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Fantastic Arcade 2011
AUSTIN, TX – September 13, 2011 – More than 20 independent video games will be on display at this year’s Fantastic Arcade, the second annual showcase of independent games from the organizers of Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest, the world’s largest genre film festival. Taking place on September 22-25, 2011, Fantastic Arcade is presented by PlayStation®Network. As the Presenting Sponsor of the Arcade and the exclusive console partner of the event, PlayStation®Network will present special sessions and activities throughout the Arcade event.
Video game industry luminaries Brandon Boyer, Mike Plante and Eddo Stern curated the 2011 Fantastic Arcade. Panel discussions, developer talks and game tournaments will be held each day of the festival. All games and game related events in Fantastic Arcade will be free and open to the general public at Austin, TX’s Highball Lounge on South Lamar Blvd. Each day will have a happy hour at the Highball and a tournament on a different independent game, including Bit Pilot, Faraway, Super Crate Box and Vikings on Trampolines.
“Fantastic Arcade is a direct bridge between the worlds of independent gaming and genre filmmaking,” said Mike Plante, Arcade Artistic Director. “Gaming and film both use genre and artistic style to tell stories and create memorable experiences that excite audiences around the world. These two mediums embody what the Fantastic Fest and Arcade are all about.”
Special events include:
Developer Commentary: Hear direct from the creators as they play their games live on the screen at the Highball. Games include Bit Pilot, Dyad, Faraway, Fez, Jesus Vs. Dinosaurs, Lost Mars, Octodad, Owlboy, Skulls of the Shogun, They Bleed Pixels and Vikings on Trampolines.
PlayStation®Network Opening Day Happy Hour– Join us from 5-7pm on Thursday, September 22nd for a Happy Hour presented by PlayStation Network. Get a taste of upcoming PlayStation Network releases, as well as Starhawk (from Austin’s Lightbox Interactive), which will be playable in a tournament, with prizes provided by PlayStation.
PlayStation®Network Developer Panel– Game creators speak about working in and out of the gaming industry. Panelists include Queasy Games (Sound Shapes), thatgamecompany (Journey, Flower, flOw, Cloud), and Q-Games (Pixel Junk), to name a few.
Storytelling and Development in Videogames & Film– Feature film writers and writers of the game Starhawk will discuss storytelling and development in videogames and crossing over with film. Yearbook Nerd Photo Contest– Local contestants share their old high school awkward photos – nerds are winners in our eyes.
The following eight games will be showcased during Fantastic Arcade as part of the Arcade’s main competition:
Capsized (Alientrap) As an intrepid space traveler, your ship has crash-landed on a mysterious alien planet. You must navigate through the perilous environment and fight off blood-thirsty creatures to save your crewmates and escape with your lives!
Faraway (Little–Eyes) One button travels and constellation creations in infinite procedural outer space.
Fez (Polytron) Gomez is a 2D man on a voyage of discovery into the mysterious 3rd dimension. Change your perspective and look at the world in a different way.
FRACT (Phosfiend Systems) An atmospheric adventure game set in an abstract forgotten world of analog sounds, samples and glitches.
Jesus VS. Dinosaurs (Martin Jonasson, Petri Purho) God travels back in time to kill all dinosaurs, they’re not in the bible and people keep digging them up to make him look bad. Darwin gets wind of this and travels back in time to stop God. They both build cars a have the ultimate chicken race in prehistory.
Octodad (Team Octodad) Loving husband. Caring father. Secret octopus.
Radical Fishing (Vlambeer) An accurate simulation of traditional fishing as gramps always described it.
Skulls of the Shogun (Haunted Temple Studios) Washing up on the shores of the afterlife, players meet and join forces with vibrant ghost-samurai warriors, magical animal-monks, and mustachioed samurai generals in an invigorating cocktail of 1960′s flavored sorcery and strategy.
In addition to the aforementioned games, Fantastic Arcade will also feature the following games throughout the four days of the festival:
Banker’s Dozen (David Mershon) Based on the forgotten occult writings of a Nobel prize winning economist, Banker’s Dozen is a game about time traveling financiers.
Bit Pilot (Zach Gage) A fast paced asteroid dodging game with an innovative control scheme.
Deep Sea (Robin Arnott) A creepy audio-only game where players don a sense-depriving gas mask to face off against hidden sea monsters.
Dyad (][ Games) Rather than having the traditional mechanics of break and accelerate, you must navigate an infinite tube by interacting with enemies for speed.
Hohokum (Honeyslug, Richard Hogg) Nokia Snake meets Schindler’s List.
Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (Shadow Planet Productions) Rescue your sun and homeworld from the malevolent shadow virus in this eye-popping animated side-scroller adventure.
Lost Mars (Tiger Style) An action-gardening adventure where you cultivate an alien ecosystem and research mysterious lifeforms.
Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog (thecatamites) Help a horrendous dog evade proper retribution for his deeds.
Owlboy (D-Pad Studio) You play Otus, a young owl who sets out on an adventure when his village is attacked by sky pirates.
