can race the ghosts of other enemies or leave graffiti in the game world for other players to find.
We also got a January 14 early access release date for Hyper Light Drifter successor Hyper Light Breaker.
Sequels weren’t the only highlights of the show; some new games took center stage. My favorites were Faraway, an ethereal game about creating constellations; PBJ — The Musical, a wacky musical adventure about how peanut butter and jelly sandwiches were created with a Shakespearian twist (yes, really); and Feltopia, a shoot ‘em up with a stop-motion felt art style.
Below, you can see a full list of every game shown off in Day of the Devs 2024: The Game Awards Edition. I’ve included release dates or windows if they were shared, but I also recommend watching the showcase yourself to see all of these games in action.
Acer’s Predator Atlas 8 finally has a US release date and price, several months after the company first showed off the handheld in May. The highlight is the Intel Arc G3 Extreme chip inside, which has been adopted by only a couple of other consoles besides the Atlas 8. This version will go on sale exclusively at Best Buy on November 1 for $1,299.99.
Acer originally said the Atlas 8 would arrive in North America in October, but left pricing open at the time. The launch came amid the ongoing DRAM crunch, which has made memory more expensive across the PC industry and complicated pricing for hardware makers.
Gaming laptops and I have a complicated relationship. One of my first gaming rigs was an Acer Predator that was already outdated when I bought it. I was a broke college kid, and that was the best I could afford. So trying out high-end gaming laptops is always fun. But ASUS' ROG Zephyrus G14 is a lot more than a laptop that can run AAA games. It is portable, so you're not lugging around a 2.5kg machine everywhere you go. It is built well, none of that plastic chassis, and can even function as a normal laptop outside of just gaming.
Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
Playbacks is part of Google Play Store v53.8 and keeps saved clips on the phone. Google first announced it earlier this month, but the new Play Store update marks its arrival for players. Anyone who has watched a perfect win vanish because the record button came too late already understands the appeal.