This year’s IndieCade East was held at the Museum of Moving Image in New York City from Friday, February 14 to Sunday, February 16. There were dozens of games available to play – some were being showcased, while others were included in installments within the museum itself. There were also talks, including keynotes, and many of the game developers were on-hand to discuss their games… and check out what other people were making. It was an exciting weekend, and Warp Zoned was there to drink it all in.
The first day was fairly quiet, with attention divided between the playable games and the multitude of talks. The Fox Amphitheater and Digital Learning Suite on the first floor of the museum were both filled with games. Sony had a huge area set up with several PS4 titles (Octodad: Dadliest Catch, Sportsfriends, TowerFall: Ascension, Hohokum, and Mercenary Kings), as well as Metrico and Murasaki Baby for the Vita. There was also a small area in the back set up with refreshments that was sponsored by Ouya, but their team was unable to make it due to the weather.
I didn’t get a chance to play much that first day, but I’ve played more TowerFall than I know how to deal with, and I’ve played all of the Sportsfriends games, so I can assure you that those games are amazing on the PlayStation 4. What I did get my hands on in that room were the Vita games. Murasaki Baby was a strange and surreal touchscreen game that I had a hard time maneuvering around, but Metrico was pure fun. It’s a puzzle game in which you have to make your way through a changing landscape, which alters according to your own movement. So there are some parts of the level that will go up or down based on whether you are walking forwards or backwards, or a floating platform will come closer or move further away depending on if you are jumping or not. It was only a short demo, but it was a good brain-teaser and platformer all rolled into one.
There were plenty of great talks and workshops to attend as well. The day started with Vlambeer’s Rami Ismail, who gave the opening keynote, entitled “Everybody’s Medium.” Ismail talked about the importance of making “better games, not bigger games,” which is definitely a formula he and his partner, Jan Willem Nijman, have followed. The other talks included one about LARPs (“LARP Is Indie: Live Action Game Design”), one about community (“We Built a Community, So Can You”), and even one about capitalism (“Video Games and the Spirit of Capitalism”). The workshops were about games business, games marketing, and one about legality of games.
The best talk I attended was called “Narrative on a Budget,” which was given by Clara Fernandez-Vara, an Associate Arts Professors at the NYU Game Center, and Matthew Wiese, a freelance game designer and writer. They discussed the importance of narrative, and how narrative is not the same as plot – narrative is “character and setting coming together to make drama.” They also discussed how it can create the identity for your game as well as explain both your premise and your mechanics precisely and memorably. They gave some great advice in the form of their own mantras: title is story, verbs are story, your story is your tutorial, reuse assets, sounds are animations, and text is your friend. The main idea they pushed the most was that narrative is crucial, and you shouldn’t skimp on it.
The real action on Friday was up on the third floor of the museum, where the Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Video Games installation was housed (full list here). That’s where the bulk of the people were, and it was where I definitely wanted to be. We spent a lot of time at the Killer Queen Arcade, a five-on-five versus game set in a massive arcade cabinet, in which you play as a queen and her four drones in a vicious battle. Drones can collect fruit and turn into warriors, or ride the snail – sloooooowly – to victory. All you’ve got is a joystick and one button, so you tap that button furiously to fly and attack from above, to get Joust-like victories over your enemies.
The other game we spent a considerable amount of time playing was SlashDash, an adorable local multiplayer two-on-two versus game where you play as ninjas in a Zen garden fighting to capture the other team’s flag and bring it back to your own. You can shoot the enemies with arrows to stun them, stab them with your sword to kill them, and even teleport through obstacles to get to the objective more quickly… that is, when you don’t have the flag. Once you’ve got that, you can’t teleport, and you move much more slowly, though you can still defend yourself. The art is absolutely adorable, and teaming up with a stranger to beat his friend and Anthony Amato was a blast.
By Friday night, we were exhausted, and headed to the IndieCade East unofficial after party at a beer garden around the corner before heading to our friend (and former Warp Zoned contributor) Brianne Galli’s place for the night. The first day of IndieCade East was a wonderful success, but there was so much more fun to be had all weekend long.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3
