Following our announcement of brand new games from the studios behind Downwell, Tetrageddon Games, Bernband and Orchids to Dusk making their debut at Fantastic Arcade, we have just announced 20 more games rounding out this year’s festival lineup.
The games join the 10 previously-announced Spotlight games coming to Austin, TX’s South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse this September 22nd-29th, and were chosen by JUEGOS RANCHEROS from the nearly 250 games submitted from developers around the world.
Below the fold are details of the 20 Showcase games coming to this year’s festival, followed by the official Fantastic Arcade press release announcing our featured speakers & tournaments (Multibowl! Downwell with creator Moppin in attendance! & more!), as well as details on our opening night party at Empire Control Room, and our VR Lounge coming on the final day of the festival.
JUEGOS RANCHEROS is pleased to announce Robby Kraft as the Fall 2016 arcade of anything resident.
Currently residing in New York City, Robby Kraft is a software developer and origami master with a special interest in geometry and scale. His time at the arcade of anything residency promises to combine these passions and translate them into a digital landscape—we can’t wait to see what unfolds!
Kraft’s residency will conclude with a public exhibition on Friday, September 30 at JUEGOS RANCHEROS’s indie arcade space, the Museum of Human Amusement. This exhibition falls on the day after Fantastic Arcade ends, so plan to stay in Austin for the week and catch both wonderful events!
The month-long arcade of anything artist residency, created in partnership with the Museum of Human Achievement, encourages participants to push into experimental and unexplored territory within digital arts. You can read more about the residency program here.
Please join us in congratulating Robby Kraft, and stay tuned for more details on his exhibition event on September 30.
Robby Kraft is an origami artist and engineer from Texas now living in New York City. He creates open-source tools that reinscribe relationships between computer algorithms, nature, and music.
Want to get a rapid-fire, head-to-head, competitive trip back through all of videogame history? Then be sure to join us Thursday, September 1st, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a sneak-peek at Multibowl, a brand new multiplayer mashup of hundreds of vintage games.
Co-created by Bennett Foddy (creator of QWOP, GIRP & one of the leads behind Sportsfriends) and Alec Thomson (himself co-creator of last year’s Fantastic Arcade favorite, Beglitched), Multibowl gives two players a fast-paced series of tiny fragments of emulated games collected from the past 30+ years, and keeps a running meta-tally of each player’s success.
The Multibowl winner is the one who can adapt to each fragment as it’s tossed their way, be it a classic fighting game, a cult-classic arcade puzzler, or straight up just 15 seconds of the actual Super Nintendo version of Mario Kart.
Ahead of Multibowl‘s official festival debut at Portland’s XOXO Festival, and its subsequent official tournament appearance at this year’s Fantastic Arcade, JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be presenting the game as a special sneak-peek warm-up for tournament hopefuls, alongside a few other Fantastic Arcade preview selections.
Multibowl and more will be playable September 1st, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!
Your donations help JUEGOS RANCHEROS grow our events and our audience in Austin, help us construct our line of arcade cabinets with brand new games, and bring amazing artists and developers from around the world right here to Austin.
If you have any questions about any of our opportunities, don’t hesitate to get in touch by email at juegosrancheros@gmail.com and we’ll be in touch to talk more!
As you may have seen by now, we have just announced our plans for this year’s Fantastic Arcade — the yearly games festival we curate and organize at the Alamo Drafthouse alongside the theater’s renowned genre film fest, Fantastic Fest.
Most excitingly, as we did last year, JUEGOS RANCHEROS has commissioned brand new games which will premiere at the festival, from some of our favorite devs, many of whom will be familiar to attendees of our recent meetups (this was our secret orientation plan!).
We’ll also have a new game from Netherlands collective Sokpop, made up of the devs behind games like the incredible low-fi sci-fi exploration game Bernband (above left), as well as Klondike, the French indie supergroup whose members include the devs of games like Mu Cartographer and the KO_OP-published Orchids to Dusk (above right).
In addition to that, we’ll also be constructing a brand new cabinet for ALPHABET (above), the game co-created by Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy designer Keita Takahashi and JUEGOS RANCHEROS co-founder Adam Saltsman. The game was previously only available to Kickstarter backers, and is now being given a wider exhibition for all Fantastic Fest and Fantastic Arcade attendees.
Below the fold is the first press release for the upcoming 2016 Arcade with more information on our arcade cabinets and the first ten games we’ve chosen as our Spotlight selections.
I’ve taken the liberty of adding a number of links, images and videos to all the games detailed below for better context — scroll to the bottom to take a longer look! All of us here are looking forward to seeing you all at this year’s Arcade!
Want to get the first, best look at what’s happening in indie games around Japan? Then be sure to join us Thursday, August 4th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a free, all-ages screening of Branching Paths, the just-released documentary about the burgeoning games community rising up in Tokyo and Kyoto.
The documentary was directed by Anne Ferrero, a Paris transplant who is also behind Toco Toco TV, a YouTube/broadcast show that serves as a fascinating deep dive into the broader Tokyo creative community (games fans will want to be sure to watch her recent episode with Deadly Premonition & D4 creator Swery 65, one of Japan’s top cult/auteur game directors).
For Branching Paths, she’s taken all of that curiosity and eye for beautiful filmwork and cast her lens on the two-year rise of indie game dev in Japan from 2013-2015.
Featured developers include a number of familiar faces, most notably Ojiro ‘Moppin‘ Fumoto (as well as occasional creative partner & incredible artist Momo ‘nemk‘ Murakami), whose work on Downwell is perfectly encapsulated in that timeline from his first prototypes to the release of the game and its nomination in the Independent Games Festival.
You’ll also see: PixelJunk Eden creator Baiyon (another familiar face to long-time Fantastic Arcade-goers), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night creator gone-indie IGA, and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, as well as a number of Western developers who have settled in Japan, like 17-Bit‘s Jake Kazdal, Oquonie developers Devine Lu Linvega & Rekka Bellum, Pico-8 creator Joseph White, and Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope.
Of special interest to JUEGOS RANCHEROS regulars is the documentary’s focus on founding and flourishing of local communities of game developers that provide the lifeline and constant source of inspiration for fellow developers still not entirely convinced it’s possible to make it as an indie.
We’ll start the film at 7:45pm after a short introduction, so be sure to arrive on time, August 4th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702 to get a prime seat. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink and get a fascinating look at the folks abroad changing the way we think about games!
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