What do you get when you mix one part METROID, one part 1970’s-era sci-fi film, and one part… gardening?! Find out this Sunday, September 4th, at 4PM, at our fifth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at the Highball, as Austin-local indie studio Tiger Style give us the first in-progress look at their much-anticipated new game, LOST MARS.

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

It’s been just over two years since the release of SPIDER: THE SECRET OF BRYCE MANOR, Tiger Style’s multiple award-winning debut iPhone adventure. At the time, they were a fresh-faced upstart with pedigree that included some of gaming’s most revered franchises like THIEF and SPLINTER CELL, and even did time on Steven Spielberg’s ill-fated secret project “LMNO”.

That game provided an experience much richer and more deep than nearly anything available on the App Store at the time, and showed, early on, not only that the iPhone stood a strong chance of being a true contender in the gaming space, but that Tiger Style itself was a studio worth watching closely.

Tiger Style hasn’t let much slip over those years about what they’ve been cooking up, outside of bits and pieces scattered around designer Randy Smith’s regular column for UK games magazine Edge, but the studio promises a full presentation on the new game, which sees the player “trapped in exotic and dangerous caverns, researching, reviving and cultivating ancient life to uncover the lost mysteries of a forgotten planet.”

Following the presentation, attendees will be the first people anywhere to play the game for themselves and delve deeper into its uniquely atmospheric and moody take on sci-fi action-gardening (!). From what little I’ve been able to play, it’s shaping up to be every bit as smart and engaging as SPIDER was, if not more. You’re not going to want to miss this one!

[You can see a whole slew of first screenshots of LOST MARS over at Tiger Style’s new blog!]

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, September 4th, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

[*PS: Hey everyone! As usual, bring your 3DS again! We’re doing awesome with these StreetPasses!]

Did the home console kill off the arcade? Is the idea of gathering in a public space to play games together an outmoded concept of the early 80s? This Sunday, August 7th, at 4PM, our fourth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball will prove those ideas wrong and be the launching point for the TEXATRON initiative to bring independent game arcade machines to Austin.

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

What began in Toronto with the Torontron soon spread across the Great White North to Winnipeg with the Winnitron, an arcade cabinet built from the ground-up to bring independent games both local and global to the rest of the world, with Winnitron machines soon popping up in such far flung locations as the Netherlands, New Zealand, New York and Australia.

In attendance this Sunday — all the way from Winnipeg — will be Alec Holowka of Infinite Ammo, developer of indie hits like AQUARIA, PAPER MOON and the upcoming MARIAN, and co-founder of the Winnitron project, to tell us more about what the Winnitron is, how it works, and how it’s changing the way we experience indie games across the world.

Following that, we’ll be giving Austin its first chance to play the Winnitron’s selection of games, including cult successes like Messhof’s brilliant swordfighter NIDHOGG and special exclusive two-player versions of games like Vlambeer’s SUPER CRATE BOX and our own Adam Saltsman’s CANABALT.

But more importantly, we’ll be talking more about our long-time goals to bring the Winnitron to Austin as the TEXATRON — a series of arcade cabinets set up around our own fair city showcasing the best indie games from around town and around the world.

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, August 7th, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games (and cartoons)!

[*PS: Hey everyone! As usual, bring your 3DS again! We’re doing awesome with these StreetPasses!]

What time is it? JUEGOS RANCHEROS TIME. This Sunday, July 3rd, at 4PM, we’ll be kicking off the third edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, in partnership with Fantastic Arcade! In a super special guest-star edition, this time around, we’ll be live-chatting with none other than Pendleton Ward, creator of Cartoon Network’s super amazing original series ADVENTURE TIME, and representatives from Toronto indies Superbrothers and Capy, creators of the brilliant hit iOS adventure game SWORD & SWORCERY EP, all at THE SAME TIME.

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

If you follow the intersection between games, art & animation, there’s very little chance you haven’t already been acquainted with Adventure Time, but if you haven’t, all it takes is basically one sitting to realize that the show was created and written by a lifelong and super enthusiastic videogame lovers. Magic +1 rings, perilous labyrinths & miniboss battles and a full-on episode where stars Finn & Jake are pulled directly into a videogame on their BMO console (artwork by that episode’s animator, Ke Jiang, below!), the series is drenched in the culture we’ve collectively grown up in.

In a special three-way live-chat, creator Ward will be joined by the team behind recent iPhone & iPad cult success SWORD & SWORCERY EP — the adventure game from Toronto tri-force Superbrothers, Capy and musician Jim Guthrie — and linked up to us back here at the Highball for a talk on how the art, animation and videogame worlds inspire and feed off each other, now more than ever.

