In our continued effort to do a better job documenting our regular monthly meetups, above you’ll find the team at White Whale Games — from L to R: Adrian Lopez-Mobilia, Jason Rosenstock, Jo Lammert & George Royer (seated in front) — introducing themselves and their debut game, GOD OF BLADES.

Like our similar self-intro video for PARTY TIME! HEXCELLENT, it’s a bit quiet and a bit jittery, but turn it up & stick with it for a look at the amazing art, concepts and thoughts behind the new mode of the game they revealed for the first time, SLAYERS (more on that here). For more on White Whale & GOD OF BLADES, visit their website here!

Two updates to our announcement of this coming Sunday’s GOD OF BLADES edition meetup: the first, above, is the amazing alternate poster created by our own Dale Austin. We’re incredibly happy with how both turned out, as usual.

More directly, though, yesterday I mentioned that our playable tournament would revolve around GOD OF BLADES co-op mode, but things have changed overnight. Instead, what we’ll be showing is a brand new, previously unseen mode, henceforth to be known as SLAYERS.

Here’s White Whale‘s George Royer to explain what SLAYERS mode is, and why you should be excited for it:

One night the ghost of Robert E. Howard, Football, and Bushido Blade all got really drunk and went home together. Nine months later, SLAYERS was born.

In the SLAYERS feature of God of Blades (PC and Mac versions), two players take on the roles of the enemies from the main campaign mode, to duel one another on a desolate bridge for the favor of their blasphemous gods. The match begins with each player selecting their champion. In addition to the champion, each player begins with a bank of 25 foot-soldiers, and every time one of these soldiers is cut down, another rushes to join the fray.

Champions are far stronger than foot-soldiers and enter the struggle when a player’s reinforcements are depleted or when one player successfully battles their way to their opponents end of the bridge. Players gain ground by defeating their opponents without losing their soldier. Victory is achieved when one player bests the other’s champion.

Matches of SLAYERS are fast, brutal, and gorgeous.

As a reminder, this meeting of the JUEGOS RANCHEROS will take place Sunday, July 1st, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704 — hope to see you there!

Where has the love for pulp paperback fantasy gone? It’s gone directly into GOD OF BLADES, as you will soon see this Sunday, July 1st, at 4PM, as we present the swordfighting epic debut from local indie upstart White Whale Games at our thirteenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball.

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

White Whale ultra-succinctly describe the game as “a love-song to pulp fantasy tales of yore, 70s synth-prog-landscape oddities, and forgotten places”, and we’ll add more pointedly that it’s one of the most satisfying real-physics swordfighters you’ve played in ages — a 2D sidescroller that truly understands weight and rhythm.

White Whale will be on hand at the Highball to explain in greater detail how to make a game which distills swordplay and action to its core also touch more deeply on aspects of “memory, culture, and loss in terms of stories, books, and the communities that love them.”

They’ll also be premiering a new co-op survival mode of the game with a chance for you to win prizes like T-shirts and limited prints of the amazing custom pulp book covers they’ve created for the game, as above (see more of those in their gallery here!).

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, July 1st, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come early to get a head-start on learning the game’s rhythms, 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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Hey all, some short-notice awesome news: this Saturday, June 16th, from 8pm-9pm, JUEGOS RANCHEROS and Church of the Friendly Ghost are teaming up for a game night featuring everyone’s favorite baroque slow-motion dueling game: JOHANN SEBASTIAN JOUST! Best of all: the event is free!

The hour-long JOUST-a-thon will take place at the Beauty Ballroom from 8-9pm, as part of the Dance Party portion of Friendly Ghost’s 2012 New Media Art and Sound Summit, which will also feature music by Flying Turns, Hieroglyphic Being and Woolfy, performance art by Quick Draw Photobooth, and visuals by Stephen Hal Fishman and JUEGOS’s own Party Time! Hexcellent!

Following JOUST, from 9-10pm, JUEGOS will also be showing HEXAGON, the brilliant “27th century space-disco teen-laser-punk arcade hit” (that’s how I describe it, anyway) by Terry Cavanagh, creator of indie favorite VVVVVV. HEXAGON’s easily one of the most instantly addictive and infinitely replayable games I’ve put my hands on this year — get warmed up and ready to show us your skills on Saturday by playing it online here! There’s even a chance we’ll be bringing along a version no one’s played before…

Looking forward to seeing you Saturday, June 16th, from 8-10pm at the Beauty Ballroom, located at 2015 E. Riverside Dr! Remember: while the Dance Party itself is normally $10 at the door, if you come for JOUST & HEXAGON at 8pm, you can stay all night for free!

As excited as we are for this weekend’s meeting of the JUEGOS RANCHEROS featuring all of the games of NYU Game Center’s NO QUARTER exhibition? Help us spread the word!

Our dedicated flyer-maker extraordinaire Dale Austin has prepared two PDFs of the poster above and its alternate (seen on the last post) for you to distribute however you’d like: print, hand out, email, or hang around Austin at all the places where the cool kids hang out so they know about the show! Download a ZIP of both PDFs by clicking this link here!

Also: since our time will be necessarily sort of limited on Sunday, we’ve got two more PDFs that will let you get an early look at the rules behind Zach Gage’s post-apocalyptic eating-contest card-game, GUTS OF GLORY (download PDF here), and Margaret Robertson’s labyrinth creator DRUNK DUNGEON (download pdf here).

Feel free to show up to the Highball a bit before 4PM on Sunday, if you’d like to get a head-start: we’ll all be there helping to get new players acclimated! See you then!