PAX West 2026 Day 3: PAX Rising and Seattle Indies Expo

PAX Rising, local indies, and one very long day on the show floor

Day 3 of PAX West 2026 took Jake Boyette from PAX Rising and the wider expo floor to the Seattle Indies Expo, with more indie games, developers, and local creators than he could fit into one day.

PAX was still moving fast as thousands of attendees worked through their lists of games, panels, tournaments, meet-and-greets, and everything else spread across the convention. Away from the main PAX floor, the Seattle Indies Expo, better known as SIX, was also showing off games from Seattle’s local development community.

Before getting back to the games, one part of PAX deserved more attention. The Summit building is packed with tabletop and card games, tournaments, panels, autograph sessions, meet-and-greets, and even a third-floor arcade filled with classic machines.

Talking with longtime PAX attendees, I kept hearing how these side activities have become a major part of what keeps people returning. Moving between the Arch building, where so many of the indie games are located, and Summit made the difference in scale obvious. I also managed to get an autograph from Dwarf Fortress creator Zach Adams and meet Kris Straub, creator of Local 58.

Gaming is bigger than a controller or keyboard, and indie stretches far beyond the games we play. Seeing that side of PAX get so much space was one of the things that stood out to me on Day 3.

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Dungeon Lurker

Back at PAX Rising, I finally stopped at Dungeon Lurker, a game I had walked past more than once and kept lingering around. Its crunchy low-poly look is mixed with a 32-bit pixel-art style and a simulated CRT shader that is not just there to make the game look good; it also feeds into the wider mystery around the story.

The structure feels like a linear roguelite. Levels are handmade and you can choose where to go, but power-ups are randomized, so each trip through the dungeon can play differently. I ended up with a magic dodge build where timing dodges correctly let me throw out more fireballs and explosions.

Combat was one of the strongest parts of the demo. Light and heavy attacks can be chained into long combinations, and I quickly found that jumping into a heavy attack could launch enemies into the air before I juggled them with light attacks and finished with another heavy hit. The 2D side-scrolling fights can get intense once dodges and parries start coming into play.

The story also hints at something more meta. You play as someone who has found a game with an existing max-level save belonging to “the dark lord.” Pausing pulls the camera back into a room where you can read a physical-style game manual, research enemies, and get clues about what is happening inside the game itself.

It is an enticing setup and another roguelite I can easily see finding an audience when it is ready.

Lazy River

On the other end of PAX Rising, I met the developers of Lazy River, a co-op game that proudly leans into chaos. The setup is simple: you and your friends are trapped in the universe’s most unregulated water park, zombies have taken over, and you have to escape an endless lazy river.

I did not know what to expect going in. There are only so many co-op zombie shooters you can play before they start blending together, but this one surprised me. The game revolves around a movable base built from pool tubes, turning the whole thing into a strange mix of Raft and Left 4 Dead. You jump off to grab supplies, expand the raft, build crafting stations and grills, and use water guns to keep the horde away.

The raft itself is physically simulated, so loading it down makes it slower and easier to sink, while a lighter build stays quick and nimble. That gives the usual grab-everything mentality a real trade-off.

My group eventually hit a challenge phase where a laser wall started chasing us. Zombies jumped onto the raft, killed the rest of my team, and left me trying to paddle a very overweight pile of pool tubes toward the finish line while everyone around me yelled encouragement. The laser won.

The developers told me they want to keep expanding the idea, including sections where the raft can gain wheels and travel on land, plus progression that gives later runs more depth. They also talked about a planned Steam Next Fest demo and a playtest next summer. It is one I want to keep watching.

Back to the Indie Incubator

No PAX day would be complete without another trip through the Indie Incubator, and this time one of the strangest ideas I found was a fighting game about cooking.

Cooking Fist

Cooking Fist has no traditional health bar. Instead, you fight your opponent to collect ingredients, then stop long enough to cook a meal for the judges watching the match.

Once you have three ingredients, you hit the cook button and quickly input directions to turn them into stars. Your opponent can do the same, use better ingredients, cook faster, or simply punch you before you finish. The first player to reach ten stars wins the round.

That creates a funny push and pull between fighting and backing away long enough to get a five-star meal onto the table. The combat itself reminded me of an old arcade fighter, and playing against other attendees was fun. I am curious to see how much depth the system can support in the full game.

The Void Rains Upon Her Heart

I also met Angel Polanco, the solo developer behind The Void Rains Upon Her Heart. The booth was so busy that I could not get meaningful hands-on time there, so I went home and played the Early Access version instead.

It is a bullet-hell roguelite with clear shoot-’em-up influences, and Angel told me the project began around ten years ago. The pixel art is beautiful, and the amount of work behind it is obvious almost immediately.

This is one of those games I can already tell could steal far too many hours from me.

Bloodstone Rising

Another Indie Incubator stop was Bloodstone Rising, a co-op zombie shooter that felt closer to Deep Rock Galactic than Left 4 Dead.

