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Sep 22, 2014
Fantastic Arcade day 4 recap and Barfcade | Fantastic Fest

September 22, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade day 4 recap and Barfcade

The final day of events for the best Fantastic Arcade yet!

It’s hard to say goodbye to Fantastic Arcade, but we did it in style, with talks from Mason Palos (Burrito Galaxy) Yukio Kallio (Life on a Mountain), Ben Esposito (Donut County) Kyle Reimergartin (Banana Chalice), and KO-OP Mode.

Yukio Kalio catches fish in his game Life on a Mountain Rachel Weil conducts a developer commentary with Donut County’s Bed Esposito Kyle Reimergartin explores thezomes of Banana Chalice

KO-OP MODE and Stephen Ascher take a look at Stephen’s QED, which is receiving additional development help from the collective

Watch live video from venuspatrol on Twitch

Barfcade Contestants attempt to eat entire sticks of butter Thu Tran congratulates Barfcade survivor Jessica Weingartner

Kyle Reimergartin holds his spotlight prize

Ben Esposito Dj’s to glitched-out scenes from Uzumaki

Kozilek and Fernando Ramallo play out the closing party

For livestreamed video from the event, visit the Venus Patrol Twitch.tv channel. For news and updates, follow Fantastic Arcade on Twitter and Facebook.
Sep 21, 2014
Fantastic Arcade Day 3 | Fantastic Fest

September 21, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade Day 3

A day of illuminating game talks and a night of unbelievable feats of skill.

We started out Saturday with a little round of pencil&paper party game Monstro Cards, by local game developers White Whale. Monstro Cards has been described as a sort of combination of Pictionary and Cards Against Humanity , and the special team-based variant they tried out with the Arcade audience was fun to watch and easy to play.

David Kalina and Randy Smith of Tiger Style were up next, with two talks- one the scoring mechanics of their new game Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon (in preparation for their high score competition) and a research talk on the history of secret societies (one of which features as a story setpiece in the game).

Next was a talk by Tom Francis, who’s game Gunpoint was in 2012’s FA showcase. This year Tom has two games in the selection; the space stealth game Heat Signature, and bonus game SimAntics: Realistic Anteater Simulator (created with Liselore Goedhart as part of the Super Game Jam series).

After a short talk from Brian Silva from Sony about how indies can publish on the playstation platform, we transitioned to a block of Sony sponsored tournaments in Theater 3.

N++ was a real surprise delight- while plenty of folks in the theater had experience with previous incarnations of the game, N++ was new to everyone. Rounds were fast, the carnage was unending, and the tension was delicious as the spaces between winner and loser in each round seemed tighter than the last.

Next up was a game that is practically a Fantastic Arcade tradition now, with skills honed over time, Arcade combatants picked up their respective foils and faced off at Nidhogg.

Watch live video from venuspatrol on Twitch

Towerfall is a game that involves so many rapidly moving objects on screen at once that it can be hard to do running commentary on- stop to talk about something and in the space of every word that leaves your mouth a player has met their end or something amazing happens. We saw more midair catching and returning of arrows, wild Mario head-stomps, and bomb death at Saturday night’s tournament than I thought was possible.

Finally a marathon Nuclear Throne speedrun exhibition thrilled us and beat us into a stupor, with special guest emcees Paul Veer and Jukio Kallio. Several players came incredibly close to taking the Nuclear Throne, with two simultaneous games running at all times in split-screen. Several pro players took part, including a tense match as partners and rivals Rami Ismail and JW Nijman competed against each other at their own game. All players performed admirably, but the evening’s winner was Arcade Tournament regular and Disorder developer Saam Pahlavan, who picked a risky character (eyes), but played methodically and conservatively, dying just moments away from the throne.

Photos by Andres Lombana Bermudez

For a million little bite-sized slices of Arcade, check out #fantasticarcade on Vine. Follow us on Twitter for more news and updates.
Sep 20, 2014
Fantastic Arcade Day 2 | Fantastic Fest

September 20, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade Day 2

Another day of unbelievable games and their devoted and unique creators.

Day 2 of Fantastic Arcade can only be described as a rager. Once again we started our day in The Highball, this time talking to local Charles Elwonger about his minimalist first-person experiment Lost in the Woods, then to Glitchhikers developer “ceMelusine” about the strain of balancing a dayjob in software development with making his own games.

At one we discovered secret Fjords connections in The Floor is Jelly, and then Santa Ragione developer Pietro Righi Riva showed us the history of their spotlight game Fotonica.