Salome (increpare) Get to the exit to finish a level.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Superbrothers Inc. + Jim Guthrie + Capy) Traverse a mythic little realm, use a sword to do battle, evoke sorcery to solve mystical musical mysteries and help a wandering warrior monk complete her woeful errand.
They Bleed Pixels (Spooky Squid Games Inc.) A fast-paced, gothic lo-fi, platforming beat’em up that drips, gushes and flows.
Ute (Lea Schönfelder, Stefan Lind) Ute has to have sex as much as she can before getting married.
Check out Facebook and Twitter for all of the latest Fantastic Arcade news and happenings. For the latest developments visit the Fantastic Fest Facebook & Twitter.
For press inquiries and free media registration for Fantastic Arcade please email Andrea Schneider at DefinitionPR@gmail.com.
For more details regarding Fantastic Fest, contact festival publicist Brandy Fons, at brandy@fonspr.com. For more information, visit
. About Fantastic Arcade Fantastic Arcade fuses the world of independent film and independent gaming. We bring together artists and professionals who are telling stories and creating experiences in film, games and online entertainment simultaneously. At Fantastic Arcade, we showcase a curated selection of brand new independent games as well as a larger sampling of important groundbreaking independent games from the last couple of years.
Attendees are invited to play the games as well as interact with the game developers via panels and nightly parties and happy hours. We also feature both panels with independent filmmakers side by side with game developers and intimate demo sessions by independent game developers. Lastly, we feel that video games rightfully belong side by side with shorts and feature films at Fantastic Fest. The artistic merit of these games will be honored with both audience awards and a juried competition.
About Fantastic Fest Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. In years past the festival has been home to world premieres of THERE WILL BE BLOOD, APOCALYPTO, ZOMBIELAND and RED while the guest roster has included such talent as Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Edward Norton, Ryan Reynolds, Karl Urban, Josh Hartnett, The RZA, Dolph Lundgren, Jemaine Clement, Paul Rudd, Bill Pullman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith, Jon Favreau, George Romero, Darren Aronofsky and Mike Judge. Fantastic Fest also features world, national and regional premieres of new, up-and-coming genre films. The festival has launched and propelled the buzz for international genre hits like THE HUMAN CENTIPEDE, MONSTERS, TIMECRIMES and TROLLHUNTER. Fantastic Fest is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on South Lamar in Austin, Texas. The Alamo Drafthouse was named the best cinema in America by Entertainment Weekly and features food and drink served to your seat without any disruption of the movie experience.
During his Keynote Address at the International film Festival Summit in Las Vegas, Variety president and publisher Charlie Koones listed Fantastic Fest in a list of “10 Film Festivals We Love,” a list which included industry heavy-hitters such as Cannes, Toronto and Telluride. We’ve also been named as one of the “25 coolest film festivals” and the “25 film festivals worth the entry fee” by Moviemaker Magazine.
Our Partners Fantastic Arcade sponsors include Presenting Sponsor PlayStation® Network, Austin game developers Lightbox Interactive (Title Sponsor) and Devolver Digital (Premier Sponsor), as well as Midas Green Tech (Supporting Sponsor).
Returning Presenting Sponsors for Fantastic Fest and Arcade include Austin-based Ambhar Tequila, as well as AMD, Alienware, and FEARnet.
New Presenting Sponsors include Texas’ own Shiner Beer, whose family of products will be featured throughout the festival. Joining them are Plano-based Well Go USA Entertainment, PlayStation® Network, and Fandango. Fandango is the exclusive video sponsor as well as ticketing partner of Fantastic Fest 2011. Daily tickets can be purchased atwww.fantasticfest.comorwww.fandango.com. A full list of this year’s sponsors can be found atwww.fantasticfest.com/sponsors
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Fantastic Arcade! Mondo Blog
September 25th, 2010
FANTASTIC ARCADE
In a world where art is continually borked by commerce, no form is bullied harder than the videogame—the much-maligned stepchild of MOVIES, TABLETOP GAMES, LITERATURE, SPORT, and NIGHTMARE. At their best, games demand you actually interact with them, instead of just staring while cramming chee-toes into your face. But since humanity’s problem-solving ability (and capacity for complete sentences) seems to be waning, any game that asks players to think or feel beyond the sugar-high of shooting strangers in the head—then grunting slurs about their sexuality—is quickly labeled profit-killing poison.
That’s why an independent game festival matters. And to have one under the canopy of Fantastic Fest feels like a gift. Strange, imaginative games are being hatched out on the margins. They may not appeal to corn-syrup–fattened rugrats or dead-eyed, gun-nuzzling fratboys who wear the demographic badge of “gamer,” but sameness and withered imagination shouldn’t dictate what the rest of us get to experience. Especially when so much more is possible.
IGF chairperson Brandon Boyer conducts a panel with “Spelunky” creator Derek Yu, “Braid” creator Jonathan Blow, and “Everybody Dies” creator Jim Munroe.
