Step right up! This year’s Fantastic Arcade Gamemaking Frenzy has officially begun! From now until Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST we are calling on developers from around the world to participate in our two-week game jam, Phony Island!

We are inviting you to create your best 2-player microgames in the style of alllllmost copyright-infringing carnival games, that juuuust manage to stay on the right side of the law (above photo credit).

TO ENTER THE JAM:

– Your game must be a head-to-head simultaneous two-player game. Your game must run on Windows (sorry!) and use WASD + SPACE for player one and ARROW-KEYS + ENTER for player two as input in order to be considered for inclusion in the Phony Island “cabinet.”

– It must have a short duration, 30 seconds or less, resulting in a WIN or LOSE for each player. (We’ll be keeping score offstage.).

– After the match is over the game must QUIT AUTOMATICALLY.

– Your jam must reference this year’s secret ingredient.

THIS YEAR’S SECRET INGREDIENT IS:

🎟🎟🎟​🎟​🎟🎟​🎟🎟​THE TICKET🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟🎟

Before ending your game, please award the winning player with an arbitrary number of tickets, which we will tally during our playthrough on November 19th. The player with the most amount of tickets will redeem them for a fabulous prize!

All of the submitted games will be compiled into a custom launcher and run as part of a live game-show-like event on the final night of this year’s Fantastic Arcade, at the festival’s new home: Alamo Drafthouse’s boardwalk carnival-esque bar, the Barrel O Fun.

From now until Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST you can submit your game at itch.io’s #phonyisland jam site. We look forward to seeing your game!

Following our announcement of brand new games from the artists behind Panoramical, Beglitched, Fjords and Strawberry Cubes making their debut at Fantastic Arcade, we have just announced more than 20 additional games rounding out this year’s showcase lineup.

The games join the 10 previously-announced Spotlight games coming to Austin, TX’s Alamo Drafthouse Mueller this November 17-19th, and were chosen by JUEGOS RANCHEROS from the hundreds of games submitted from developers around the world.

This year’s showcase games will include long-anticipated breakouts like Capy’s dungeon crawler Below (above), the Junji Ito-inspired point and click adventure World of Horror (pictured at top) and Wilmot’s Warehouse, the latest game from the creators of Hohokum and last year’s Audience Choice award winner, Loot Rascals. All of the 20+ showcase games coming to this year’s festival are listed in full below the fold.

In addition to the new games, we are also announcing the theme for this year’s Fantastic Arcade Gamemaking Frenzy. Games submitted during the two-week game jam will be exhibited at Fantastic Arcade’s game-show-like live finale, Starcade.

This year’s theme is Phony Island, in homage to Fantastic Arcade’s new home — Alamo Drafthouse’s boardwalk carnival-esque bar, the Barrel O Fun. The jam will be open to developers from around the world to submit their best 2-player microgame in the style of an almost-but-just-this-side-of-not-copyright-infringing carnival games (above photo credit).

The two-week game jam will kick off Monday, October 30th at itch.io’s #phonyisland jam site, with a submission deadline of Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST.

In the coming weeks, Fantastic Arcade will also be announcing its full lineup of its special nightly tournaments — an annual fan-favorite tradition — exposition plays, panel discussions, developer talks, and much more.

Tickets for Fantastic Arcade are available now at its website. Now a fully independent festival, Juegos Rancheros would like to remind all attendees, developers and staff that the event is covered by our Safe Spaces Policy, which can be reviewed in its entirety at the Fantastic Arcade website.

This year’s Showcase games will be created by:

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The time has finally come! We’ve just started to announce our plans for this year’s Fantastic Arcade — our first year independently curating, organizing and operating the festival as JUEGOS RANCHEROS, hosted by the Alamo Drafthouse at their newest Mueller theater this November 17-19th (full, three-day passes are available now).

Most excitingly, as we did last year, JUEGOS RANCHEROS has commissioned six games from some of our favorite developers to premiere at the festival in custom mini cabinets, all of which will be simultaneously released worldwide via a bundle on itch.io.