Next was spotlight game Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime’s co-creator Matt Hammill. A retina-searingly colorful candy-constellation buddy game where two tiny astronauts pilot a death-star like contraption on an interstellar rescue mission.

After a breif period of homelessness we joined special guest speaker Tim Schafer and scholar/game designer George Royer for a talk about his groundbreaking classic Grim Fandango. A line of expectant fans snaked out of the theater hall and into the lobby, as we scrambled to find extra chairs for the event. The pair gave us an in-depth exploration of the world of Grim and its influences of film noir, art deco, thano-mythology, and just about every other molecule of Grim’s DNA. We also heard about the process of revisiting the game and its surviving production assets in order to create the upcoming HD remaster.

We flowed from the Grim Fandango talk into the night’s first tournament- spotlight game Gang Beasts, which has just been picked up by Schafer’s company Double Fine. Gang Beasts is a game that is simultaneously brutal and cute, with doughy, bloodless, colorful characters that maul, grab and fling each other to their final rewards. (check out recorded livestream of an interview with developer James Brown, followed by the match, with commentary from Tim Schafer and Vlambeer’s JW Nijman)

We were especially honored to have the tradition of Fantastic Arcade custom levels continue with a special Gang Beasts Alamo Drafthouse theater level. It was… disorienting to see peer through the screen to see the theater we were sitting in, with another surprise lurking beyond the second ‘screen’.

After gang beasts came the queasily intimate grappler Push Me Pull You. Developers House House took us through the design process of the game, their first effort as game creators, but one that has already catapulted to forefront of indie multiplayer gaming.

For live streaming events from Arcade, check out the Venus Patrol Twitch channel, sponsored by Devolver Digital. For a million little bite-sized slices of Arcade, check out #fantasticarcade on Vine. Follow us on Twitter for updates and news about the festival as it happens.
Sep 19, 2014
Fantastic Arcade Day 1 Wrap | Fantastic Fest

September 19, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade Day 1 Wrap

VIDEO GAMES.

The glowing “ARCADE” sign returned home to The Highball today, as Fantastic Arcade took up residence in what truly looks like a legit old school arcade- a bleepy bloopy kid sister to the teeming funball that is Fantastic Fest. In addition to the 8 spotlight arcade cabinets constructed in The Highball’s enclosed patio area, we wheeled out the laptops so attendees could check out our showcase selections, and Sony PSN and Devolver Digital joined in to show off their indie game wares as well.

We have always felt at home in The Highball, but last year at the Lakeline location it was also great having a theater to ourselves. This year we’ve tried to get the best of both worlds. Each morning we set up shop in The Highball for some morning developer commentaries, and then when things start to get too rowdy, we move into Theater 3 for our larger panels and tournaments. We started out with a sneak preview of the indie game documentary Game Loading, and then followed with a look into the mysterious and undeniably beautiful and intricate Gorogoa- an illustrated puzzle game by Jason Roberts.

David OReilly’s serenely funny Mountain was up next, as programmer Damien DiFede invited audience members to plant the seed of a mountain by drawing abstract concepts, and then talked us through the creation of the game while we watched the mountain grow, and occasionally get pelted with spaceborne appliances.

We made our way to theater 3 for the next event- the first tournament of the year, a sneak peak at the new, experimental dance-battle mode of Stephen Ascher’s breakdancing hot-dog opus QED- a returning favorite in a new form (complete with amazing B-Boy character creation). Bizarre and ridiculous things occurred, which is something Fantastic Arcade is now becoming modestly famous for.

Next up we had a megatournament of Austin game developer Rusty Moyher’s crowd pleaser Astro Duel. In what had to be the most organized tournament we’ve had yet, dozens of contestants matched reflexes in this new take on classics like Space War and Asteroids.

Next we watched Episode 4 of the excellent Super Game Jam series, with subject Martin Jonasson in attendance. We’ll be checking back in with the creators to check out the still unreleased 5th episode later in the fest.

Finally we all got to meet this year’s special guest Thu Tran, who will be hosting Sunday’s special Barfcade event at the Highball (more info here). Thu and her friend Ivan Safrin showed us their recent collaboration- a series of motion-controlled games honoring the city of Cleveland in the most bizarre and heartfelt way imaginable.

There will be more? more. more! (more) videogames and crazy wonderful magic madness in store tomorrow! Remember that all of Fantastic Arcade’s panels, talks and tourneys are free-for-all.