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Aug 22, 2014
Fantastic Arcade 2014 Showcase titles and Gamemaking Frenzy announced! | Fantastic Fest

August 22, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade 2014 Showcase titles and Gamemaking Frenzy announced

Another 28 games are added to this year’s lineup, and a wild Gamemaking Frenzy approaches!

An additional 28 games have been added to this year’s Fantastic Arcade, the fifth annual showcase of independent videogames from the organizers of Fantastic Fest. In addition, the theme for this year’s Gamemaking Frenzy, a two week-long game jam, has been announced.

The following games will be freely playable during the days of Fantastic Arcade, September 18th through the 21st, alongside developer commentary and daily tournaments.

Burrito galaxy 64: Mega Tortilla Bean Saga 30x6 Push It To the Limit(swackSoft softWorks workShop)
Slap, burp, and smack your way through puzzles and dungeons to deliver the interstellar bean payload.

How to Be a Tree (Jimmy Andrews)
In How to Be a Tree , the player is a tree that can twist, twirl, and bound through the world.

Life On A Mountain (Jukio Kallio)
Life On A Mountain is a video game about breathing the fresh air of the mountain and thinking about all the secrets it might hide.

Captain Forever Remix (Brian Chan, Dean Tate)
Captain Forever Remix allows players to build a spaceship, travel across the solar system destroying enemies, and scavenge their remains for new ship parts.

Catacomb Kids (FourBitFriday) Catacomb Kids is a challenging, fast-paced platformer with a huge assortment of generated weapons and enemies to avoid.

Deep Under the Sky (Colin Northway) Try life as a strange jellyfish that flies through the thick atmosphere of a psychedelic Venus.

Future Unfolding (Spaces of Play) Future Unfolding is an experimental action-adventure game that lets you explore a mystical forest filled with life, both beautiful and dangerous.

Glitchhikers (Silverstring Media)
Glitchhikers invites players to experience a haunting drive at night in which things are not quite as they seem.

Gorogoa (Jason Roberts)
Gorogoa is a hand-illustrated world suspended inside of a unique puzzle.

Haunt the House: Terrortown (SFB Games)
This charming action puzzle game allows players to possess objects and haunt unsuspecting humans.

Heat Signature (Tom Francis) In Heat Signature , players pilot a small unarmed ship and take on missions that involve boarding larger ships without their heat sensors detecting you.

How Do You Do It (Nina Freeman, Emmett Butler, Deckman Coss, Jonathan Kittaka) How Do You Do It puts players in the role of an 11-year-old girl who uses dolls to furtively attempt to figure out how sex works.

Lost in the Woods (Animal Phase)
Lost in the Woods is an exploratory first-person game about the eroding force of time and the things we choose to pass on.

Miegakure (Marc ten Bosch)
Miegakure is a puzzle-platforming game that lets you explore and interact with a four-dimensional world.

Rooftop Cop (Stephen Lawrence Clark)
Rooftop Cop is a game in which police have forgotten what, and why, they are policing.

The 2nd Amendment (Ramiro Corbetta, K. Anthony Marefat, Jane Freidhoff)
In The 2nd Amendment , the player controls a 3D avatar who is attempting to play a 2D text adventure game.

The Floor is Jelly (Ian Snyder)
The Floor is Jelly is a physics-based puzzle game set in a whimsical universe made of jelly.

Titan Souls (Acid Nerve)
In Titan Souls , a solitary human with a single arrow must defeat twenty colossal titans.

Due to the overwhelming number of submissions received this year, Fantastic Arcade will feature ten additional bonus games that will be playable on all Showcase laptops: #ghosts (Christoffer Hedborg), Action Henk (RageSquid), Color Thief (Trouble Impact), DRAANG (swackSoft softWorks workShop), Dropsy (Tendershoot), Gods Will Be Watching (Deconstructeam), Offender II (Nathalie Lawhead), The Sun at Night(Minicore Studios), SimAntics: Realistic Anteater Simulator (Liselore Goedhart, Tom Francis), and BLOSSOM (Dominik Johann, Christoffer Hedborg).

