After well over a year of build-up and preparation, the day has finally come: JUEGOS RANCHEROS has officially given the first of its TEXATRON machines a permanent home at Guzu, Austin’s new best designer toy/art/comic shop & gallery.

What this means for you is that now you can go play Messhof’s still-unbelievably-highly-anticipated Nidhogg, for free, whenever you want, during Guzu’s operating hours — as well as a slew of other games on the Winnitron network, including special 2-player builds of Canabalt & Super Crate Box, and much more.

The installation is just the first of what we hope will be many more to come, as well as the prelude to many enhancements to the Winnitron’s front- and back-ends to make machines like the TEXATRON perfect cultural-outreach machines to bring interesting, beautiful videogames to a wider and cross-cultural audience.

If you’re in Austin, drop by Guzu at 5000 N Lamar Blvd — just next door to Austin Books & Comics — and be sure to browse around for a legitimately amazing selection of books & toys while you’re there. Keep your eyes on the TEXATRON site for more news about upcoming locations, and investigate the Winnitron site if you’d like to bring machines like this to your own town.

It’s been years since we’ve last seen a new game from Keita Takahashi — most famous for his Namco cult classic Katamari Damacy and the even cultier PS3/iPhone game Noby Noby Boy — but this Thursday, April 4th, at 7:00PM, JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be showing not one but two brand new works from the esteemed designer at the North Door.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

The first will be Tenya Wanya Teens — the co-production of Takahashi’s indie studio Uvula, UK-based multiplayer event group Wild Rumpus, and Venus Patrol — which just made its world debut to great acclaim at last week’s Game Developers Conference.

Tenya Wanya Teens, which we describe as “a coming-of-age tale about love, hygiene, monsters and finding discarded erotic magazines in the woods”, is also maybe also best described as “a very silly party game for two players armed with sixteen buttons each.” This will be its first showing outside the conference as it starts to make its way around the globe playing in various multiplayer arenas.

But Austin will also be the first place anywhere in the world that gets to see another new game from Takahashi, this one titled A͈L͈P͈H͈A͈B͈E͈T͈ (those little marks are important) — a co-production of Takahashi and JUEGOS’ own Adam Saltsman, creator of iPhone superhit Canabalt — being put together for the recently-Kickstarted LA Game Space.

Everything will be kicking off Thursday, April 4th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702! The show is free and open to all the public — come drink, play, and meet the people changing the way you think about videogames!

Presented below is the latest in our regular series of indie games both local and global worth paying attention to, fully annotated & linked up for your pleasure — now regularly cross-posted to the newly launched Venus Patrol!

(more…)

LittleBigPlanet and the upcoming Tearaway are among the most creative & beautiful games to land on the PlayStation platform, and their creators, Media Molecule, will be right here in Austin Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00PM at the North Door.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

Flying in all the way from Guildford, UK, the Media Molecule team will be presenting — for the first time ever — the results of its own first-ever internal game jam, with, says the company, “photos and videos of things we made — games yes, but a whole load of weirdness, too.”

The team will talk through the process of running a game jam and the weird stuff they did alongside it, and then “a bit about how we applied it to our real dev process.”

Before that, the night will open with the first look at the upcoming SoundSelf, a game that “combines your own voice with evolving fractal graphics and mind-altering auditory feedback” being created by local sound designer Robin Arnott, with live musical accompaniment by Austin electronic guitarist Michael Garfield.

Following the presentations, the night will conclude with more music by JUEGOS RANCHEROS’ own resident Cosmic DJ, and more! Everything will be kicking off Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702! The show is free and open to all the public — come drink, dance, and meet the people changing the way you think about videogames!

Presented below is the latest in our regular series of indie games both local and global worth paying attention to, fully annotated & linked up for your pleasure — now regularly cross-posted to the newly launched Venus Patrol!

(more…)

Want to get the first look at some of the best independent games of 2013? Then join us Thursday, February 7th, at 7:00PM at the North Door as JUEGOS RANCHEROS brings five games nominated for top awards at this year’s Independent Games Festival.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

In addition to the recently released and soul-achingly gorgeous Kentucky Route Zero, from Cardboard Computer, and Droqen’s beautifully abstract Starseed Pilgrim (previewed at bottom), JUEGOS RANCHEROS will also be presenting three more still-unreleased games heading to the Independent Games Festival ceremony in March.

This will include Teknopants’ brilliant & brutal bushido deathmatch game Samurai Gunn, which already made a strong, surprise debut at this year’s Fantastic Arcade…

…Asteroid Base’s neon-lit co-op space shooter Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime…

… and Super Space _______, the co-op arcade shooter about “competition, cooperation, communication and the democracy of physics” from David Scamehorn and Alexander Baard.

Everything will be kicking off Thursday, February 7th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702! The show is free and open to all the public — come drink, dance, and meet the people changing the way you think about videogames!