Australia's Greatest: A List of Awesome Things We Saw at PAXAus 2024

Another October and another #PAXAus done and dusted for the year. If you went along this year, you probably saw quite a few members of the Vault Games team walking around the hallowed exhibition halls of geekdom’s holy ground down under. There’s always plenty of people to meet up with, plenty of experiences to be had, and plenty of games to play. And for almost ten years now, PAXAus has been THE place to meet up if you’re a board game designer or developer here in Australia. So here’s the cool ones we saw this year (and yes, it appears that “set-collection” is the new mechanic-de-jour).

Fairy Unicorn Mermaid Princess Kitten by Summit Drive Games

Originally created by Ben Hoban as a game to play with his six-year-old daughter, this cute set-collection game is incredibly easy to pick up and play. The aim of the game is to score twelve points by collecting followers matching the symbols on the princess you gain throughout the game. Each turn, you can perform one of four actions:

• STEAL a Princess of Follower from another player’s hand;
• DRAW the top card of the face-down draw deck;
• TRADE a follower or princess from your hand with a card from the face-up trade pile; or
• PLACE a princess from your hand on the trade pile and draw a number of cards from the draw deck equal to the points of the princess.

Then, if you have a complete set of a princess and their followers, you can place them face-up in front of you to score.

Like I said, a really straight-forward set-collection game with a touch of interaction, but not enough to ruin the fun for someone else and is for sure a game to check out if you have some young gamers-in-the-making.

Aethermon: Collect by Aethermon Studios

Sitting in the PAXRising Tabletop zone this year, Aethermon: Collect is the first in a proposed series of games set in the fantastical world of Aethermon, a cutesy Pokemon-like space inspired by the Japanese monster-collection games of years gone by. In it, players have to complete sets of Aethermon by moving a shared Group Token around the board, collecting any of the creatures they land on.

The game can be played cooperatively, as you work together to solve the set-collection puzzle in front of you; or competitively, as you use special artefacts to outmanoeuvre your opponent for the ultimate Aethermon collection.

There’s a reason this game won the SXSW Sydney 2023 Best Tabletop Game award. It’s straight-forward, somewhat tactical, cute, and a versatile experience between the two game modes.

Architects by KYNG

Have you ever wanted to compete to repair a downed spaceship? That’s where Architects by KYNG comes in. There’s a lot going on in this game but it boils down to a single premise: Compete with your rivals for the limited resources to repair a downed ship. 

The game is still in its “Prototyping” stage so much is liable to change as it is refined further but there’s an itch getting scratched if you enjoy having an array of engine-building and deck-building elements weave together for the ultimate play. Also, the table presence of this game is spectacular. There seems to be a fair amount of “meat” to the game at the moment, making it hard to dedicate time to over the weekend, but it will be a one that I’ll be keeping an eye on over the next few years.

Gumnuts by Maggie Box

Look, it’s another set collection game, but hear me out on this uniquely-Australian one. Gumnuts sees you collecting Koalas from the Eucalyptus forest to score points. Each Koala has a value between one and ten with the values four and lower providing some unique special actions, and the player who collects the most of a value by the end of the game, will score one point per koala of that value. 

Each turn, players draw a hand of cards equal to the number of trees on the board, place each card under a tree, and then choose a tree to collect all the cards under. Be careful though, because not all cards are koalas and players can place up to one card each turn face down. Some cards may force you to draw more from the deck to place in front of you, and others will reduce your final point total at the end. Also, if too many cards are on a tree, a powerful negative DANGER card is placed at the bottom of the tree to punish anyone who takes that pile.

The artwork on this game is gorgeous with a wide array of cute koalas to look through as you play. It also highlights the dangers faced by our cuddly native fauna endangered by the continued threats of deforestation and climate change.

Good Society by Storybrewers Roleplaying

“I do say. That Mr Darcy is quite the cad. Could you kindly let him know I have no interest in his advances… and I will spend a Resolve token for that to happen.” Yeah, that’s right. You can PLAY a character from a Jane Austen-like setting, spreading rumours and scandals and play out your own High Society narrative. Build your characters, create connections with other players or the non-player characters that make up the world, and roleplay your way through a complex thread of reputation development and soirées. 

And if this awesome concept doesn’t win you over (or the fact that Storybrewers Roleplaying is based out of Sydney), then maybe Game Master Extraordinaire Aabria Iyengar can get you across the line.  Good Society served as the basis for Dimension 20’s A Court of Fey and Flowers and Polygon calls it “the gold standard in Regency role-play.”  So check it out if the narrative side of roleplaying is something that you enjoy.

Drop Bears by Platypus Industries

When camping out in the bush, there’s one thing you should always be worried about… DROP BEARS! Each player takes on the role of the campers, trying to enjoy their time in the Australian wilderness, that is until the drop bears attack! Players need to work together to survive the night… well, at least to have some of the campers survive the night. 

Move around the hex-based board to collect gear, find endeavour locations, generate survival points, and avoid the Drop Bears. If the number of dead campers matches the number of players, you lose, but earn enough survival points, and you make it to dawn, surviving the drop bear onslaught and escaping the danger of the Australian Bushlands (at least until you step near a funnel-web).

The production quality of this game is well above many games we stock on the shelf. The card stock is great, the miniature sculpts are stunning, and there is a deluxe token upgrade box to make your tokens chunky wooden components instead of the usual cardboard punch outs.

Other Cool Things We Saw

I mean, it’s cool and all to see Australian-designed games, but here’s some of the other cool things we saw in Melbourne over the weekend.

This awesome way to play Space Hulk

A fully-painted, 3D-Printed, Space Hulk Corridor Terrain Board complete with contact lighting kit? I don’t need to say more.

King of Tokyo: Duel

Add this to the list of 2-player “Duel” games dropping next year. Be big monsters, smash each other OR Tokyo, beat your opponent. It’s a new way to play King of Tokyo.

Light Up MDF Dice cabinet

Need a way to display your dice WITHOUT the dust getting on them? This Australia-Produced MDF and Acrylic display cabinet with custom electronics from Glowcraft allows you to put your dice on show AND, with the attached phone app, allows you to catalogue your dice so that when you select what dice you want to play with, the LEDs highlights where they are.

Larping with Epic Armoury

This isn’t a product. It was just cool as hell and I wish I spent more than just Sunday doing it. Do quests, earn gold, buy upgrades and rewards. Go sign up on Friday of PAX instead of waiting until Sunday like I did (rookie move Dylan).