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Defend The Cake takes the crown at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018’s Very Big Indie Pitch

The best of the best from Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018's Very Big Indie Pitch

Defend The Cake takes the crown at Pocket Gamer Connects San Francisco 2018’s Very Big Indie Pitch

It wouldn’t be a Pocket Gamer Connects conference without a super competitive bumper edition of the Very Big Indie Pitch.

What’s more, it wouldn’t be a Big Indie Pitch without a hard fought winner, and this time that accolade goes to Defend The Cake, a cute and tactical tower defense game developed by a team of former Blizzard and Riot developers.

The Big Indie Pitch  is a regular event run by the makers of PocketGamer.biz. It gives indie developers the chance to pitch their games to industry experts and journalists in a speed-dating-styled format.

Teams get the opportunity to get valuable feedback on their games, as well as win great prizes such as promotional packages and, more importantly, the coveted Big Indie Pitch bat.

We’re now nearly half way through the year, and there’s already some incredible names that will be looking to make even more of a mark come our annual Big Indie Awards, which this year will take place at the G-Star conference in Busan, South Korea.

These include, our first ever two time champion FINIFUGU&&friends, Triband with their anti-golf game What The Golf?, Limestone Games’ super stylish brawler Aeon Must Die, and now Defend The Cake too.

However, the race for first place was incredibly close, and as such Studio Bando also deserve a massive amount of plaudits for their game Super Best Ghost Game, as do those who ranked from third to fifth. All of which you can learn about further down.

Winner - Defend The Cake

From a team of former Blizzard and Riot developers comes Defend the Cake, a cute and tactical tower defense game. Take your time planning a maze of toast walls and delicious defenses. Then get ready to deploy your Eggbird minions in real-time to power-up your defenses and fend off the invading armies of bugs.

All in all, Defend The Cake features intense and unique tower defense gameplay that requires tactical timing alongside strategic thinking in order to defend your delicious dessert from the onslaught of hungry bugs.

Defend The Cake also includes other features such as a day/night cycle, in order to differentiate itself from the other games in the competitive tower defense genre.

Runner-Up - Super Best Ghost Game

Super Best Ghost Game! is a Kawaii Action-Puzzler where you help a team of intrepid Ghosts collect the Chow, find their pals, and dig their way through the clouds.

Described by the judges as “all the best bits of lemmings with none of the annoying bits you don’t remember”, Super Best Ghost Game is filled with charm, content, collectibles, and most importantly, lots of fun.

Third Place - Clicker Knight: Incremental Idle RPG

Clicker Knight: Incremental Idle RPG is an idle clicker title that focuses heavily on progression systems. Players click on enemies to defeat them and in doing so earn gold and experience, which can be used to improve and upgrade both their gear, and their character though various different talent trees.

Fourth Place - Hamsterdam

In Hamsterdam, players must dish out a mix of reactive, precisely timed attacks and good old-fashioned button mashing in order to retake the town of Hamsterdam from the clutches of the evil crime boss Marlo “The Chinchilla”.

That’s not all though, as the hero Pimm must also rescue his Grandpa from Marlo’s clutches too, and the only way to do this is to rediscover the fabled Hamster-fu and rally the citizens.

Fifth Place - Rush Puppy

Are you ready for a cute and addictive endless runner? Well if so then Rush Puppy is the game you’ve been looking for. Boasting simple one touch controls, cute and colourful art, and of course lots of puppies Rush Puppy is a charming endless runner that is worth the attention of anyone who enjoys chasing that high score.

Want to be a part of the pitch and find yourself not only listed here, but also up with a chance of coming along to South Korea for the Big Indie Awards later in the year? Well if so then check out all of our upcoming pitches and get yourself signed up.

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Developer Evangelist & Big Indie Pitch Manager / Special Features Writer

Queen of all things Indie. Sophia is Steel Media’s Big Indie Pitch Manager and Developer Evangelist. She’s also a global speaker and lifelong gamer with a fanatical love of all things Nintendo and Japan. So much so that she’s written a thesis on one and lived in the other.