Another fantastic BitSummit has come and gone, and the whole Playism team is slowly recovering from two-days of indie-game overdosing. This year’s event attracted more people than before, yet it still provided the same intimate setting it is known for. Fans, key industry figures and indie developers were all mingling together, getting to know one another and trying out all the games.

Based in Kyoto, BitSummit is the largest indie game event in Japan, attracting around 100 game exhibits and thousands of attendees. The indie community is brought together, with fans chatting to developers, playing games and watching the presentations. Other game events in Japan tend to only have a single section for indie games, but BitSummit is proud to be Japan’s biggest indie game event, focusing entirely on the indie scene.

BitSummit gives a chance for people to glimpse into the Japanese game development world. While it is true that Japanese indies are evolving at a slower rate than abroad, there is still a plethora of games being developed in Japan. BitSummit aims to give indie developers here a chance to showcase their games and potentially bring to platforms which may not have been possible before. BitSummit brought some industry giants this year, including ID@Xbox, Nintendo and Sony, each of which were lending their hands to the indie scene in their own way. It was remarkable to see such industry giants rubbing elbows with indie developers.

This year, BitSummit featured everything from VR to mobile gaming. A wide variety of games allowed everyone who visited to find something that they loved and adored. Playism set up a total of 5 booths, exhibiting a variety of games (see our previous post). We were pleased to see our games brought quite a crowd and sparked a lot of interest. Fans were excited to meet the developers of Momodora: Reverie Under the Moonlight and also flocked towards The Silver Case booth for a look at the HD remaster and first English version of the game. Many people were captivated by the nostalgic art and presentation of cyberpunk adventure Read Only Memories, waiting patiently for their chance to sit down and play. The NightCry booth featured a haunting Scissorwalker outfit complete with giant scissors, which were very popular with the crowd. The Playism booth was very lively, with people dropping by to check out Branching Paths and our upcoming games, including EF-12, a fighting game which lets you create your own characters and stages, Memento, an RPG-style game set on an abandoned island of the survival horror genre, Starr Mazer: DSP, a pixel-pretty rogue-like horizontal scrolling shooter with an arcade sensibility and Witch-Bot Meglilo, a bullet hell arcade game starring a teleporting witch-bot! We are so grateful to everyone who attended and took the time to visit our booths!

Stay tuned for future blog posts on BitSummit!