It was not the strongest co-op zombie game I played at the show, but what made it worth highlighting was that it is a solo developer project built in under a year, with online play, roguelite elements, and some surprisingly competent level design already in place.

There are rough edges and it is still fairly basic, but I had fun going through the mines with another attendee. It remains impressive how much one person can build when the idea is focused and the work is there.

More from the PAX floor

Brigador Killers

One booth I had to revisit was Brigador Killers from Stellar Jockeys. We had already touched on the game during Steam Next Fest, and I have been following it as it continues to update.

I spoke with members of the team about the mixed Steam reviews the Early Access version has received. They described how the earlier demo was more linear and story-driven, while the current build is more free-form and still evolving. I enjoyed both, so I am interested to see how that balance develops.

Next to the booth was also a community-led tabletop version of the Brigador universe using miniature mechs as pieces. Seeing fans take that world and build something physical around it was one of those small PAX moments that is easy to miss if you only rush from demo to demo.

DigiPen student games

I also stopped at the DigiPen Institute of Technology booth, which had a selection of student-made games on display. My favorite was HYPERFIST, a first-person beat-’em-up with a combo system I had not seen before and a heavily stylized world.

It is always worth making time for student projects at events like this. You get to see ideas before they have been sanded down into something safer, and sometimes you are looking at the work of people who will be building much bigger games a few years from now.

Buckshot Roulette gets physical

Near the No, I’m Not a Human physical arcade, I heard a very familiar rhythm: techno, shells going into a shotgun, and then the click of a blank. Somehow I had missed a physical Buckshot Roulette booth.

I got in line with three attendees who had never played the game before and explained what we were about to do while we waited. Once inside, the setup recreated the game surprisingly faithfully with a pump-action air gun and physical versions of the items.

I used the adrenaline item to steal another player’s magnifying glass, ignored the information it could have given me, tested my luck anyway, and immediately learned why that was a bad idea.

I died first. I did not get the pin. I still had a great time.

Seattle Indies Expo

At the same time as PAX, the Seattle Indies Expo was running its own event, so I cut my PAX day short to see what the local development scene had brought this year.

SIX filled two floors with games and a packed exhibit space featuring first-time developers, ex-AAA veterans, and just about everyone in between. I have met a lot of great people through Seattle Indies, and the sense of community around helping developers share work and find support is a big part of why I wanted to cover it.

Tricky and the Dream Caster

Tricky and the Dream Caster is a retro collectathon inspired visually and mechanically by the Dreamcast era. It was one of the busiest booths at SIX despite having only one demo computer, with people crowding around to watch and wait for a turn.

When I finally got on, the mix of free-form platforming, puzzles, and its charming style won me over quickly. Platformers are not usually my first choice, but this is one I can see myself playing when it releases.

Dig Too Deep

Dig Too Deep from Punch Up Games is a strange mix of Angry Birds-style physics and tower defense. You throw goblins to collect wood, metal, and other materials while digging through ruins, then defend what you have earned when enemies start coming up from below.

The variety of buildings and upgrades gives it a lot of room to grow. My favorite was a structure that let me produce more goblins, which was useful because I kept throwing the ones I had directly at enemies.

The team talked about more characters, buildings, and expanded systems in the future. There is a fun idea here, and I want to see how far they push it.

Super Choppy

Super Choppy was another platformer that caught me off guard. It reminded me a little of Celeste, except instead of an air dash you have an axe that can be thrown, stuck into walls, and used to chop through enemies.

The levels felt specifically designed to frustrate me in the good way: difficult enough to make me fail, but clear enough that I immediately wanted another attempt. The pixel art is also excellent.

Dungeon Bodega Simulator

Dungeon Bodega Simulator had been sitting on my radar for a while, but SIX was the first time I properly played it.

You play an adventurer who has been laid off and starts selling food and items inside a dungeon to make enough money to get back on their feet. Growing crops, talking to friendly NPCs, and petting the Dungeon Bodega cat made the whole thing surprisingly calming.

I only made it through four in-game days during the event, but I enjoyed it enough that I bought the full game to play later.

Killing Baby Hitler

Right before I was done for the day, I saw a title that stopped me in my tracks: Killing Baby Hitler.

The setup is intentionally absurd. You are sent back in time using Einstein’s time machine, only for Henry Ford to interfere and send the story into an alternate-history 1980s full of extremists and heavily armed enemies.

It is a ridiculous boomer shooter with messy level design in places, but it was also impossible not to talk about after seeing it at SIX. Sometimes event coverage is about finding polished games everyone already knows. Sometimes it is about finding something so strange that you need to tell someone it exists.

Indies are still the reason to keep walking

My feet hurt for the best reason possible. I spent the day moving between PAX and SIX, meeting people and teams making games I might never have heard of or been able to try without being there in person.

That is what keeps standing out across this trip. If you want to see how broad games can be, from student projects and solo-developed roguelites to strange co-op experiments and local showcases, you can find all of it in indies.

Related Reading

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