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Written by SRGE

Published: 05 November 2013

For the first weekend of October, IndieCade, the International Festival of Independent Games (http://www.indiecade.com/), took over Downtown Culver City in Los Angeles. Indiecade is often referred to as the Burning Man or the Sundance festival of games. It showcases the years best Independant Games and draws indie developers from all over the globe for networking and a chance to show off their games in development.

 

This years IndieCade did not disappoint. The games that were on showcase spanned multiple genres, platforms and media. There were interactive “Big Games”, board games, and of course Video Games. Everywhere you turned there was something new and exciting going on!

 

The biggest draw of IndieCade is the festival, which happens on Saturday and Sunday, and Nightgames, which opens up after the sun goes down.

 

IndieCade is super unique in that, since it is held in Southern California, it is an outdoor games festival. When you arrive in Downtown Culver City you would happen across IndieCade Village, which took over the parking lot and Plaza right outside the historic Culver City Hotel. Big White festival tents were set up, all of them housing games on showcase to demo. Down the center of the roadway were big umbrellas, with tables set up and an array of tabletop gaming going on. On the outskirts of the tents were the Big Games area, where extremely interactive “Big Games” had been set up. A short walk from the Village was the Culver City Firehouse, where even more indie games were set up for showcase. There were so many great games to experience that two full days were nowhere near enough, and no amount of reviews could do these games justice, but here are a few of the highlights from the festival:

 

 

The Firehouse.

 

The firehouse was an area that was open to the public, you would walk in and there were laptops lining both sides of the walls and an aisle down the center. Each of these laptops were displaying a game that were the Nominees representing the best and most exciting indie games of the year determined by the IndieCade Jury and the developers were nearby to chat with. Two of the games that stood out the most were:

 

[Code] - (http://www.kermanizadeh.com/ram/gameBuilds/codeOnline.html)

 

[Code] is an incredibly unique puzzle game. At first glance it doesn't look like a game at all, it looks like the framework for a game. A foreign language to anyone who is not familiar with computer languages. But it is a game, and the code is the puzzle. Hints are given at the beginning of each level, and a story unfolds. You must look over the code and figure out what things need to be changed in order to meet the requirements to move to the next level. One might think only programmers would enjoy this game, but it starts out simple enough that even if the player knows nothing about programming they will be able to figure out the puzzles with a little bit of brain power. This game is highly intellectual and highly enjoyable. Speaking with the developer, Rambod Kermanizadeh, he hopes that even people with no knowledge of code will be able to enjoy the game and play through the levels. The first few levels are playable on his personal website, and the game runs in Unity webplayer.

 

Cube & Star: A love story - (http://www.cube-and-star.com/)

 

Cube & Star is a game that you could easily spend hours on! You play as a little cube, wandering a gray world. You will run into colorful trees, and when you do you can hit them and they will drop colored cubes that you can pick up, which will change your color and you will start to color the world. The color fades as time goes by. The game is so simple yet mesmerizing, something that could be played endlessly, for hours.

 

If you want to see more of the games that were featured as nominees, you can see them here: http://www.indiecade.com/2013/nominees/

 

 

IndieCade Village 

 

IndieCade village was where the meat of the show happened. Big names in the industry such as Sony and Nintendo had large tents set up showing off upcoming indie games. In the Sony tent there were Playstation 4's set up displaying various indie games ranging from the beautiful new game Contrast (http://contrastgame.com/) to the incredibly fun two button game, DiveKick (http://www.divekick.com/). Nintendo had a plethora of 3DS and Wii U's set up with indie games coming to the eShop, and those were great to check out. Ouya has a tent, with the main attraction being Towerfall. Oculus VR had their HD prototypes out, and those were quite a treat, 3D environments that felt fully immersive.

 

Killer queen had a mini-tent near the Big games area, and they were always rocking. Killer Queen was probably one of the coolest things during the festival. Killer queen is a 10-player team based game featured on a custom arcade cabinet. It is too hard to describe without seeing it, so check out their facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/KillerQueenGame) The game was so fun and simple, yet so hard, and highly addictive.

 

Big games also happened during the festival hours. These games were more playground style games, and were still tons of fun. They ranged from games played with uncooked spaghetti to controlling human “robots” on a giant board with cards. These games were huge on interaction and huge on fun.