JUEGOS RANCHEROS’s own Adam Saltsman, local hero & creator of CANABALT and the Flixel game creation library, will be hosting the live chat, and all Austin attendees will have a chance to pick the brains of both Ward and the SWORCERY team.

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, July 3rd, promptly at 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games (and cartoons)!

[*PS: Hey everyone! As usual, bring your 3DS again! We’re doing awesome with these StreetPasses!]

Here we go again: this Sunday, June 5th, at 4PM, we’ll be kicking off the second edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, in partnership with Fantastic Arcade! This time around, we’ll be getting a closer look at THUNDERBEAM, the psychedelic, open-ended iPad adventure game coming soon from brand new Austin indie studio Karakasa Games.

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

For a debut game, THUNDERBEAM comes with a lot of pedigree: it’s directed and designed by Wiley Wiggins (who you may recall from his starring roles in DAZED AND CONFUSED & WAKING LIFE), is being animated using the same rotoscoping technology behind both WAKING LIFE & A SCANNER DARKLY (from Flat Black Films), and will feature sound design and an original soundtrack by THE OCTOPUS PROJECT.

Inspired as much by classic games like ANOTHER WORLD, PRINCE OF PERSIA, MANIAC MANSION & EARTHBOUND as it is by 70’s science fiction, Karakasa promises THUNDERBEAM will be a game that “eliminates busywork, rewards ingenuity, maximizes randomness and emergent play” in “a grown-up world where death is an immediate, irreversible and oddly-funny reality.”

Wiggins, Flat Black founder Bob Sabiston & The Octopus Project will all be attending to present the art, sounds, technology and ideas behind the game from 4PM, and all will be on-hand to sign limited edition THUNDERBEAM posters!

And that’s not all! Following the THUNDERBEAM presentation, JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be featuring the worldwide debut of a PlayStation Move-enhanced version of JOHANN SEBASTIAN JOUST, a new game imported direct from Denmark devs COPENHAGEN GAME COLLECTIVE — the same team behind the Independent Games Festival finalist B.U.T.T.O.N.

JOUST just might be the most unexpectedly theatrical & amazing videogame you’ll play in 2011: a three-player game where your only goal is to be the last person standing in a dramatic round of baroque slow-motion dueling. Each player holds a PS Move controller and tries to keep it as still as possible, as you and your opponents try to sneakily tip each others’ controllers to count them out of the round, everything paced by a Bach piece that’s constantly shifting its tempo.

It’s a game better experienced than it is described (see: the video above), and was the surprise underground hit of the recent Nordic Game Conference & Arcade Boat 2011 party (which you can see beautiful footage of here). Trust us: you’re going to love it.

Everything will be kicking off Sunday, June 5th, 4PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and say hello to the people changing the way you think about games!

[*PS: Hey everyone! Bring your 3DS again! We all still need more StreetPasses!]

And so here’s the real reason JUEGOS RANCHEROS is coming together now: several weeks back we were approached by none less than the Alamo Drafthouse (aka basically the best movie theater in the entire world) to host a new monthly event at their spin-off lounge The Highball. The event would be a year-round continuation of Fantastic Arcade — the games festival they debuted last year alongside their renowned Fantastic Fest film festival. Obviously we agreed, and so, we kick this whole thing off at The Highball this Sunday, May 1st, from 4-6:30pm.

For our first event, we’ll be bringing in Twisted Pixel’s upcoming Xbox 360/Kinect game THE GUNSTRINGER. If you haven’t yet seen it, GUNSTRINGER is an un-dead, old-west puppet-theater shooter (a combination of words which should be enough to get you excited), and is not just Austin-grown, but Austin-proud. Apart from that reference to Torchy’s Tacos you weren’t sure if you just correctly heard, Twisted Pixel have also — in a brilliant fourth-wall-shattering self-referential twist — put Austinite fans in the game as the audience that watches and reacts to your puppet performance. You’ll get to see that in action this Sunday: the first public playable demo of the game since March.

Aside from GUNSTRINGER, we’ll also have a lot of other local game developers & demos on hand, not least Bob Sabiston of Flat Black Films — creator of the animation software that powered both WAKING LIFE & A SCANNER DARKLY — showing off his just-released downloadable Nintendo DS animation software package INCHWORM, and there just might be some unreleased, upcoming Nintendo 3DS* games making the rounds as well…?

So let’s see how this all goes down: Sunday, May 1st, 4-6:30PM at The Highball, 1142 S Lamar Blvd, Austin, TX 78704! Come hang out, enjoy the Highball’s Happy Hour drink specials, and celebrate the people taking games in directions you never thought possible. On Facebook? RSVP by clicking here (and invite your friends!) so we can get an idea of how many people to expect!

[*PS: if you’ve already got a 3DS: bring it! We’re all more or less starved for some StreetPasses!]