I’m only a few hours into my first ever visit to PAX East, and it is already becoming a blur, in the best way possible. I’ve gladly spent too much money over at the Double Fine booth, chatted with people from within the media who I never thought I would be lucky enough to converse with, and have happily dipped my hand into a few demos. I plan on hopefully tackling a healthy handful of demos during my time here at PAX and have impulsively decided to attempt to document and write pithy little summaries of my experiences with each. That context in mind, let’s get right into it.
Bubsy 4D
I started off Day one of Pax East with a quick sojourn over to the Atari, Inc booth to try my hand at the latest demo featuring everyone’s favorite (or perhaps least favorite) bobcat mascot. While I went in with mixed expectations given the historically low reputation garnered by the Bubsy series; I couldn’t help but feel an underlying level of excitement for Bubsy 4D due to the fact that this title is developed entirely by Fabraz, the studio responsible for excellent 3D platformers such as their most recent title, Demon Tides.
Thankfully, this excitement was well warranted as the gameplay of Bubsy 4D is an absolute blast. From the very start of the demo, you have access to numerous movement abilities, including your staple double jump, a glide ability, a forward leap, and more. These movement options can all be chained together incredibly organically, allowing you to travel surprisingly long distances entirely through the air while still maintaining a high level of control. I genuinely can’t think of another game with aerial movement this tight outside of perhaps Pseudoregalia. These movement options feel tailor-made for speed runners to take full advantage of, and I can already foresee this game being a hit at events such as Games Done Quick. Bubsy 4D is scheduled for a multi-platform release on May 22, 2026.
DeeSicks
For my next stop, I found myself over at the booth for ByteRockers’ Games, where I spent time with an upcoming title of theirs, DeeSicks. Very much embracing the recent trend of games where the player “becomes the bullet hell” à la Vampire Survivors, DeeSicks sees the player obtaining a variety of powers, passives, and abilities that quickly culminate into a satisfying torrent of hailfire which is automatically fired in the direction of large scale bosses who are equipped with their own spray of bullets to dispense. What made this game stand out, outside of its gorgeous pixel art, was that the combat encounters occur on a sort of ring-shaped track that made movement feel similar to something you may find in a rail shooter, albeit one like Killer 7 where you can adjust between moving in each direction as needed rather than one that is continuously advancing the player forward.
I played the up close and personal “tank” character during my playthrough and carefully weaved through the enemy’s attack patterns to get in a solid barrage of melee-range strikes never ceased to be satisfying. I didn’t have too much time to explore the various build possibilities during my time with the demo, but the upgrades are handled via a sort of pinball-like minigame where you fire dice onto a table of abilities. You can manually aim the trajectory of each shot before firing and where the dice lands on the table determines which ability you are able to upgrade while the number rolled on the dice influences the strength of the upgrade. ByteRockers’ had stated this game was only four months into development with a lot of work left to be done but it honestly appeared to be fairly fleshed out already; I’m excited to see what the final release will look like.
High Times
My final demo of the day was High Times, an earnest and creative dating sim/cooking sim/visual novel hybrid developed by Yangyang Mobile that places the player into the shoes of a pastry chef working at a unique donut shop; one where the donuts served can very literally influence the mood of those who eat them. The exact mood applied by the donut is determined by the choice of frosting, toppings, etc, and it is the duty of the player to try to fulfill the customer’s order based on the mood they wish to achieve. Also a dating sim, the assortment of customers is naturally full of eccentric, quirky, and loveable romance candidates who are voice acted by notable talent including Johnny Yong Bosch and LilyPichu. I was lucky enough to be able to interview the lead writer, Carlos, on this project, and am excited to share more about this title in a future piece. Let’s just say this is a unique title and one to certainly be on the lookout for. It is currently scheduled to release on PC via Steam and itch.io in May.
Come back tomorrow for more Demo Diaries at PAX East 2026!
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