RMIT Students Showcase Indie Game at Major Video Games Expo

One of few gaming exhibitions in Melbourne, The Game Expo (TGX) is an important event for local indie game developers, providing a platform to showcase their games.

(Credit: The Game Expo)

The expo housed 28 booths lined with visitors demoing games over its weekend. Among these developers were a crew of RMIT’s own who came to showcase their summer project, Malefic Sins.

Project leader Ian Castro mentions that, as an RMIT game design student, their career options are limited due to the difficulty of breaking into the industry.

“We don’t exactly know how the future will be, especially here in Melbourne. It’s very competitive and there’s hardly any companies. But being here, we’re setting our foot into the games industry, and any chance we have to break in is very important to us.”

Ian, along with his team of three, manned the showcase booth. Despite only having worked on it for three months, the game is in a playable state with a full demo.

“As a kid, I’ve always been interested in making games,” Ian said as event-goers nearby play the game on a set of monitors.

“It’s been my dream.”

Malefic Sins is a “Soulslike” game – a genre of difficult, dark fantasy third-person games originating from studio Fromsoftware. The game is largely inspired by Elden Ring, Fromsoftware’s latest title, and the Nintendo classic The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

As project leader, Ian came up with the original concept and later assembled his team to help with artwork and animation.

“I still personally don’t really know if I wanna go corporate or indie, because it depends on what I can do for the team I join. It really depends on how this game goes,” Ian said. 

He isn’t the only one thinking about the difficulties of the games industry. Fellow event-goer Ben Droste from Memory’s Reach experiences his own challenges as a solo developer.

“The biggest challenge is getting people to pay attention to you,” he said as his sci-fi game blared in the background.

“Generating awareness, Steam wishlists, and getting people to follow you on social media is the biggest hurdle.”

As the 2024 People’s Choice Winner, the team behind Footy Bash had the privilege of showcasing their game on the presentation stage, which helped boost their awareness. Aside from having people playtest their game, TGX proved to be a valuable event in terms of publicity.

“Indie is amazing," said Mark Barraclough from the Footy Bash team.

"I think it’s slowly taking over the way to do things. Small teams, great games with a lot of passion and love is the way. I think corporate games had a great bout, and now people are really yearning for just a good game. It’s called ‘indie’ now, but it might just be ‘the way’ in a couple years.”