JUEGOS RANCHEROS PRESENTS: SOUTH BY NO QUARTER 2013
Ready for another round of multiplayer games from some of the best independent developers in the world? Four new games will be making their Texas debut at Austin’s North Door next Thursday, June 6th, at 7:00PM, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents the second installment of South by No Quarter with Split Tree, Killer Queen, There Shall Be Lancing & Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess.
[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]
The No Quarter exhibition is a yearly event created and curated by NYU’s Game Center which commissions new multiplayer games from top indie talent, and responsible for bringing games like Messhof’s Nidhogg and Ramiro Corbetta’s Hokra — now part of Die Gute Fabrik’s Sportsfriends — into the world.
In 2012 we ran the first installment of South by No Quarter here in Austin, bringing Noah Sasso’s BaraBariBall — now also part of the Sportsfriends lineup — Zach Gage’s Guts of Glory (which went on to successfully fund its commercial release through Kickstarter), Margaret Robertson’s Drunk Dungeon, and TENNNES, from Vlambeer’s Jan Willem Nijman.
This year’s lineup will include Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess, the 16-player high-speed deathmatch chess game from the creator of QWOP, GIRP, CLOP & Poleriders…
… as well as Killer Queen, another massively multiplayer action game from Nikita Mikros & Joshua DeBonis, behind games like Propaganda Lander & Meriwether.
The latest from UK developer Sophie Houlden — the creator of games including Swift*Stitch & The Linear RPG — will also be making an appearance with aerial jouster There Shall Be Lancing…
… and finally, we’ll have the two-player/one-controller “simple, mellow social puzzle game” Split Tree, from Matt LoPresti, designer of iPhone puzzle game hit Async Corp.
Everything will be kicking off Thursday, June 6th, 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!
A FISTFUL OF INDIES: APRIL 2013
Every month, as part of the regular monthly meetings of JUEGOS RANCHEROS, we do a very casual & chatty rundown of the ten or so games from the previous month for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed. The featured games are both local and global, and both indie and, on occasion, a bit-bigger-budget — what binds them together is simply that they’re all amazing.
In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are presented here for your reference, each fully annotated & linked up for your pleasure.
JUEGOS RANCHEROS PRESENTS: LET’S MULTIPLAY! WITH NIDHOGG, TOWERFALL & MONACO
Multiplayer games have been undergoing a beautiful renaissance over the past couple years, and we’ll be bringing three of the best examples to Austin’s North Door next Thursday, May 2nd, at 7:00PM, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Monaco, Towerfall and a brand-new version of Nidhogg.
[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]
A long-standing staple of JUEGOS RANCHEROS events, we’ll be celebrating the debut of our first permanently-installed TEXATRON cabinet by bringing a brand-new version of Messhof’s brilliant lo-fi sword-fighter Nidhogg, complete with a visual overhaul, a fantastic new soundscape, and a stack of new moves that’ll make this round feel fresh, even if you’ve faced off against a local rival a thousand times before.
We’ll also be debuting Towerfall, the “retro archery platformer” by Canada’s own super prolific developer Matt Thorson, who you may recognize from his frequent contributions to Adult Swim, including Give Up Robot, Fat Wizard and, most recently, Planet Punch. Fans of Spelunky‘s deathmatch or Beau Blyth’s Samurai Gunn will feel right at home here.
And last, but certainly not least, we’ll be featuring Pocketwatch Games’ long-anticipated and just-released multiplayer heist game Monaco — winner of 2010’s IGF Grand Prize, and near-universally praised as a new gold standard in multiplayer games.
Everything will be kicking off Thursday, May 2nd, 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!
TEXATRON HAS ARRIVED: PLAY NIDHOGG FOR FREE AT GUZU GALLERY
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.
JUEGOS RANCHEROS PRESENTS: TWO NEW GAMES FROM KATAMARI CREATOR KEITA TAKAHASHI
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!
A FISTFUL OF INDIES: MARCH 2013
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!