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!

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Want to play the next hit game by the designers that brought you super stylish successes CANABALT and SOLIPSKIER before anyone else? Then join us this Sunday, November 4th, at 4PM for our sixteenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, where we’ll be presenting the Texas premiere of HUNDREDS, the upcoming iPhone and iPad game from designers Greg Wohlwend (SOLIPSKIER, GASKETBALL), Austin’s own Semi Secret (WURDLE, CANABALT, GRAVITY HOOK) and ambient electronic musician Scott Morgan, aka Loscil.

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

Semi Secret describe the game as “an abstract, minimalist, arcade-puzzle game designed specifically for touch screens featuring 100 carefully crafted levels” which “teaches a variety of increasing complex gameplay ideas without tutorials, tells a strange story in an unconventional way, and allows players to play at their own pace, cooperatively or solitaire.”

I describe it as one of the best iPad games I’ve played in ages, which instantly ensnares you into its gorgeously & clinically austere universe — every single person I’ve seen that’s laid just a tentative finger on it has immediately fallen down its rabbit hole and not emerged for hours. Now it’s your chance to find out why!

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, November 4th, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come early to get a head-start on unravelling the mystery of HUNDREDS, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

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 a taste of the amazing lineup coming to Fantastic Arcade 2012 well ahead of the crowd? Join us this Sunday, September 2nd, at 4PM for our fifteenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, where we’ll be presenting three of Fantastic Arcade’s finest: SUPER TIME FORCE, SUPER HEXAGON & MCPIXEL.

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

Headlining the event will be SUPER TIME FORCE, the ultra-amazing time-bending future-shooter from #SWORCERY & CRITTER CRUNCH creators Capy, which I’ll let them explain here:

THE YEAR: 198X

LOCATION: OUTER-SPACE / 4TH DIMENSION AKA TIME

THE PROBLEM: EVERYTHING’S GONE TO SHIT!

THE MISSION: FIX IT!

Super TIME Force is a rip-roarin’, run ‘n gun action game with a time-traveling twist that creates opportunities for both strategy and mayhem, or, “strayhem”. With an ingenious “time-rewinding” mechanic, STF takes the action to intense new peaks by allowing players to team up with their own past replays of a level in an utterly unique single-player co-op experience that sees all of your past-lives fighting together at once. It’s fun to play with yourself! You command the elite, time-travelling soldiers of the STF in their mission to make the world a more awesome place by jumping through time and messing with the history books. At every event the STF endeavours to undo, the evil Blounbots appear and attack, seemingly trying to undo their undoing. Still with us? Good! Who commands these filthy space robots? What is their agenda? And why do they hate freedom so much? Tune in, er… Play the game to find out!

We’ll also be running the latest version of SUPER HEXAGON, the game we’ve previously described as a “27th century space-disco teen-laser-punk arcade hit”, created by Terry Cavanagh, best known for games like VVVVVV. This game’s been stealing our time like no other over the past couple months, in a neverending string of 15-20 seconds at a time.

And finally, we’ll be showing off MCPIXEL by Sos, one of the best slapstick-comedy games we’ve ever played, where you’re given 20 seconds to save the day in hundreds of precarious and stupid situations, and kicking the nearest person in the junk is always a legitimate & sometimes actually lucrative option.

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, September 2nd, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come early to get a head-start on your Fantastic Arcade 2012 experience, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

Want to know why we think SPELUNKY is very easily one of the greatest videogames ever made? Been playing for weeks and want to vent to creator Derek Yu about “the tunnel man”? You’ll be able to do both, this Sunday, August 5th, at 4PM, as we devote the entirety of our fourteenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball to Mossmouth‘s procedurally-generated platform adventure.

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

You may have already seen us gush about SPELUNKY in the last FISTFUL OF INDIES roundup, or played the freeware original (still available for PC & Mac), but the Xbox Live Arcade version of SPELUNKY released in early July was a true landmark achievement: an accessible but still immensely challenging platformer that re-arranges itself every time you play, fantastically full of layer upon layer of secrets.

Not only will we be bringing the single & multiplayer version of the new game, and also be setting up the 2008 original — to give a sense of how far it’s come — but creator Derek Yu will be joining us remotely from his SF studio for a live chat about the game, and taking your questions/complaints/curses for that time that fire frog landed in the shop and set everyone in the black market out for your blood.

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, August 5th, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come early to get a head-start on multiplayer domination, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

After another month’s break, and a little bit too much time since I showed these games live, 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.

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