Gaming Outside the Box or What Geordi La Forge Saw

Here is a quick run down of some of the games that IndieCade showed at our booth at the recently concluded Electronic Entertainment Expo.


B.U.T.T.O.N. is from the Copemjagen Game Collective. The goal is to push the play outside the computer with this four player one button party game. It is like Simon Says in that the computer screen gives directions and the players follow them. It is amazing what people will do if the computer screen tells them to. The play is physically demanding and can get rough as players follow computer directions. It is what happens after you stand on one leg and act like a chicken that separates the fowl from the foul tricksters.


Hazard: the Journey of Life by Alexander Bruce of Australia. This is a very complex maze / puzzle game that looks like a first person shooter complete with gun POV. The only things you shoot are door locks to go on to the next maze. Never really got a chance to play this one. It is too complex to play without hints and the creator was not around until Expo opening. Looked like a lot of fun.

Gemini Rue by Joshua Nurenberger of UCLA. This is an old style ANSI graphs game in a Film Noir style. An adventure game in a Blade Runner world.

Miegakure by Marc ten Bosh out of New York City. A platformer in 4 dimensions. You get to choose between which 3 of the 4 dimensions you few. The world changes between XYZ, WXY, WYZ and WXZ. Often in the higher levels you have to start a jump in one dimension and end it in another.

Sand Castle from Arcshock South Korea is a 3-D puzzle game in which you must divert particle system sand into container to open the next level. I loved this one. Just didn’t have enough time to play it.

Smart Kobold by Jeff Lait out of Canada. This is an old style text based dungeon crawl or is it. The Kobold was always the weakest enemy in these games. Not so here. The level of AI is this seeming text dungeon would put most 3-D dungeons to shame. This was one of my favorites.

Vision by Proxy by Team Rose out of Georgia Tech is a fun adventure with a stranded spaceman. He can only salve his puzzle and get home by borrowing the eyes of the people me meets to travel through the world as they see it. The graphics are primitive but the game play is fun.

Maum by Taiyoung Ryu out of USC. This game is one of the most complex technically. The earphones have 3 pickups in the ear and one on the forehead that measure the skin resistance. The way you react to the horror stimuli changes the way the game is viewed. Basically a bio feedback system. This game would only run right if the creator was their tweaking it.

Play Pen by Farbs is an Internet paint game that lets the user and painted pages and add links. It is an ameba in cyberspace growing and taking over.

Puzzle Bots by Erin Robinson a personal adventure puzzle game. You have to use robots to salve puzzles and move on to the next level. Fun game.
And yes, Lavar Burton was a guest of IndieCade and was in the booth checking out the independent games. Seems he is a big fan of independent games and a good friend to IndieCade. Thus the title of this posting.

E3 Report

I survived E3. It is a much smaller show than Comic Con with far fewer fans. Everybody has to some how have a professional connection to get in. But this is my first time running a booth at E3. I have recently become the Director of Volunteers for IndieCade the International Festival of Independent Games http://www.indiecade.com/index.php.

It has been a couple of years since I have run a booth. And E3 is a lot easier than Comic Con but the last day turned into a nightmare of paperwork to get the authorization to move our stuff out of the LA Convention Center. Add to that the horror of Laker Game traffic and I was pretty beat.

I was completely prepared to hate Eric Mickey from Disney Interactive just on the strength of the nightmare like signage around LACC. Then I saw the game and some of it looked like 30s Mickey Mouse cartoons and I was willing to give it another chance. But then I played the game and it was okay. It was talking to the Disney Game rep pimping the game that tipped the balance.

“Is Oswald the villain of the game?”

“Oswald is jealous of Mickey’s success but he is not the villain. Mickey has to reconcile with Oswald in the end . . .” (it was a hoot to hear this guy try to tell me Disney animation history)

It is the same old story, they can’t risk Mickey’s reputation so he can never be a real character again. In the first Mickey Mouse every animated, Plane Crazy Ub Iwerks 1928, Mickey gets Minnie up in a plane and pretty much tells her to put out or get out. In the Mad Doctor (1933) Mickey must fight his way through a horror world to save his dog.

When the first consideration is protecting the reputation of your corporate Logo you are never going to take chances and you are never going to create great art. Kind of okay game but steals heavy from Roger Rabbit and lots of others.

The Booth across the way from us had a hair cutting game. Not really sure what the market for that is. Even the new version of Harvest Moon (the long running non violent farming game) has a sword in the new mix with hunts and quests.

The fun new game is old. A new version of Pacman in s table top display, but taller than the old pizza parlor models, is the most fun for my money. It is 4 player with all the features of the original. There are 4 different color Pacman characters who compete for dots and fruit. The added feature is that if one of the Pacman eats a large dot he grows large become able to eat the other Pacmen.

Everybody is jumping on the Wii market share. Or trying to. The Play Station glowing ball on a stick controller looks stupid but work like a dream.

The big thing at XBox is their answer to Wii, they call it Kinect. Their cotrollerless controller is not much of an answer. A friend of mine played it and hated it. They had it running an update of Rootbeer Tapper (give me a break) and it didn’t even work very well with that. Microsoft has always kind of had a fix it in the field mentality. Maybe it will get better?

There it from the now over E3.

E3

On the Loading Dock

So I’m standing on the loading dock at Disney Animation when Dan Lund walks out the back door. Nothing like it for boosting your street cred with the loading dock super then having one of the Disney creatives go into long lost friend mode with you.

Dan was looking great. He has been working on the Pooh movie. Doing effects on the world turns to honey scene. Working on Centiq and loving it. Claims he would never go back to paper even if he did use his last pay check to buy his Disney animation table during the death on 2-D daze.

Dan wanted to know what the hell I was doing at the Disney loading dock. Picking up computers for IndieCade for E3. E3 is becoming a big deal.

The LA Times this last Sunday was full of stories on E3 including one on the front page about the suit at the largest gaming company cutting his own throat by firing the people who created his top 2 selling titles. Looks like a ploy to get out of paying big royalty checks. Half the crew have jumped ship with them to join their new company. Gods I have heard this song before. Kind of a stupid tune.

Back to E3 and IndieCade. If you are going to E3 you need check out our booth in West Hall at Booth 4344. Independent games no politics or suits. Just the fun on creating something different and cool. Play outside the box.

IndieCade at E3

Been massively busy as of late. Lot of things going on. I am running volunteers for IndieCade at E3 this year. Monday it is off to Disney in the morning to pick up computers and transport them to the L.A. Convention Center where a group of independent games will be installed on them. Here is a list the the games that will be displayed at the indieCade Booth.

B.U.T.T.O.N. By Copenhagen Game Collective (Denmark)
Hazard: The Journey of Life by Demruth (Alexander Bruce, Australia)
Gemini Rue by Joshua Nuernberger The JBurger (UCLA) (Los Angeles)
Miegakure by Marc ten Bosch (New York City)
Sand Castle by Arcshock (South Korea)
Puzzle Bots by Wadjet Eye Games
Blind GiRl by GLPeas (UK)
Smart Kobold by Jeff Lait (Canada)
Vision by Proxy by Team Rose
Maum by Taiyoung Ryu (USC) (Los Angeles)
Playpen by Farbs
Sodium by Outso (Lockwod Publishing) - (UK)
Gigaputt by Greg Trefry/Gigantic Mechanic (New York City)

All these games have one thing in common, there are created out side the main stream. There are cutting edge. There are created by people with the true love and passion of games that is so often missing from their commercial brothers.

If you going to E3 then you owe it to yourself to check out IndieCade at booth #4344 in West Hall. Stop by and play some of the games.