Fantastic Arcade is also proud to announce its third annual Gamemaking Frenzy competition, in which amateur and pro game developers alike try their hand at creating an original videogame within two weeks. This year’s Gamemaking Frenzy is themed around food and will be hosted by futuristic foodie Thu Tran, host of the IFC series Food Party and MTVOther’s Late Night Munchies. The Gamemaking Frenzy begins on August 30th and ends September 16th, and selected games will appear in this year’s Starcade, also hosted by Tran. For more information about participating in the Gamemaking Frenzy, visit gamemakingfrenzy.com.

For the latest developments, visit the Fantastic Arcade Facebook & Twitter.

#welovegamedevs
Aug 11, 2014
Fantastic Arcade 2014 Spotlight titles and tournaments announced! | Fantastic Fest

August 11, 2014 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade 2014 Spotlight titles and tournaments announced

Fantastic Arcade 2014 Announces its first wave of games and tournaments.

More than 20 independent video games will be on display at this year’s Fantastic Arcade, the fifth annual showcase of independent games from the organizers of Fantastic Fest.

The games to be featured in this year’s Fantastic Arcade lineup have been selected by the organizers of Austin’s independent game collective Juegos Rancheros—Adam Saltsman, Wiley Wiggins, Jo Lammert, Rachel Simone Weil, and Brandon Boyer—and by Fantastic Arcade Technical Director Joshua Fields. Panel discussions, developer talks, and game tournaments will be held each day of the festival. All games and game-related events at Fantastic Arcade will be free and open to the general public at the newly renovated Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar theater and its sister venue, The Highball.

Among the games selected for Fantastic Arcade are eight Spotlight games- games that embody a hard-to-define quality we like to call ‘arcadiness.’ These games will each have a stand-up arcade cabinet constructed for them, to be presented for free play during the event.
- Gang Beasts (Boneloaf)
  One of the most eagerly anticipated tournament and Spotlight games of Fantastic Arcade 2014, Gang Beasts blends cute, doughy character design with shocking, hilarious violence and can’t-put-the-controller-down gameplay.
- Donut County (Ben Esposito)
  Premiering at Fantastic Arcade 2014, Ben Esposito’s Donut County gives players control over a stylish, Los Angeles-inspired 3D playscape, all thanks to irresistible donuts that, when eaten, open holes in the ground.
- Banana Chalice (Kyle Reimergartin)
  Fjords creator Kyle Reimergartin returns to Fantastic Arcade with Banana Chalice , a game in which an interdimensional Banana Cat must journey through an endless wormhole on a quest for chalices.
- Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Asteroid Base)
  This frantic 1- or 2-player local co-op action game, set inside a neon spaceship, invites players to work together to man turrets, lasers, shields, and thrusters in order to save animals and stave off interstellar demise.
- Fotonica (Santa Ragione)
  Fantastic Arcade veterans Santa Ragione have prepared a special 4-player arcade version of Fotonica , an abstract, exploratory first-person runner.
- Push Me Pull You (House House) Push Me Pull You is a two-on-two sports game about friendship and wrestling in which teams must use a shared body to wrap, writhe, and wrestle a ball into their half of the court.
- Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon (Tiger Style) In Tiger Style’s sequel to Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor , players take on the role of a spider while uncovering the mysteries of a secret society.
- Mountain (David OReilly) Mountain is an ambient, procedural mountain simulator from animator David OReilly (The External World, Her) with programming by Damien Di Fede (Cosmic DJ).
Dozens of additional games will be added to the full Fantastic Arcade lineup within the coming weeks. Special tournaments and exposition plays are also planned, including games such as Gang Beasts, Push Me Pull You, Nidhogg, N++, Astro Duel, and Towerfall Ascension. More information about this year’s special events, including the third annual Gamemaking Frenzy competition, will be released in the coming weeks.

For the latest developments, visit the Fantastic Arcade Facebook & Twitter.
Sep 24, 2013
Fantastic Arcade Closing Night Wrap-up | Fantastic Fest

September 24, 2013 | Wiley Wiggins

Fantastic Arcade Closing Night Wrap-up

An unbelievable final night of Fantastic Arcade, with a blindfolded Samurai showdown, four true VideoHeroeS, and a multiplayer rager courtesy of Wild Rumpus and Devolver Digital.

