IndieCadeEast 2013–Games and Creativity

While I’ve played my share of video games growing up, I didn’t know much about independent games or game development before I attended IndieCadeEast 2013. Thanks to Diana, we made our way to the Museum of Moving Image in Queens this past weekend to the first IndieCade on the east coast. After two and a half days of intense convention activities, I learned a thing or two about games, crowd energy, creative design, and play testing. Warning: this entry has a lot of media. Proceed with caution.

fancy logo. Link to Indiecade East site

just a shot of the museum entrance.

Five Memorable Convention Moments (more details after the jump)

1. Renga AI: "Your fourth harvester looks really useful now”
2. Game Design Workshop: Post-It Pirates playtest sessions
3. Hokra Play-by-Play Sports Commentary during Sports Friends Session
4. Super Shove Shove Ending Screen during CAPY keynote by Kris.
5. Three way tie for the three “Well-Played” sessions I attended. All the presenters gave engaging presentations and shed some light onto games that I had not otherwise known about.

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1. Renga Rant

http://wallfour.co.uk/
When D. and I first lined up on Sat. night for this game in the main theater (bigger of the two theaters), we didn’t know what to expect. The volunteer who was handing out the laser pointers instructed every row to pass down the laser pointers (1 per 3 people only). Since we sat on the aisle, I decided to skip it and let my neighbor participate while we observed. Later on in the show, he was nice enough to let us try as well.

Game premise: Team space shooter
The Execution: 100-players (total strangers) + laser pointers (aka annoying red things) = crowd ecstasy and/or complete chaos.
The Twist: We are all dependent on each other to build a ship, fight off enemies, and survive!
Side effect: Continuous blabbering about how cool this game is and seeing “quads” and “radial” shapes every where.

The context for the AI comment "Your fourth harvester looks really useful now” came after we opted to built yet another harvester despite being blown to bits by enemies. The ship can build different parts after each round of attacks. A “launch” engine is said to be the primary goal because the ship needs to build four launch engines in order to go home. Then there are “silo” ship units to hold supplies and “harvesters” which are little ships that can grab supplies to bring back to the silos. Harvesters have no offense so they get destroyed easily during attack.

Media of all sorts

I've been catching up on a lot of online media instead of doing anything food related. Perhaps I should change my blog name again to something less narrow.

Music

Alternate Side is the WFUV's Alternative/Indie Station. Pretty Cool, definitely give it a listen. Before you know it you will be able to pick up on all the music NYers rave about. Most of those bands also show up at various concert venues in NYC so that's a plus. Of course, I always have so much trouble convincing friends to go with me since the bands are not that mainstream yet.

SXSW is the biggest thing where tech/music/twitter/media go crazy.

NPR has great coverage: http://www.npr.org/music/sxsw/index.html

So far I've listened to Heartless Bastards and Decemberists and loved both. So much to look forward to in the summer! Maybe some of those artists will swing by a free summer concert!

New music finds:

//federico aubele http://www.myspace.com/aubele found him from the Wheelman game site of all places. awesome acoustic guitar. would love to see him live (upcoming show in may)

//charlie hunter http://www.charliehunter.com/ I can't remember how I found him. maybe on gothamist or lmagazine. jazz.

// asteroid galaxy tour http://www.theasteroidsgalaxytour.com/# You probably know them from an ipod commercial a while ago. I found them separately and then realized they did an ipod commercial. very bouncy feel good music that doesn't sound like bubblegum.

Video

The Digg guys held a live show at SXSW that was pretty fun.

Who knew Funimation could afford to put up 20 episodes of Ouran High School Host Club online? I breezed through them and had to find the rest of the series elsewhere. Still can't decide whether I had a favorite character or whether I cared for the ending.

Games

DSLite - I just finished the fourth Ace Attorney Game. What a trip. If you like the series, be sure to visit http://www.court-records.net/ This fansite has a lot of materials, official and fanmade. The forum is also rather active and people are very talented. The remixes and spirites are just awesome.

