PAX Australia last weekend turned Melbourne into a queue for attention, and the longest one the writer saw was a two-hour line for Alien Isolation 2. The bigger draw, though, came from five indie games from Oceania that were playable on the floor, a reminder that the convention’s best discoveries were not always the loudest ones.
Cooking for MA! at PAX
Cooking for MA! from Tuatara Tea Party built its pitch around food and memory. The demo mixed cooking mechanics similar to Venba with a top-down exploration mode reminiscent of the original Pokémon games, then pushed that structure into a story about preparing food for a grandfather’s memorial service and moving through a spirit world with a bereaved halmeoni.
The setup gives the game a sharper edge than a standard comfort-food RPG. Instead of treating the kitchen as decoration, the design uses each action to carry the family story forward, which is why it stood out in a hall full of playable previews.
No Humanity and December
No Humanity - InternShip leans hard into motion and chaos. It is a physics-driven bullet-hell survival roguelite that casts the player as a free-floating intern in a Rick & Morty-style world, with the immediate job of defending a drillship on its journey to find the last remnants of humanity.
December is the only launch timing attached to that demo, and that makes the game the one with a real near-term window for players who want something after the convention. For anyone sorting through the floor’s indie slate, the difference between a vague release and a month matters more than the genre label.
My Arms Are Longer Now
My Arms Are Longer Now went for comedy first, then puzzle design. It begins with the player crawling out of a vent on a moving train, then turns the scene into a heist around a passenger’s briefcase while a barking dog keeps that passenger from enjoying a nap.
That small, controlled setup is exactly what made the hands-on slot worthwhile at PAX Australia. The writer chose indie demos instead of waiting in the two-hour line for Alien Isolation 2, and that tradeoff produced a cleaner read on what these smaller projects are actually selling: distinct mechanics, short-form comedy, and a chance to be noticed before the crowd moves on.
Oceania's five-game showing
Five indie games were enough to make the roundup feel curated rather than exhaustive, and that is the point of a convention floor visit like this. The playable selection gave Melbourne attendees a quicker route to new releases than standing in the biggest queue on site, and it put Tuatara Tea Party, No Humanity - InternShip, and My Arms Are Longer Now in front of an audience that had already come to look for the next thing.
