The US and UK’s finest producers of the moment LP Giobbi and Bklava team up for new single Sinner, marking the ultimate transatlantic collaboration.

With piano house queen and multi-instrumentalist maestro LP Giobbi linking up with Bklava’s stunning live vocals and songwriting, the pair make for an epic duo. Releasing in the midst of LP Giobbi’s highly anticipated Femme House takeover US tour that also sees Bklava join her on the road, the collaboration lands in perfect time to please crowds across their sets.

An unstoppable force on the scene since emerging back in 2018, LP Giobbi has rapidly turned heads beyond her hometown of Austin. Her signature, piano house fueled sets have landed her slots at Coachella, EDC, Firefly, Lollapalooza and more with further shows to come this year at Defected Croatia, Tomorrowland’s main stage, Bonnaroo and Electric Forest.

Also earning over 30M+ streams to her name, LP Giobbi’s originals and remixes have secured loyal support from BBC Radio 1, Capital Dance, Triple J, Sirius XM and more. As one of dance music’s fastest rising stars, Giobbi uses her voice to tackle gender equality on the scene. Making it her mission to highlight that only  2% of charting producers were non-male when she first started out, Giobbi founded the non-profit education platform FEMME HOUSE that creates opportunities for future womxn producers, mixers, engineers, DJs, artists and executives of the industry.

Meanwhile London based, Irish-Lebanese producer Bklava has recently received a meteoric rise that has seen her capture the attention of tastemakers across the globe. Her multi-talented skills of singing, song-writing, producing and DJing that blends UKG, house and vocal-led euphoria has already seen her work with Obskür, Alan Fitzpatrick, ABSOLUTE and more whilst her solo releases have also earned support from BBC Radio 1 and 1Xtra. Also running her own respective non-profit platform in the UK, Bklava’s Spin Suga aims to amplify and support aspiring female and non-binary producers and DJs on the electronic scene.

Now joining forces for Sinner, LP Giobbi and Bklava are set to deliver one of D4 DANCE’s biggest anthems to date. Boasting Bklava’s compelling vocal layers and Giobbi’s intricate production drenched in passion and empowerment, Sinner is destined to unite dance floors worldwide.

LP Giobbi & Bklava – Sinner is out now.

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There are two types of Dark Souls players – those who love the meandering, twisted and interconnected worlds, and those who like fighting the difficult, humongous and fascinating bosses. Generally, I’m the first type. Exploring an intricate castle, wasted imagined world or haunted village streets is far more my style than taking on a terrifying nightmare boss made real. But Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption forgoes all of this exploration, instead focusing directly on what many consider the “soulsborne” genre’s well, soul, the boss fights.

I first saw Sinner on the PAX show floor in 2017 and it was one of the more interesting titles on display, that, by judging from the interest it got on the show floor piqued the attention of quite a few others. Its combination of graphical similarities to the dark souls series, high level of polish for a game not from a large publisher and core mechanics meant the show floor booth was always busy.

What we have now in the finished product (out on PC, PS4, Switch and Xbox One – where its available on Xbox Game Pass where I also tested it) at the time of PAX had only a few bosses to try out. But now, the full playing field of enemies has been revealed. Across eight fights you, a lone soldier, will take on some truly abominable enemies. There’s svelte knights, warped magicians and a good range of enemy types. For the most part you’ll be taking on these enemies alone, though occasionally they will call out for help from some lesser enemies to keep you distracted.

You’ll be taking on these monstrosities in combat ripped straight out of the Souls series, complete with stamina management, strong and light attacks, and a limited number of heals. The controls however used different face buttons, but I immediately remapped the controls to the second option, which moved the light and strong attacks to the same place as Dark Souls.

I think the polite way to describe the Sinner’s aesthetics is “heavily inspired” by From Software’s Souls games. It features the same grey tone, similar treatments of materials and a very similar camera system, which now allows free camera movement.

So if the combat is a mechanical clone, and the aesthetics are very similar, how does Sinner stand apart from Dark Souls, and what does it do differently? In two main ways.

Firstly, as already mentioned, is the total lack of any Levels between boss fights. Instead you start in a featureless hub world, without any other NPCs or other distractions. It’s just you and some headstones connecting you to each boss room. Those who have played Furi will be familiar with this set up, though even that had some connective tissue in the form of corridors to walk through between boss fights. This raises some interesting questions; How do items works then? How does lore work? What about leveling up?

Let’s take each of these in turn.

Items refill for each boss fight, and have a set number of each item. So, for example, you can’t save up poison resists for the poison boss fight. The lore, such as it is, is very minimal. That’s entirely appropriate, given the focus on boss fights, but for those looking for anything approaching the indirect lore that is common in the Soulsborne genre should not get their hopes up.