PS3 - While unlocking Wipeout HD levels is quite an experience, I have to say I'm really drawn to it because it's so damn pretty. Some elements remind me of podracing from Star Wars Ep1. After trying Wheelman demo I've decided that while Vin Diesel makes good action movies (hey, I'm definitely going to see the Fast & Furious 4 movie, huge F&F fan), he makes even better action games. Imagine beautiful Barcelona, hot cars, and Vin Diesel driving (and jumping) cars. The driving controls were very smooth, I'm still getting the hang of the specifics such as shooting and targeting while driving. Oh and I have to say the soundtrack is quite spectacular. Perhaps I'm kind of sick of hiphop music for driving games (not that I don't love GTA sountracks, mind you) and wanted a change of pace and some nice acoustic guitar is just the key.

Speaking of GTA, I finally cracked open my roommate's copy of GTA4 and gave it a spin. Clearly, I'm not meant for driving games. How I managed to spend more than 2 minutes backing out to drive home (first driving mission....) and then getting on the cops bad side after failing traffic laws (what, you have to wait for a green light?) is beyond me. After stumbling and coming out of the hopsital a few times, I finally successfully got my first date's number and some nice clothes (arg sunglasses were beyond my budget!) I can see why people like this game. Liberty City is much prettier and much more friendly for driving. The radio presets are life-like and enjoyable.

Rockband

Unless you've been living under a rock, you know that Rockband is only the coolest and most addictive game ever. I first got interested because I found out Smashing Pumpkins and Garbage are both on it. Yay. Then I discovered Yeah Yeah Yeahs (Maps killed me on the vocals first time though). Just yesterday I got NIN's "Perfect Drug" which sounds awesome (great vocals too).

Basic concept: song + 4 players (guitar, bass, drum, and singer) = a rockin good time

K. is the drummer since the rest of us are not as good as he is. I think he nearly kills his feet everytime we play over an hour due to his intrense "expert level". I haven't figured out the whole orange key, hammer on pull off tricks, so I only do guitar/bass sometimes on medium/hard when I get tired of singing. Most times, I'm singing. 100% on Oasis Wonderwall on "hard level" baby! I'm getting better at Maps too, which is encouraging.

Some other songs that I like from the game:
-Boston. More Than a Feeling. Boston has good jamming songs. Not the most interesting for singer though.
-Blondie. Call Me. The vocals also killed me the first time, but I got better.
-Smashing Pumpkins. Siva and Cherub Rock. I still look forward to the day when people can play the songs right....rocking out to pumpkins does take some practice. I got Zero last night but it actually wasn't that exciting musically. Oh well, still gotta support the SP love!
-Radiohead. Creep. Very haunting actually. but that's radiohead for ya.

More songs listed and updated always. I use the wiki entry for it. The official list is here.

I wish Maroon 5 and U2 would join the band wagon but I suppose it's ok if they rather keep the songs to themselves and not crazy kids like us. I can always try the songs on karaoke.

Favs in Guitar Hero 2

Guitar Hero II(wiki)

Favorite main set songs
"Surrender" - Cheap Trick
The most addictively catchy chorus ever. I had a lot of trouble playing this song at first and got angry because it's in the first set (supposed to be easier compared to other sets)
"Cherry Pie" - Warrant
The lyrics are catchy and hot.
"Beast and the Harlot" - Avenged Sevenfold
Even though this is in the last set of the game, I actually learned it as one of my first songs. Somewhat emo but very fun to play too.

Favorite bonus songs
"Elephant Bones" - That Handsome Devil
This could easily be my favorite song from the whole game. A little funky and a little hip hop. The lead singer's voice is so good and the guitar solos are fun. One of the songs that sounds good and plays well on your fingers. At least at medium difficulty, I don't feel like they throw anything impossible out there just to screw up your score. The "star power" stars are also rather nice. I get really excited when it goes from slow funky to faster more upbeat rhythm in the song. Listen to it and you'll know.
"Jordan" - Buckethead
My favorite instrumental only track. I feel it's a mix of techno electric goodness and trance, almost.

Favorite Guitar
Gibson Explorer (wiki) and its various bright finishes.

Favorite Venue
the one with green lights...can't remember the name, will update later.

Favorite Character/Outfit
Pandora with regular or Feathers (alternative) Outfit.

Least favorite set
Between set 6 and set 7 depending on the day. But I can't stand Psychobilly Freakout