 

Batonk! - (http://www.psychicbunny.com/)

 

Batonk! Is a card game, but it isn't your ordinary card game. This is a card game with a giant playing board where you control human robots with your directional cards and try to prevent your opponents from getting to your goal. This game is played in halves and there is a ref! There are two 5 minute halves. The game requires 4 players, and they sit at a control table and are each given a stack of cards. In front of the players is a large square game board with the human robots in the center. The robots walk to a metronome. In each of the 4 corners of the board are numbered goals. The object of the game is to get the robots to the other players goals and keep them away from yours. There are no turns and as soon as each half starts the players start throwing down cards and shouting out commands to the robots. At the half time the robots then deliver the players glittery star stick on badges of shame. Whoever has the least amount of stars (points) at the end of both halves wins. It is seriously a great time.

 

Spaghetti Standoff - (http://testing.arkadium.com/gameExamples/spaghettistandoff/index.php)

 

Spaghetti Standoff may be one of the most accessible games created in quite a while. All you need is a package of uncooked spaghetti and some friends ready for a good time. Each person needs one piece of uncooked spaghetti and every person holds onto the end of a spaghetti with each hand. The object of the game is to be the last person with a unbroken spaghetti. This game would get quite competitive and you could easily accidentally lose by grabbing your spaghetti too hard or breaking it on your own, but it was a great time, super easy to play, and will keep you coming back for more.

 

Super Secret Spies (http://testing.arkadium.com/gameexamples/supersecretspies/index.php)

 

This may have been one of the most fun games that were a part of Big Games at IndieCade. Each player was given a fedora with a number on it, and there are two teams. The object of the game is to go from point A to Point B, without having your number spotted by the other team. The team who kept the most numbers secret it the winner at the end of the game. What makes this game so fun is it is as if you are a real spy. Sneaking here and there, trying to remain undiscovered by the other team. Plus, Who wouldn't want to be a spy?

 

Night Games

 

Night games were a highlight at IndieCade. They happened after the sun went down on Saturday Night. There was a beer garden with games going on and everywhere you turned in the IndieCade village there was another something cool happening. Night Games allowed some of the more innovative games a larger platform to be displayed on, and highlighted their ingenuity. There were 24 games showcased at Night Games and they were all amazing in their own right. Here are a few of them:

 

Constellation - (http://vimeo.com/69206028)

 

Constellation was set up in a tent, projector on the ceiling, sleeping bags on the ground. The players would lay down on the sleeping bags and use the playstation move controller to discover and create constellations in the sky. This game is very communal and allows for creativity by the players without forced competition. The set u for it was amazing and made it feel like you were out camping, discovering the stars in the sky.

 

Edgar Rice Soiree - (http://vimeo.com/50476023)

 

Edgar Rice soiree is a 4 player game, played with 20 hanging playstation move controllers. Each player is assigned a color, and you must always be holding two playstation moves of your own color. It is similar to a giant game of twister, but much more like you are Tarzan, swinging through trees from vine to vine to amazing music. This game was a masterpiece, and looked to take 2-3 computers to run the whole thing. It was very difficult for shorter players with shorter arm spans, but it was still a hit. The lines for this game were quite long, and it amassed quite a crowd of spectators.

 

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time - (http://www.asteroidbase.com/)

 

Lovers in a Dangerous Space Time will immediately catch your eye with its screaming neon colors. You and you player two are inside a giant hot pink deathstar style ship and you must traverse the galaxy staving of bad aliens, saving planets and dodging (or blowing up) asteroids. The ship has multiple control rooms, and the players must run back and forth between them to man the turrets and boosters and steer the ship. The game concept is amazing, the execution is beautifully delivered and it is definitely a fun one to play or watch.

 

Sound Dodger Live - (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7G5gQm_nPmQ&feature=youtu.be)

 

Sound Dodger is a game that is currently available on steam, and is quite amazing. The object is to move through the sound without touching the sound. The music in the game is absolutely amazing, and playing this on the computer is a great time. What made Sound Dodger live so special is that they set up a projector on the ceiling and used some sort of awesome motion control technology (think those funny projected games at the malls for little kids, fake balloons on the floor ect, and a pad) that turned this game into a unique dance floor. With sound Dodger live you were dodging the sound in real life, and the results were sometimes hilarious, and sometime as beautiful as a ballet. Either way it was a great way to display this game.

 

IndieCade was a great festival. There was everything from the retro inspired games on the iam 8-bit entertainment system (http://www.iam8bit-es.com/), to the simplistic, yet incredibly fun game VideoBall (http://www.actionbutton.com/). It is definitely a festival worth going to, even though its all the way in the magical land of sand and sun that we like to call Southern California.

 

Recently the the founder of Indiecade, Stephanie Barish, was listed by CNN Money as one of the top 10 most powerful women in gaming. So in short, IndieCade, its a pretty big deal. It is where you see the up and coming game developers and a place where boundaries are pushed and games that may never see a living room, can be fully enjoyed. If you ever get a chance, I highly suggest attending IndieCade, or the recently announced, IndieCade East.