JUEGOS RANCHEROS is excited to share HOT LOCAL FLAVORS, a collection of upcoming and recently released games created in and around our very own Austin, Texas. Join us this Thursday, August 2nd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door for a look at Red Star Azimuth, The Indie Game Legend 3D, Imperishable Memories, and more!

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We’re mesmerized by the visual landscape in Red Star Azimuth. Manuela Malasaña is creating a first person hacking puzzle game with am 80’s vaporwave aesthetic. Manuela has been posting some stunning images on her twitter feed. Come see why we’re hyped at getting a first look of the memory prism inside of “Vaporland”.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlGIQqdQepA

Continuing in first person perspectives, we’re excited to show Jeff Lindsay’s The Indie Game Legend 3D. A cult-classic dungeon shoot em ‘up created during the early days of the TIGSource forum is reimagined and expanded as a first-person shooter-vania. Come learn the history and explore the future of this underground labyrinth. Try to rescue captured indie game creators in this quirky underground adventure.

Previous Juegos Rancheros artist resident Jennifer Raye returns! We’re excited to show the near-final release of her Imperishable Memories. Journey through this narrative shoot ‘em up and explore unforgotten emotions and experiences. Can you grab a hold of the past…or perhaps enemies on your way?

All of these local developers will be here to show off their latest creations. Come say hi!

We’ll be showcasing all these games and more Thursday, August 2nd, at 7:00PM at 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!

Without further ado, we proudly introduce the newest additions to the Juegos Rancheros Board of Directors— Saam Pahlavan, Rusty Moyher, and Autumn Taylor. Here’s a little more information about each one of our new board members:

Saam Pahlavan is an award winning independent game maker and co-founder of the infamous Taco Illuminati based out of Austin, TX .

His passion for videogames extends into a long series of excellent game ideas , interviewing fellow developers, and being a local folk hero.

Rusty Moyher is the independent videogame creator who builds and publishes work under the moniker Wild Rooster.

With a passion for bringing people together, his projects often focus on local multiplayer experiences including his long-running Astro Duel series and the critically-acclaimed party game BLOOP  He also co-created, kickstarted and released the seven-part Retro Game Crunch collection and runs the nightly tournaments at Fantastic Arcade.

Autumn Rose Taylor is a community organizer and business/communications professional that lives and breathes virtual reality. 

In addition to her community efforts with JUEGOS RANCHEROS, Taylor co-organizes VR Austin, the annual VR Austin Jam, and focuses her community work on diversity and advocating for women/non-binary individuals in the video game and virtual reality industries at large. She is currently Studio Director at Owlchemy Labs. 

These good people applied to board membership during our recent call for new members. That application is now closed, but we are looking for help with committees working on Fantastic Arcade around the corner on October 25-28, as well as our local monthly events highlighting the best in indie games from around the world and in our own backyard. To find out more information about about getting involved in these committees, email juegosrancheros@gmail.com.

We are excited for the contributions of our new board members and future contributions of committee members to the Juegos Rancheros organization, the indie games community in Austin, and beyond.

Making inclusive spaces requires consistent, challenging work. We have taken a number to steps to help to make things right, including improving our Safe Spaces Policy, instituting an incident response team, and growing our Board of Directors to maintain fresh, diverse voices in leadership. We will provide more information about all of these steps in an upcoming blog post.

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

This unbelievably stylish and soulful game features the talents of Tearaway and LittleBigPlanet creators and is being published by the good folks at DoubleFine Presents. Come get a hands-on sneak preview of the game, alongside local indie games in development.

A short introduction begins 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!

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

Evan Narcisse writes about video games, comic books, movies and TV, often focusing on the intersection of blackness and pop culture. He is a senior staff writer at io9, having previously written for The Atlantic, Time Magazine, and Kotaku. He’s currently writing the Rise of the Black Panther miniseries for Marvel Comics. A native New Yorker, he now lives in Austin, Texas.

Evan’s selections for the night include Rez Infinite (the remaster and re-release of Tetsuya Mizuguchi’s seminal masterpiece Rez) as well as Mike Bithell’s BAFTA-winning Thomas Was Alone, a minimalist story-platformer about some boxes that live in a cave. We’ll also check out Freedom Cry (originally DLC for Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag) in which players inhabit an assassin in 18th Century Haiti, and Baiyon’s astonishing PixelJunk Eden, made in collaboration with Japan’s Q-Games (the influential predecessor to recent smartphone release Eden Obscura).

What do all these games have in common? Why are they so important to Evan Narcisse? If you want to see what it’s all about, be sure to join us Thursday, June 7th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702!

A short introduction begins 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!

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

Created by Adam LeDoux, Bitsy is a web-based tool for making little games and little worlds, where you explore and hang out and talk to people. Less really is more when it comes to Bitsy – a perfect example of the way constraints breed creativity.

Simple, accessible, and fun to use, Bitsy even has its own little art tools built in, as well as branching dialog controls, and the ability to move between rooms. It’s a bit like Hypercard for Gameboy, or if Zelda had a level editor (and no swords).

Our guest curator this month is Becklespinax, who has personally assembled a fascinating cross-section of this new scene. If you want to see what it’s all about, be sure to join us Thursday, May 3rd, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702!

A short introduction begins 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!