Given that my first two days at PAX East 2026 were so front-loaded, I’ll be playing an audible! Days Three and Four will be merged together here, only due to not…having enough, to be honest, to separate them out into two separate pieces! Be sure to take a peek at our prior pieces from the Thursday and Friday of the convention!
Days Three and Four at PAX East 2026 with Gamer Social Club – let’s a-go!
Akiiwan: Relaxing Survival
- Developer & Publisher: Little Buffalo Studios
- Release Date: Coming Soon
- Platform: PC (Steam)
So, full transparency – I actually took a peek at Akiiwan on Friday. I apparently don’t know how to schedule my days! But I digress. I went to meet up with the developer of Akiiwan, Jeremy, at PAX East’s Cozy Lounge. Well – the room was locked! But I did get a chance to speak with Jeremy for an extensive amount of time as we waited (we’ll actually be doing an interview in May with Jeremy to fully talk about what I saw).
Akiiwan is, as the marketing states, a “chill survival adventure” set in the northern reaches of Canada. As the player, you have been dropped into the wilderness and your only contact is the voice of a spirit that emanates from your campfire. The end goal – survive.
Here is where things get cooler. Accompanying my time with Akiiwan was a new peripheral – that provided scent-based feedback while I played! This new technology, called Omara Scent Display by OVR Technology, was such a…new and exciting experience. Imagine going near a berry bush…and smelling the berries in the game! I’ll be doing a whole separate piece of my time with OVR Technology, as I had a chance to meet two of their founders at PAX!
Akiiwan: Relaxing Survival is coming soon to PC and I will definitely be keeping my eyes out for this one to launch.
Cat Secretary
- Developer & Publisher: Good Story Guild
- Release Date: 2026
- Platform: PC (Steam)
In a world that is seeing an unparalleled (and concerning) focus around AI technology, there are many who see the darker side of things. Like the folks over at Good Story Guild and their upcoming launch, Cat Secretary.
In Cat Secretary, you’ll be playing the titular cat who finds themselves working at the corporation, MouseCorp. In a hauntingly poignant turn, MouseCorp is trying to replace all their workers with AI. Thus, it lands at your paws to show these suits that technology cannot stand against the terror…that is a cat.
During the day, you’ll simply be a humble, feline office assistant. At night, you’ll be assisting your co-workers with their problems, all while unraveling the plans of MouseCorp like a ball of yarn. The demo of Cat Secretary gave me such vibes of games like OctoDad: Dadliest Catch. Silly “mini-games” that are fun for the ridiculousness of the fact that we’re completing them as a cat.
Cat Secretary is looking for a 2026 launch to PC. Good Story Guild, in a strange turn of events, are actually local to me, so we’re in talks to do a more local conversation in the near future!
ShantyTown
- Developer: Erik Rempen/Silk Softworks
- Publisher: Kinephantom Games
- Release Date: April 16th, 2026
- Platform: PC (Steam)
Niche design games are definitely seeing some large growth in recent years. One title that I had the pleasure of trying out at the PAX Rising Booth, was a little project called ShantyTown. ShantyTown is a self-described diorama-building game, where the aim is to find the beauty in everyday chaos.
Each little location that you’ll find in ShantyTown will allow you to build to your heart’s content and bring each unique building to its full potential.
When trying out the game, I found myself falling back into the world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons, specifically in the Happy Home Paradise DLC. In this DLC, you can spend pain-staking amounts of time and effort designing vacation homes for other Villagers. But what sets ShantyTown apart from this is the sheer amount of detail that you can get into with the game. And also, the ability to keep building vertically in many cases.
ShantyTown is out on April 16th and I can assure you, yours truly will be writing up a review of my time in this game.
Spirit Rancher
- Developer & Publisher: Yangyang Mobile
- Release Date: Coming Soon
- Platform: PC (Steam)
Fun fact: this was not the game that I initially scheduled for myself prior to PAX! I realized, the first night at PAX East, that both I and Candy (another GSC Editor and my partner) had scheduled ourselves to see another game with Yangyang Mobile. No worries! I’ll see what else they have! And boy – I was not disappointed with a game called Spirit Rancher.
In Spirit Rancher, you play as Serena, a young girl with the ability to tame the spirits of nature. In the world of Spirit Rancher, all of your crops…are actually living spirits! Thus, you’ll need to catch and care for your growing “farm” and seek to create a self-sustaining homestead for yourself.
In speaking with one of the developers at Yangyang Mobile, I noted how I saw that linkage between something like Stardew Valley and Slime Rancher and how such a merger was…unique, but enticing! The team also made sure that I had some goodies (dried mango that I am eating as I write this) before I left their station!
Spirit Rancher will be coming to PC, but has no tentative release date noted at this time. For coverage of the other title that was at Yangyang Mobile, High Times, be sure to see Candy’s own PAX East coverage!
And that wraps up our third and fourth days at PAX East! Is anything here giving you the itch to open your Steam Wishlist? Leave a comment below or join us for even more talks and friendly banter over at the Gamer Social Club Discord!