We started the final day of Fantastic Arcade with a little brain massage, courtesy of Hohokum. Artist Dick Hogg and Sony’s Zach Wood threaded us through the environments of the game on the back of a mutlicolored ribbonlike creature known as the “Long Mover”

A much more primitive version of Hohokum was in the very first Fantastic Arcade line up, and it was amazing to see how far this game has come. Check out this brand new clip showcasing a level in the game called “Guano Factory”

Next up, Nicolo and Pietro from Santa Ragione showed off VideoHeroeS, our closing exposition tournament game, available for free as part of the LA Game Space Experimental Game Pack. VideoHeroeS replicates the experience of being a 90’s videostore clerk, and we were so excited about that notion that we rounded up a few ex video store clerks who went on to greatness in order to play the game later that night. This being Fantastic Fest, it wasn’t hard to find the right players for this game (a little more about that later on…). Santa Ragione had an unprecedented TWO games as part of the Fantastic Arcade selection this year, so they segued into showing off their other offering, MirrorMoon EP. This is a game of planetary exploration that recalls obscure classic titles like Noctis and Mercenaries: Damocles. Mysterious structures punctuate an explorable, stylish, geometric universe.

Nicolo and Pietro took us on a tour of inspirations for the game, including the obtuse user interfaces of spacecraft in 70’s science fiction (a subject near and dear to my heart).

Beau Blyth took the stage at 3 to show us how a childhood of SuperNES sibling rivalry planted the seed for Samurai Gunn. The stage was sufficiently set for what became one of the most intense tournaments of all of Fantastic Arcade. Within the space of an hour and a half, microcosms sprang up in the theater of fans chanting “DEATH” and blasting virtual airhorns from their phones as we watched some of the most skilled players of this still young game deftly remove each other’s heads. After over thirty combatants fell, the final two masters of the day, Matt Grimm and Eissa “Jesus” Burghed, stepped in front of a standing room, had blindfolds tied around their heads, and took part in a blind sunset showdown.

After the dust settled and everyone caught their breath, we invited in Lars Nilsen of the Austin Film Society, Fantastic Fest’s Zack Carlson, Evan Husney of Drafthouse Films, and Joe Ziemba of Bleeding Skull to check out VideoHeroes. Each one of these guys is a legend in the world of cult film, but with the exception of Nidhogg champ Evan Husney, none of them has likely touched a videogame since Mrs Pac-man. Once they realized that someone had specifically made a game in their honor though, they rose to the occasion, plowing through the shelves of dusty virtual VHS big boxes, racking up cash. It was a charming handshake between Arcade and the whole of Fantastic Fest.

Our Awards Ceremony followed, starting out by honoring the winners of the second annual Gamemaking Frenzy Game Jam. It was a tough call, with some amazing creations coming out of just a 48 hour period, but the judges decided that the title most deserving of the award was George Royer and Damien Di Fede’s Starphonix.

Up next we recognized all of our spotlight games. These were the 8 games that graced the Alamo lobby in specially created Arcade Cabinets.

Breakin’ 3 Electric Barbecue Award : Q.E.D. by Stephen Ascher
What is Goblet Grotto Even About Award : Goblet Grotto by Stephen Gillmurphy & Kat Chastain
[Air Horn Sound] Award : Samurai Gunn by Beau Blyth
Throne of Blood Award for Most Arrow Kills : TowerFall by Matt Thorson
Trapper-Keeper Design Award for Preservation of Neon Grids in Space: Starwhal: Just the Tip by Jason Nuyens
[Mutant Growling Sound] Award : Wasteland Kings by Vlambeer
First & Last Day on the Job Award: No Brakes Valet by Justin Smith
Audio/Planetary Genesis Award : Panoramical by Fernando Remallo & David Kanaga

For the first time this year, both the audience choice award and the coveted jury “Most Fantastic” award went to Samurai Gunn.

After the Awards ceremony, Devolver Digital carried us downtown to a venue called Empire Control Room. In the center of the venue projectors lit the walls with game installations courtesy of Wild Rumpus UK. Matt Piersall was up first in the DJ hotseat, showing off Gl33k’s Cosmic DJ multiplayer music creation game.

Keita Takahashi and Adam Saltsman’s new game Mega Alphabet was unveiled, with a dance pad controller.