This year’s cabinets will include new games from: Jenny Jiao Hsia, the NYC-based artist behind games like Beglitched and Stellar Smooch, as well as Loren Schmidt, creator of Strawberry Cubes, Realistic Kissing Simulator and the IGF-nominated Star Guard.

We’ll also have a new game from Conor Mccann, the Texas-based artist best known for his Mystic Western Game Jam game Black Gold, and Fernando Ramallo, creator of the Fantastic Arcade favorite interactive music/landscape app Panoramical.

Finally, we’ll have games from Kyle Reimergartin, another Fantastic Arcade mainstay dev behind our long-time favorite Fjords, and Brandon Williamson, known best for Forget-Me-Not, a would-have-been 1980s classic arcade hit, had it not been created just a few short years ago.

Below the fold is the first press release for the upcoming 2017 Arcade with more information on our arcade cabinets and the first ten games we’ve chosen as our Spotlight selections, alongside links, images and videos for all the games detailed below. All of us here are looking forward to seeing you all at this year’s Arcade!

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Want to get the first look at an amazing new game from QWOP and GIRP creator Bennett Foddy? Then be sure to join us Thursday, October 5th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy.

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

Foddy’s games are renowned for being equal parts both brutally punishing and brutally hilarious, and Getting Over It is no different. A fantastically self-aware homage to Sexy Hiking — an infamous (and similarly infamously difficult) indie game from the early 2000s — the game tests players ability to traverse a mountain using only the swing of a hammer.

Coming to Humble Monthly on Friday, October 6th (and with a full Steam release in early December), we’ll be giving Austin players their first hands on with Getting Over It, as well as a selection of other classics from Bennett’s back catalog.

Foddy promises “great mysteries and a wonderful reward” to “the master hikers who reach the top of the mountain”. Will we witness an entire run over the course of the night? Why is the man in a pot? These answers may well be answered in just a few days’ time.

You can play Getting Over It Thursday, October 5th, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. 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!

Ready for another look at amazing games from here in Austin and around the world? Then be sure to join us Thursday, September 7th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents another mixtape of fantastic independent games.

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

We’ll be bringing another selection of fantastic new and just-released single and multiplayer games, including a special look at Yo! Noid 2, a perfectly-imagined PlayStation/Nintendo 64-era licensed platformer that never actually was.

Created by an indie team for a recent game jam organized by fans of the videogame site Waypoint, Yo! Noid 2 is an unofficial “sequel” to the NES game released by Capcom in 1990, starring Domino’s Pizza’s almost-forgotten original mascot.

Though every bit as tongue in cheek as, say, the unlicensed output of groups like Arcane Kids, Noid 2 is also an honestly great platformer — one that leads you though pizza-box wormholes into the Noid Void and beyond (which you can get a brief taste of below, courtesy Extra Life).

We’ll have that and other fun surprises Thursday, September 7th, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. 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!

Hey developers! This is your annual warning that submissions for Fantastic Arcade 2017 will be closing in just under two short weeks. If you would like your game to be considered for the festival, please click here to submit it before August 13th, at 11:59 PM Central Time.

We’ve added a countdown timer on our main page so you can keep track of when that is for you, but please don’t wait until the last minute and risk missing the deadline!

[ CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR GAME! ]

The 2017 edition of Fantastic Arcade will be taking place at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Mueller, the newest and swankiest of the theaters, from November 17th through the 19th. 3-day passes for the festival itself are available now, which includes a downloadable bundle of games premiering at the show!

You can read about all the changes to this year’s festival right over here.

After the August 13th deadline, the JUEGOS RANCHEROS board will begin the selection process to determine which games from among your submissions will be showcased during Fantastic Arcade. All of the games selected will be accessible to both festival attendees and the general public, for free, in a casual atmosphere of camaraderie and love for games.

We look forward to playing all of your submissions, and especially to seeing you all in November for this year’s Arcade!