Fantastic Arcade, co-curated by Mike Plante (who previously nurtured CineVegas), debuts this year with panel discussions featuring some of the most interesting personalities in the scene. Indie games from around the world have been built into full-size arcade cabinets, while rows of PCs showcase more titles—plus a lovingly recreated Alamo South Lamar and Highball rendered as a Left 4 Dead 2 mod. Console stations line the walls, and the Highball’s karaoke rooms host featured play areas.
I’ll be highlighting a few games each day of the festival, with photos and clips as I stumble through.
Sword & Sworcery EP
“rustic 21st-century minimalism”
Not yet released but already buzzing, Sword & Sworcery is a stark, fat-pixeled adventure recalling moody, cinematic classics like Out of This World. The developers are here at Fantastic Arcade to show it off, so here’s a quick preview. It’s an iPhone/iPad game that uses the touchscreen for controls and orientation to toggle between exploration and battle. I’ll post a longer S&S:EP piece after Craig Adams’ talk.
Many new indies are skipping prefab 3D engines, returning instead to 2D graphics and pixel art. Whether for rapid prototyping, or simply because fundamental gameplay feels worth mastering again instead of hiding, sometimes simple really is best.
Norrland
If nihilistic Swedes had made a hunting game for the Atari 2600 in the ’80s, it would look like Norrland. Menacing and hilarious, the game involves humping dead deer until a geyser erupts from their neck stumps, drinking beer, shitting in the woods via button-mashing, and drifting through bizarre dream-sequence minigames—like Swordquest redesigned by ether-bingers in the Carpathians.
Often I had no idea what I was supposed to do in a given minigame, but frustration and drudgery are part of the theater here. One highlight: when an animal charges and you’re out of bullets, you can punch it in the face. Swedish title cards with English subtitles make this the most cinematic 2600-style game ever. Fuck you, E.T..
Every Day the Same Dream
Every Day the Same Dream uses video game conventions to satirize real life: an endlessly repeating workday, mapped through every possible deviation (like going to the office without clothes). The limitations of linear games translate neatly into a parody of the actual work grind.
Here, repetition means attrition and failure; any deviation—even suicide—counts as success.
Built in just six days for a game jam, EDTSD shows how contests often yield quick, pure experiments. (Cannabalt by Adam Atomic is another great example.) It’s stripped down, sharp, and direct.
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Fantastic Arcade
We are proud to announce our new independent games festival, Fantastic Arcade, which will run concurrent with the first four days of Fantastic Fest, September 23-26, 2010. Designed as a games spin-off event from the main film festival, Fantastic Arcade will feature fresh, cutting-edge games designed by independent game developers.
The Highball ballroom will be transformed into an old-school arcade featuring games the likes of which never existed in any Aladdin’s Castle back in the day. The Fantastic Arcade curators have selected some of the most fascinating new independent games and retrofitted them into vintage arcade consoles set to free-play for the duration of the event. We feel that video games rightfully belong side by side with shorts and feature films at Fantastic Fest, and the artistic merit of these games will be honored with both audience awards and a juried competition.
Other Fantastic Arcade highlights include a live game demos by their authors on the big screens at Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, a machinima film competition judged by Red Vs. Blue creator Burnie Burns, video game art installations featuring work by Cory Arcangel, live chiptune music performances, games showcases and demos from major game publishers, game design guest speakers, screenings of popular games culture films, a Starcade game-show competition, a light saber dance party and more! Among other topics, the panels will explore the crossover and differences between the visual story-telling mediums of the film and game worlds.
Fantastic Arcade is scheduled for September 23-26 with events at the Highball and Alamo South Lamar. We will also be hosting events as a build-up to Fantastic Arcade at the Ritz, Alamo South Lamar and Republic Square Park.
2010 FANTASTIC ARCADE BADGES AND SINGLE DAY TICKETS SINGLE DAY PASS – $20 Access to all Fantastic Arcade films, panels, parties, happy hour and game demos for a single day. Purchase a single day pass here.
SINGLE DAY GAME DEMO PASS – $10 Access to the game demos and arcade only for a single day. Purchase a single day demo pass here.
2010 V.I.P. BADGES – $60 Access to all Fantastic Arcade films, panels, parties, happy hour and game demos for all four days, September 23-26, plus a limited edition Fantastic Arcade T-shirt. Purchase a V.I.P. badge here.
Daily Hours
11 am to 6 pm – Arcade open for game play and tournaments 6 pm to 7:30 pm – Fantastic Arcade happy hour and tournament finals 8 pm to 11 pm – Fantastic Arcade VIP Party All ages from 11 am to 6 pm; 18 and over from 6 pm to 11 pm.
NOTE – 2010 Fantastic FEST VIP, Film, 2nd Half and Daytime Badges get access to the Fantastic Arcade game demos, arcade and happy hour for all four days, however Fantastic ARCADE badgeholders get priority admission over Fantastic Fest badgeholders to all ARCADE events. $20 and $60 pass holders get priority admission to the advance screenings of Fantastic Arcade films prior to the festival.
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