Full-contact motion game Magnetize Me caused a few weird interactions between players:

The mysterious being known as Kozilek stepped up next, blasting the audience with new mixes of his own game themes and others, sending a wave of revitalizing energy through the crowd.

Finally DJ Phil Fish hit us with a crowd pleasing set, and a ton of great energy. The party was a boozy glowing mess of fun, and the perfect way to send off another great year of Fantastic Arcade.

Check the hashtag #fantasticarcade on twitter and vine for a million little slices of the festival from those who attended and made it so great. Check out our 2013 photo gallery on Facebook. Thanks again to our sponsors Sony Playstation, Alienware, Adobe and Devolver Digital for making this year so great! Special thanks to Game Over Games for our tournament prizes and Delptronics for the custom Panoramical Controller.
Sep 18, 2013
Your Guide to Fantastic Arcade | Fantastic Fest

September 18, 2013 | Wiley Wiggins

Your Guide to Fantastic Arcade

Amid a flurry of activity as an Arcade rises in the lobby of Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline- a schedule of unforgettable tournaments and talks with the brightest in independent videogames has formed!

September 19th:

End of Line/Retro Game Crunch Commentary 12:00
Developer Rusty Moyher takes us into the mad experiment that is the Retro Game Crunch, while attendees check out one of its fruits- the pixel-art puzzler End of Line.

Banner Saga: Chapter One Commentary 1:00
Local favorites Stoic Studio take us through the Epic (I only use this word when actually appropriate) campaign mode of what Kotaku called “One of the most beautiful videogames [we’ve] ever seen”- while we play along on the laptops in the theater.

Zak Ayles/Cutthroat EP Commentary 2:00
Youngblood wunderkind Zak Ayles will take us on a musical journey while we check out his new 2-in-1 creation Cutthroat: EP

The Stanley Parable Commentary 3:00
Developer Davey Wreden will be in house to take us through a meta-recursive demonstration of his wry lampoon of game tropes, The Stanley Parable. Also, be sure to sign up for the day’s tournaments. If you can press a button or lift a buttcheek you’ve got a chance to win on this day.

Pistol Cat Tournament 4:00
Ben Esposito’s ridiculous 4-player Pistol Catwill be our first tournament of the day. Blast the other tiny kittens away with your absurdly large handgun while bouncing off the walls from the kickback.

Spelunky Daily Challenge Day 1 5:00
The first in our three day Spelunky Daily Challenges begins, and we just so happen to have a handful of the best players in the world in town. Do not miss this, even if you have no idea what I am talking about.

Poocuzzi Tournament 6:00
I’m inclined to let this one be a surprise, but I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that this game is played with the exclusive Buttpad Pro controller. Come crap in a virtual hottub and win fabulous prizes from GameOver Games.

September 20th :

Crypt of the NecroDancer Commentary 1:00
A rhythm-roguelike where a dreary dungeon becomes a disco that spins your own tunes, Ted Martins and the NecroDancer team will take us through a trip making this odd and wonderful gem of hypnotic gameplay.

Starwhal: Just the Tip Commentary 2:00
Jason Nuyens will be in the theater to show off one of the surprise multiplayer favorites of the fest, and get us ready for the night’s tournament with some floppy narwhal tips (ahem).

Q.E.D. Commentary 3:00
Stephen Ascher will take responsibility for creating arguably the weirdest game of the festival, and we will explain to him how we love him for it.

Sony: We <3 Devs 4:00
Our partners in crime at Sony Playstation will talk about the amazing surge of indie-love we’ve seen from them over the last year, and about how you can get your game on the platform.

Spelunky Daily Challenge Day 2 5:00
Day 2 of Spelunky madness as we enjoy the Arcade Mixer satellite bar courtesy of Sony Playstation.

Starwhal: Just the Tip 6:00
Starwhal tournament is open to all, get skewered by a flying neon narwhal in a psychedelic trapper-keeper nightmare dimension.

September 21st :

Poocuzzi Free Play 11:00

Gone Home and Environmental Storytelling 12:00pm

Steve Gaynor of The Fullbright Company and Randy Smith of Tiger Style discuss the art of environmental storytelling with an emphasis on this year’s indie hit, Gone Home. Live podcast in full effect!

