The Mog Blog

There was many gamings and indies in this place.

On October 6-9th, IndieCade brought all the Indie game developers into Culver City, CA to showcase to the public their new innovative games and ideas. Not only did I get the chance to attend IndieCade as media… I also got a free cookie from Royal/T Cafe.

Yum.

Bloop Bloop Bloop

However, it was not just a gathering of Indie developers. Openly entirely to the public (for only 15 dollars too), anyone can come talk to the developers, play their games and learn a bit more about video game development or even just game development in general. It wasn’t all just video game related material, there were card games and board games as well! Unfortunately for me, I was unable to experience everything that IndieCade had to offer as I was only able to attend on Saturday. I ended up missing a few great events from Day 1 and 2, namely the open bar that they had!

Despite all that though, I was able to check out some great things. Sony’s presence was in full effect with their Playstation Home. For those who have not had a chance to check it out: Sony has been getting the Indie community’s attention by giving them opportunities to market their game inside the virtual world that is Playstation Home. From there, players are able to sit down and play these games for a bit, for what seems to be free of charge much like a trial. If you so choose to, you can pay the money (which supports the developer) and start playing the full game from there. In addition, they talked about supporting the developers after the purchase of the game by allowing them to make avatar clothing based on their game. Much of this we’ve seen already before but it’s great that Sony gives developers this option.

The Depths to Which I Sink... No actual sinks involved.

There were also a bunch of games showing off their 3D technology and even a game that took a bit from Hole in a Wall… or Human Tetris without the human. 3D technology is still being explored and, well, I don’t think my eyes are quite ready for the technology. Regardless, games ranged from complex to just plain simple. A good example of simple would be Deepak Fights Robots. What is the game about? It’s about a software engineer named Deepak and he fights fucking robots. Well, at least he can’t fight them immediately, he has to grab power ups before he can do that…

It doesn’t get that much more advanced than that.

Going up to the booth, I was greeted by a person who claims his name was “Deepak Deepak” and wanted me to play his game. He sat me down, showed me an NES Advantage Joystick and let me have at it. The game, again, is simple: It takes elements of Pac-Man and simple platforming like Bubble Bobble. You go around as Deepak, collecting power-ups until you become Super Deepak and you punch (I assume anyways) the crap out of these robots. The simplistic gameplay actually ended up giving Deepak Fights Robots the IndieCade 2011 award for Best Game Design. Simple is best and they show it proudly… very, very proudly.

I was not kidding when I said that.

You can find more details at deepaksave.us where you can actually purchase this game for only a mere 5 dollars. I highly recommend checking it out if you weren’t at IndieCade this year.

And you know what, while we’re talking about good IndieGames, here’s a list of all the award winners of IndieCade 2011, good job guys!

• Grand Jury Award: FEZ, Polytron Corporation – The award distinguishes the game that cultivates artistry and embodies complete passion for game development. This year the jury chose from 36 game finalists from 14 different countries.

• LG Mobile Innovative Game Award: Hungry Hungry UFOs, Asher Vollmer, Sam Farmer and Ben Bharier- The nominees for this award were brought together and established the prototypes for consideration at the IndieCade 3D Mobile Game Jam, presented and sponsored by LG Mobile.

• Visuals sponsored by Nvidia: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, Superbrothers, Capybara Games, Jim Guthrie

• Audio: Proteus, Ed Key

• Impact sponsored by G4: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

• Interaction: Ordnungswissenschaft, Till Wittwer, Marek Plichta and Jakob Penca

• Game Design: Deepak Fights Robots, Tom Sennett

• Technology sponsored by Transgaming: Johann Sebastian Joust, Douglas Wilson and Friends

• Story/ World Design sponsored by BBC Worldwide: FEZ, Polytron Corp.

• Special Recognition: The Swapper, Facepalm Games – it’s a game specially selected by the Jury for being a stand-out game, but not one that could fit into any other category very well. 

• The Trailblazers Award: Megan Gaiser

• Developers Choice Award: Way, Coco & Co (Carnegie Mellon)

• Audience Choice Award: Big Games! They’re so big, they’re too big for TV!Again, IndieCade isn’t just all about video games. They were giving out free premade decks of Magic: The Gathering and even had a weekend long game of Human vs. Zombies. And, of course, there were people playing Ninja. Why do I bring up Ninja? Well, I still think it’s a pretty silly game but, you know what, all of these games are silly in their own way so I’ll just leave them be.

  Though, talking about really silly games, a game that definitely caught my eye was Cards Against Humanity. To those that are familiar with the game Apples to Apples might sit down and think “Man, I wish this game had a more adult theme to it.” Well, here ya go: Cards Against Humanity is a version of Apples to Apples with dark adult humor. Featuring an array of phrases and words that you would only see on the dark spaces of the internet, Cards Against Humanity was simply a card game that was just fun and entertaining to play and I would love to commend the people who made this game and all the people I played with that day. I think I burnt like two hours.

  All in all, there was much trolling, much entertainment, many decks f cards (I have like 5 of those Magic: The Gathering Premade decks). I also have a bunch of things that I could easily give away to people… as in, free stuff. You want some of this free stuff right? Should listen to our Podcast featuring some IndieCade news and maybe you could land something.