IndieCade 2019’s Fantastic Games

by Vincent Lai | October 21, 2019 7:00 am

ConFreaks & Geeks once again attended IndieCade, a juried festival showcasing recently released and forthcoming independent game titles. This was IndieCade’s fifteenth year, and once again the event was held at Santa Monica College. We enjoyed browsing the nominated game galleries, which were filled with unique titles that utilized experimental control schemes and fascinating mechanics. These titles’ control schemes were highly varied as they spanned touch screens, keyboard and mouse, virtual reality, 3D printed pieces, and more. We are excited to share our impressions of some of the notable titles from the event. 

ElemenTerra by Freeform Labs

ElemenTerra is a virtual reality game in which players are tasked with saving animals with the power of the sun. I was drawn to the vibrant visuals and it was quite Intuitive using my right hand to select abilities from the palette on my left hand. I was able to create rock bridges and plant fruit that grows into nourishing trees. The entire game was rather laid-back and it was quite entertaining figuring out how to help the different animals on the field. 

 

Spring Falls by SPARSE//GameDev

Spring Falls’ goal is to move water from a mountain source to saplings. Each level is comprised of hexes, and players lower ground tiles to spread water across the playfield. However, players must be careful to not let water spill off of the side of the mountain. Fortunately, undoing actions is a snap, and the puzzles are intuitively built. The elegant aesthetics are inspired by hiking experiences in the Appalachian Mountains. We can’t wait to check out more of the relaxing puzzles.

 

Kroma by Carol Mertz, Kai Karhu, Francesca Carletto-Leon, & Temitope Olujobi

Kroma is a board game that involves strategic color based piece positioning. It supports 2 to 3 players on a single backlit field. The goal is to overlap red, blue, and yellow pieces to create as much of your intermediate color on the board as possible. For example, the Orange player would try to overlap red tiles on yellows to create orange. The strategy comes with trying to out-zone opponents and avoiding situations where they can easily create their color as well. The random piece draws kept us on our toes, and we had some rather fantastic neck-to-neck matches.

Ama’s Momento by the Momento Team

Ama’s Momento is a three-part experience that encapsulates a grandma’s love for art and travel. As an augmented reality experience, a video installation, and a virtual reality environment, Ama’s Momento enthralled us with its comprehensive documentation and inspirational, heart-warming narrative. We gained additional insight into Ama’s life story via speech, 3D animation, on-screen text, and a navigatable recreation of her home. The whole experience was certainly quite touching and captivating.

Hot Swap by Peter Gyory & Clement Zheng

Hot Swap’s control scheme provided a hectic co-op experience that truly felt unique. Two players control a ship on the high seas via modular pieces. Each player’s controller has two slots, and the pieces can freely be placed and removed depending on the situation. The steering wheel piece actually has an operational wheel that turns, and firing and reloading either player’s cannons requires slotting the respective piece into the proper side. The result is some fast-paced antics as players strive to grab as much treasure as possible, defeat incoming enemies, and put out fires. 

Blind Spot by Sam Friedman

Blind Spot lives up to its name with a puzzle-based experience that purely utilizes touch. Players move their fingers in order to find hidden spots on the touch screen. As players come closer, the tablet will increasingly vibrate. The catch is that sometimes the game will require players to hold their fingers into multiple spots at once, which can be a bit tricky as players search for the right positions. The remarkable part is that the interface works completely by vibration, and we did our entire trial run while blindfolded. The game certainly felt easy to learn but challenging nonetheless.

RPG TIME: The Legend of Wright by DESKWORKS

RPG TIME whimsically channels kids’ off-the-wall imagination and page margin doodles. The game takes traditional roleplaying mechanics and throws them into a kid’s notebook. During our play session, we traveled through a dangerous cave full of obstacles and enemies. However, all the elements on screen are pieces of paper that really reinforce the notebook-inspired universe. The result is a kinetic experience that really feels imaginative and familiar at the same time. 

Nauticrawl by Andrea Interguglielmi

Part adventure and part puzzle solving, Nauticrawl takes us into the cockpit of a mysterious vehicle. The catch is that the game gives no instructions about how to pilot it, so players must engage in some trial and error to figure out the controls. With so many switches on screen, the game can take a bit to figure out. However, the presentation is slick and provides plenty of audiovisual feedback for each action. Our haphazard stumbling was rather amusing and we eagerly anticipate getting lost into the machine soon. 

Tick Tock: A Tale for Two by Other Tales Interactive

Tick Tock is a puzzle solving game in which each of the two players has a handful of clues that the other does not. We played Tick Tock on two opposite facing monitors, and we navigated similar yet asynchronous environments. If we were stuck, we had to speak out loud to figure out our bearings and solve the puzzles. The catch is that the environment itself is a bit surreal and dream-like as well, so we needed a bit of time to make sense of our surroundings and work together to figure out the clues.

Blabyrinth by Sleeping Beast Games

Blabyrinth is a procedurally generated co-op puzzle game experience for two to four players. We played on two tablets and navigated a grid-like dungeon in which we juggled items to light our surroundings and solve puzzles that allowed us to keep traversing the dungeon. Since each player can only carry two items, we frequently had to coordinate which objects to carry. The dungeons are labyrinths, but we could easily tell which objects we could interact with. We imagine the game has plenty of ways to keep players on their toes. 

Many thanks to IndieCade for putting together another fun year full of unique projects and compelling craftsmanship! 

 

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