Are you a fan of My Time at Sandrock or the Exophobia demo? At PAX East 2024, we had the opportunity to meet with PM Studios to preview some of the games that they will be publishing.

At the booth, attendees could try out Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo, Cricket: Jae’s Really Peculiar Game, Skopje, Extremely Powerful Capybaras, ZOE Begone!, Evolutis: Duality, Dragon is Dead, Krimson, Let’s School, Exophobia, and Captain Toonhead vs the Punks from Outer Space.

Due to limited time in our schedule, we only had time to check out Skopje & Evolutis: Duality. How were these two games and what are they about? Get our thoughts on Skopje below:

From the trailer alone, I knew I wanted to try out Skopje. Between the cell-shading, dystopian vibes, and shooter gameplay, it looked like a fun fusion between Cyberpunk 2077 and Borderlands. When I went to the appointment, I quickly found out the demo did not provide controller support so I had to adapt.

With being so used to playing shooters with a controller, trying to play with a keyboard and mouse was an uphill battle; with hand cramping as well it became an almost next to impossible challenge.

After trying to complete the demo multiple times and failing at the finish line, I asked the developer to clear it. Being unable to finish a demo is always a point of frustration. It’s one thing when it breaks but being unable to because of equipment issues is an awful feeling.

Rather than being a looter shooter, Skopje is more of a looter survival game. The resources that you gather are necessary in order to survive. According to the developer, the demo at PAX East had an increased number of items spawning into the world, and the final game will not be like that.

On one hand, it is good to force players to be more resourceful, however, there are some players who want to play the game for the visual appeal or narrative; limiting these players, by forcing them to be frugal with their resources will be off-putting to them.

The core gameplay was fairly solid however, trying to backtrack/turnaround was rough on keyboard and mouse compared to what a controller would offer. Additionally, the game faced another issue with limitations. The color scheme the developers used for the game drastically inhibits those with color blindness.

Before my meeting with the developer, I watched a child try to clear the demo and watched as he became increasingly frustrated. When I asked why he was getting so mad, he stated that it was because he could not see the enemy’s vital spot.

When I played the demo, I noticed that the color green they used could very easily be missed depending on the area you were looking and the room’s lighting.

The demo itself was fairly short but still gave the players an idea of what they could expect from the overall game. The enemies have an interesting design but you have to adjust your combat style based on the enemy type.

Skopje is in development for Windows PC (via Steam), though a release date isn’t confirmed.