GamingTrend awards three games with best of PlayX4

GamingTrend was recently lucky enough to attend PlayX4 2024 in Gyeonggi, South Korea. During our visit to PlayX4, we had the opportunity to act as one of the three judges in a competition of the best games at PlayX4 2024. The criteria we used to decide on the winner included the quality of gameplay, whether or not they achieved the game design objectives, and the potency of their marketing to their target demographics. There were plenty of strong contenders, but we had to choose just three.

The first award went to Team Tetrapod with their Staffer series of games. Staffer Case and Staffer Reborn are two incredible atmospheric, story-driven investigation games. Given the positive feedback from the fanbase on both, it’s clear that they’ve struck gold through their hard work on the budding series. I believe that their excellent world-building will lead to a solid, dedicated fan base. Check out Staffer Case and Staffer Reborn on Steam.

The second award went to Neardream with their Otome visual novel, Luna’s Twilight. They have a strong sense of who they’re selling to, heavily marketing the game as fully animated. It’s pretty clear that Neardream has secured the backing of both a fan base and funding through its crowdsourcing campaign, reaching its goal in just 6 hours. They’re targeting their audience of otome lovers with precision by fully animating their game. Lee Minchae, the CEO of Neardream said that she is “Very glad she won the award” and that she plans to “Make the game available in 13 different languages.”

The third award went to the company GRUMPY with their 3D action roguelite, Disorder. Fight off hordes of monsters as a woman with superhuman abilities. As you progress, you will learn more about the story behind the main character and the experiments performed on her. Overall, the game has a strong sense of visual style. Disorder hits all the right boxes to appeal to the Western market; a quality roguelite with clashy, stylish, and impactful hack-and-slash combat. Ironically, for a game about a woman who’s suffering from a weakend sence of self, the game has a strong sense of identity and I’m excited to see how it develops. Game Director at Grumpy, Kim Hwon, accepted the award saying he is “Very grateful to be on the stage today and win the award.”

Outlets Aving and Gamerbraves also awarded their picks for best games of PlayX4. Starting with Aving, they awarded Team Rythmicals, accepted by CEO Park JuHyouk, OCTOPO Studio, accepted by CEO Kim JunHyun, and ActionFit Inc, accepted by Co-founder and CPO Joo Seungho. Moving on to Gamerbraves, they awarded The Bricks Games, accepted by CEO Lee Hyerin, Tripearl games, accepted by CEO Jeong Manson, and PawDragon Company, accepted by CEO Lee Dongjun.

While there were plenty of great games at PlayX4, we found that these games and companies stood above the rest with their gameplay, marketing, and understanding of what they wanted to become. We look forward to further playthroughs, as well as the full release of those that are still in earlier builds.

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