Choosatron Deluxe Adventure Matrix Commentary 1:00
Jerry Belich tells us about this lil’ charmer: a ticker tape printing choose your own adventure console that’s smaller than a toaster. We’ll also be treated to some Fantastic Arcade inspired adventures with audience volunteer players.

Wasteland Kings Commentary 2:00
Fantastic Arcade champions Vlambeer return once again with what is unarguably their greatest creation, the apocalyptic Wasteland Kings.

Panoramical Commentary 3:00
Fernando Ramallo will show us the beautiful musical terraformer, and if we’re lucky we will skype in co-creator David Kanaga, who will hopefully take us back down the metaphysical wormhole that we witnessed at his panel talk last year.

Fjords Commentary 4:00
Kyle Reimergartin will take us on a trip to science mountain, with his creation Fjords, a little treasurebox of mysteries in a minimalist platformer package.

Spelunky Daily Challenge Day 3 5:00
THE FINAL SPELUNKY DAILY CHALLENGE. Remember every day at 5 the Mixer satellite bar will be in the theater with refreshments at hand, courtesy of Sony.

Towerfall Tournament 6:00
Four player archery deathmatch at 6 o’clock is a good way to round out the day’s events.

September 22nd:

Hohokum Demo 12:00

VideoHeroeS/ MirrorMoon EP Commentary 1:00
Italian Devs Santa Ragione have TWO games in the festival this year- the stylish mystical space puzzler MirrorMoon EP, and a game near and dear to our hearts, our closing tournament- the 1990’s video store clerk simulator: VideoHeroeS. Get prepared here.

Choosatron Dramatic Readings 2:30

No Brakes Valet creator Justin Smith and host Wiley Wiggins perform dramatic readings of transcripts of real play sessions straight from the little ticker-tape heart of the Choosatron Deluxe Adventure Matrix.

Samurai Gunn Commentary 3:00
Developer Beau Blyth will prep us for what may be the most eagerly awaited tournament of the festival- for the newest and baddest version of the game that we exclusively peeped at last year, Bushido Brawler Samurai Gunn.

Samurai Gunn Tournament 4:00
I promise you you will not want to miss this tournament. The last two standing will basically be actual samurai after you see what we make them do, and they will legally be allowed to ride around whacking peasants with swords as they see fit.

VideoHeroeS Tournament 5:00
THE MEGA EVENT OF THE SUMMER. The winner of this event will be buried in a sarcophagus of moldy old Jerry Maguire VHS boxes. We’ve assembled an elite cadre of nerds of a different stripe to attempt to play this incredibly difficult VHS store clerk simulator: Actual VHS-collecting ex video store clerks that many of you already know and love.

Fantastic Arcade Awards 6:00
Last year people took their clothes off and an astronaut who lives in a castle gave away a working crossbow. I have no idea what will happen this year, but I am not responsible for any loss of life or limb. We’ll start out by crowning the winners of our 48 hour gamemaking frenzy competition, and then we will recognize our 8 spotlight games and then both the Audience Choice award and the coveted Most Fantastic Award.

“YOU GUYS LIKE TEQUILA?” The Fantastic Arcade After Party 8:00pm- 2:00am
OFFSITE:EMPIRE CONTROL ROOM
MORE GODDAMN CRAZY GAMES. UK indie game roughhousers The Wild Rumpus and Devolver Digital are throwing us an insane rager at Empire Control Room.

Free for Fantastic Fest badgeholders and Fantastic Arcade guests (w wristband), $10 at the door for regular joes
Brought to you by The Wild Rumpus & Devolver Digital Sponsored by Gamestick

=========THE GAMES==========
- Super Piñata Pro - Edd Parris
- MagnetizeMe - Copenhagen Game Collective
- Smesport - Michael Brough
- GO NUTS!!! : Vine edition - Glitchnap (and maybe more…)
Tweet your festival vines with the #fantasticarcade hashtag!

=========THE MUSIC==========
- Kozilek
- DJ Phillippe sans Lemarchand
- Cosmic DJ Matt Piersall
- & Live Visuals by Wiley Wiggins
=========================
RSVP AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK

All times subject to change in the event of disaster and misadventure, stay up to date by checking the Fantastic Fest events page, and be sure to follow @fantasticarcade on twitter!