The second main way that Sinner stands out is its leveling system, if it can be called that. In fact, it’s more of a de-leveling system, where with each boss you fight, you have to sacrifice one part of your moveset. So while the bosses are all about the same level of difficulty, your ability to face them decreases as you take them down. One decreases your health, another your attack, and so on. So with each fight you need to be more careful, more cautious given your newfound weakness. It’s an interesting system that means each fight is kept fresh, and the last one isn’t a cakewalk – especially given that you can fight the bosses in any order.

Dark Souls fans are notoriously ravenous for games developed by From Software, and other developers making games in the same genre. But the same fans are also notoriously picky. The brilliance of the Dark Souls games, Bloodborne (and soon to be Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice) is hard to live up to.

But Sinner is a fantastic entry, if short entry into this genre that shouldn’t be passed up.

By focusing on one core feature, the boss fights, it’s developers have been able to keep the game’s scope manageable, keeping the whole package high quality.

I’d love for Sinner to be successful – with this game developer Dark Star have proven they can do bosses, and it would be fascinating to see what they do with a bigger budget and wider scope. So while I haven’t been converted from a world exploration Souls fan to a boss fight Souls fan, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption makes a good case for why they are enduringly popular with so many. Who knows, perhaps with time, I may come around.

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At Pax, nestled among the AAA behemoths from Sony, Microsoft and Ubisoft is the Indie arcade. The arcade included a huge number of games developed by Australian and other independent developers and small publishers. Here’s some initial impressions of four of the best that I saw.

First up is the mobile game Paperbark.

With a look inspired by the storybooks by Jackie French and Bruce Whatley that are go-tos for Australian children, you take on the role of a wombat exploring the Australian outback. Grown out of a university project from RMIT, it uses a custom shader to create a look that simulates water colours. Its both unique and familiar to many of us who grew up in Australia. It’s beautiful to see in action, and mixes gentle exploration with education about our beautiful, varied environment. And showing off the many different aspects of the Australian bush is a key aim for developers Paper House. “Australia isn’t just a big desert” asserted the developers, and it shows in areas such as the rich wetlands shown for the first time on the PAX Australia show floor. I can’t wait to play it, and will have my chance early next year, first on iOS, then later on PC.

Ever since Necrobarista was featured by Kotaku Australia, I have been keen to try the game, which has been developed by an Australian studio, out for myself. It’s a gorgeous cinematic visual novel featuring a custom shader for the impressive cel-shaded look. Even though it uses common development tools, it manages to avoid the common “look” those games can sometimes be saddled with.

The brief demo that was on the show floor featured an introduction to the story, with a surprise at the end that will be familiar to any Australian. My time with the game only strengthened my interest for it, and I’m looking forward to its final release sometime in 2018.

The third game that spiked my interest was only of the most popular indies on the show floor, Sinner: Sacrifice for Redemption. Coming out for PlayStation 4, Xbox and possibly for Nintendo Switch, it’s an impressive Souls-like that will feature seven very different bosses that represent each of the deadly sins. With impressive graphics built on Unreal Engine 4, it’s targeting the “triple-I” space, prioritising quality of experience over breadth of content.

So how is this different from any other game in this quickly-growing genre? Well, the main point of differentiation is that it completely flips over the standard levelling system. Instead of starting out weak and growing to become godlike, you start with all your abilities, but each boss requires a specific debuff. In the demo I saw, the pirouetting dancer required you to give up a good portion of your health before you could start, making dodging and avoiding attacks all the more important. In motion it looked fantastic, and a smooth 60FPS helped keep the action responsive.

While there is no indication of price at the moment, the publisher has said that it will reflect the amount of content in the game. Look for Sinner: Sacrifice Redemption sometime in late 2017.

Another impressive Australian game from Melbourne-based Atomizer Games, Heist is a black and white stealth game, set in a 1930s noir world that would make Miss Fisher proud. Sneak, avoid guards and steal, all set to a soundtrack that perfectly captures the spirit of the era.

Heist will be coming out on Steam after being previously greenlit. It’s a game that seems perfectly suited to the Switch too, but as yet there are no plans to bring it to Nintendo’s newest console.

With the closure of most large Australian game studio, there was real concern that the industry as a whole was at risk. But due to new technology, economic structures (such as early access) and pure enthusiasm, Australian and other indies have proven the viability of existing outside the orbit of AAA studios. I was supremely impressed with the level of quality that was on show at Pax, and that many were sponsored in some way by the Victorian State Government. In many ways the Australian game industry has never been stronger, with a wealth of ideas being slowly honed into games that I can’t wait to play as soon as they’re out.

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