This year’s PAX Rising offering was Australia’s largest ever with over 100 titles to sample and enjoy. Some of them like the PlayStation featured “Fishbowl” you may have heard of before, whilst many are unknowns, being showcased for the first time.
It was almost impossible to play them all, but I certainly did my best breaking my sessions up to cover them all over the three days. I think the thing that surprised me the most was how much variety there was amongst them. From story-driven titles to platformers, point & click adventure, fitness, shooters, puzzles and more there was something for everyone.
With that in mind here are my top 5 favourite indie titles on show at PAX Rising in Australia 2024.
My arms are longer now
Developer: Toot Games
Platform: Steam (PC), Switch
Release date: Q3 2025
Demo available: Yes
Easily my favourite experience at PAX Aus 2024 this year, “My arms are longer now” was such joy there’s now way I can do it justice in written form. Developed by the two-person & 1 dog team at Toot Games, the game is the brainchild of Melbourne comedians Millie Holten & Matthew Jackson, whom you may know from the live-play RPG show Trope RPG.
In the game you play an arm, which can extend an infinite length to quest objectives. The demo has you on a train trying to steal a dog, briefcase and bicycle whilst avoiding ticket inspectors and commuters, all seemingly nonplussed by an arm weaving about the carriage.
The secret sauce here is the writing and voice acting. It really tickled my fancy and perhaps that’s just my weird sense of humour, or more likely it’s because of the incredible talent behind it.
OnOrbit: Virtual Space Lab
Developer: Orbit Systems
Platform: Steam (PC)
Release date: Q3 2025
Demo available: Yes
Minecraft meets space simulator. That’s how it was described to me when I sat down to play the demo on Saturday. OnOrbit offers a range of in-orbit missions for you to complete. After selecting one you need to build a satellite/probe that’s capable of completing the mission. In mine, I needed to take a number of photos of certain points of the earth and then transmit them, that meant building a probe that had a camera, transmitter and thrusters to position it correctly.
After building your craft its launched and you take over as its remote operator. It’s here the space simulation takes over with its physics system and beautiful graphics taking over. There are power and fuel constraints based on what you’ve built making the simulation more realistic depleting fuel as you fire thrusters to aim it at targets and drawing power to photograph before finally extending its antenna to transmit the data.
Hexaquest
Developer: Mass Transfer Interactive
Platform: Steam (PC)
Release date: Kickstarter Live Now – ETD March 2026
Demo available: Yes
OK so you’re a anthropomorphic dice. You can explore the world by rolling around akin a square wheel except bound to sides of your cubic form are spells that when you roll onto them are cast. There are a variety of spells that work in different ways to aid you on your journey through the land acting as shields, swords, axes, counters, archers and more.
At each checkpoint you’re able to rebind your spells adding any new ones that you’ve collected along the way. The ability to set each of your six faces to the spells of your choosing means each player has a unique experience.
It also looks incredible. It’s a pixel-like art style with a gorgeous world around it. Not surprising when I found out that it was built on Unreal Engine and a nice departure to see an indie team using something other than Unity.
I really enjoyed it, enough so that I backed it on Kickstarter.
Spies and Soldiers
Developer: Ghostbat Games
Platform: Steam (PC/Mac/Linux)
Release date: TBA
Demo available: Yes
Are you an old school Civ fan? Or maybe you love tabletop games like Settlers of Catan, Risk, or Axis & Allies? Spies and Soldiers is 100% for you.
A two player strategy game, Spies and Soldiers is a new twist on the tried and true mechanic of control over a map. The difference here is that each game you’re playing on a new map that’s procedurally generated and it isn’t just a game of strength, instead there are both (as the name suggests) spies and soldiers at play to help wrestle ground from your opponent.
Where the game truly shines for me though is its ability to play asynchronously and unlike popular async games of old you can bank a number of moves and strategies to play out instead of waiting a week for your friend to finally log on and play their next move.
That said it can also be played in real time and for those wanting to try it out alone there’s an AI opponent that’ll give you a run for your money too.
The Drifter
Developer: Powerhoof
Platform: Steam (PC/Mac/Linux), Switch
Release date: Mid 2025
Demo available: Yes
A grimy, Aussie, murder-mystery, thriller point and click adventure game from Melbourne devs Powerhoof. A gaming child of the LucasArts & Sierra adventure series it feels as though this game was made just for me.
It’s pixel art graphic style is supported by an incredible score, great voice acting and what has got to be the best control scheme I’ve seen for a point & click title that’s easily playable with a controller.
The PAX-shortened demo sucked me right into the world and I immediately came home and played the full one available on Steam that night. If you’re craving for a little more they’ve got another 2 games on itch.io Peridium and Alluvium.
Honourable mentions
Footy Bash (Steam)
Think NBA Jam meets AFL with a lot more blood!
Skiers Landing
A “casual” skiing game. Ski or shred the alps in a timed descent.
Pluto Lost its Colors (Steam)
Marble madness for the modern age. Ones of those “one more go” games that I couldn’t walk away from!