Ready to kick off the new year with some of our ultra-recent favorites & first looks at this year’s upcoming games? Then be sure to join us Thursday, January 5th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a grab bag of goodies for 2017.

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

We’ll be bringing a selection of just-released multi- and single-player games from the past week & the upcoming months for you to play as we ring in a new, action-packed calendar year for JUEGOS RANCHEROS.

Want to know exactly what we’ve got in store? You’ll have to come out and see! Fun surprises abound.

The games will begin Thursday, January 5th, 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!

Want to wind down the year with one of our favorite multiplayer games of 2016? Then be sure to join us Thursday, December 1st, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a multiplayer monthly, headlined by Multibowl.

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

First presented back at our monthly meetup in September, and then again with a headline tournament at Fantastic Arcade, Multibowl quickly became one of this year’s most popular JUEGOS RANCHEROS mainstays, and (as you can witness for yourself in the video below) with very good reason!

Multibowl — if you haven’t yet been introduced — gives two players a fast-paced series of tiny fragments of emulated games collected from the past 30+ years, and keeps a running meta-tally of each player’s success.

The compilation was co-created by Bennett Foddy (creator of QWOP, GIRP & one of the leads behind Sportsfriends) and A.P. Thomson (himself co-creator of the recently released local favorite, Beglitched).

Because it can currently only be played at exhibitions and events, we wanted to give Austin one more chance to spend some time with a brand new version of one of our 2016 favorites — complete with new, never-before-multibowl’d games that weren’t part of any previous showcase!

The games will begin Thursday, December 1st, 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!

Want to try some of the best new local-multiplayer games designed entirely around public play? Then be sure to join us Thursday, November 3rd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents the local debut of the games of NYU Game Center’s Seventh Annual No Quarter Exhibition.

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

Even if you haven’t heard of No Quarter before, you’ve almost definitely heard of some of the games that were commissioned for the exhibition.

Messhof’s Nidhogg, Ramiro Corbetta’s Hokra (now part of Die Gute Fabrik’s Sportsfriends), Bennett Foddy’s Speed Chess and Nikita Mikros & Joshua DeBonis’s Killer Queen are just a few of the games that have been developed for the annual show and have gone on to renown elsewhere, including several exhibited here at previous JUEGOS RANCHEROS meetups.

Robert Yang, No Quarter curator & himself a local favorite developer, describes the tone of the show and the games it exhibits simply as “games for the public”, where “a public game treats play as a freely available public good that everyone deserves, like air and water,” and creates an atmosphere where players “feel included, and train players to care about each other.”

In light of that, this year he’s commissioned four such games from four fantastic developers: Blendo Games‘ Brendon Chung, creator of games including Thirty Flights of Loving, Gravity Bone and Quadrilateral Cowboy, product designer & game maker Catt Small, Matheson Marcault‘s Holly Gramazio, a renowned designer of games for events, parks, museums and public spaces, and Stephen Lawrence Clark, whose Rooftop Cop was selected for two IGF Nominations.

Because the actual exhibition has yet to begin and the games themselves have yet to be publicly revealed, we can’t yet describe exactly what you’ll be playing at the show, so suffice it to say that we’ll be bringing a selection of these games to the North Door for their first exhibition outside No Quarter itself.

We’ll update this post (and its accompanying Facebook event) with more details of the games as they are revealed, but otherwise, we’ll have them waiting for you Thursday, November 3rd, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702. 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!

[No Quarter poster illustration at top by Arlin Ortiz!!]

You’re invited to join us this Friday at 7:00 PM at the Museum of Human Achievement for the unofficial Fantastic Arcade afterparty, as we celebrate the work of arcade of anything Fall 2016 resident artist Robby Kraft.

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

Robby Kraft (NYC) is perhaps best known for his work in origami. His breathtaking and organic forms, created from the careful folding of paper, have been exhibited internationally.

During his monthlong arcade of anything residency, Kraft has applied his interests in geometry, scale, and play to the world of virtual reality. Shifting Sand Lands is an experimental sandbox rendered simultaneously in virtual and physical worlds. In advance of the opening, you can keep tabs on the development of Shifting Sand Lands on Kraft’s arcade of anything devlog.

For opening night, Kraft will be joined by Nathan Ober and his work The Observer or the Observed?, a sound installation inspired by astrophysics, microtonal sound, and Buddhist thought. We’ll also have refreshments, our world-famous Fantastic Arcade cabinets set up for free play, and a special musical guest that you won’t want to miss.

The arcade of anything event kicks off at 7:00 PM at the Museum of Human Achievement in Austin, TX. Admission is free, but donations–which help fund this and other JUEGOS RANCHEROS programming–are warmly accepted.

[Created in partnership with the Museum of Human Achievement, the arcade of anything artist residency encourages its participants to push into experimental and unexplored territory within digital arts. More information on our residency program can be found here.]

Want to get a rapid-fire, head-to-head, competitive trip back through all of videogame history? Then be sure to join us Thursday, September 1st, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a sneak-peek at Multibowl, a brand new multiplayer mashup of hundreds of vintage games.

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

Co-created by Bennett Foddy (creator of QWOP, GIRP & one of the leads behind Sportsfriends) and Alec Thomson (himself co-creator of last year’s Fantastic Arcade favorite, Beglitched), Multibowl gives two players a fast-paced series of tiny fragments of emulated games collected from the past 30+ years, and keeps a running meta-tally of each player’s success.

The Multibowl winner is the one who can adapt to each fragment as it’s tossed their way, be it a classic fighting game, a cult-classic arcade puzzler, or straight up just 15 seconds of the actual Super Nintendo version of Mario Kart.

Ahead of Multibowl‘s official festival debut at Portland’s XOXO Festival, and its subsequent official tournament appearance at this year’s Fantastic Arcade, JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be presenting the game as a special sneak-peek warm-up for tournament hopefuls, alongside a few other Fantastic Arcade preview selections.

Multibowl and more will be playable September 1st, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702. 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!

Want to get the first, best look at what’s happening in indie games around Japan? Then be sure to join us Thursday, August 4th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a free, all-ages screening of Branching Paths, the just-released documentary about the burgeoning games community rising up in Tokyo and Kyoto.

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

The documentary was directed by Anne Ferrero, a Paris transplant who is also behind Toco Toco TV, a YouTube/broadcast show that serves as a fascinating deep dive into the broader Tokyo creative community (games fans will want to be sure to watch her recent episode with Deadly Premonition & D4 creator Swery 65, one of Japan’s top cult/auteur game directors).

For Branching Paths, she’s taken all of that curiosity and eye for beautiful filmwork and cast her lens on the two-year rise of indie game dev in Japan from 2013-2015.

Featured developers include a number of familiar faces, most notably Ojiro ‘Moppin‘ Fumoto (as well as occasional creative partner & incredible artist Momo ‘nemk‘ Murakami), whose work on Downwell is perfectly encapsulated in that timeline from his first prototypes to the release of the game and its nomination in the Independent Games Festival.

You’ll also see: PixelJunk Eden creator Baiyon (another familiar face to long-time Fantastic Arcade-goers), Castlevania: Symphony of the Night creator gone-indie IGA, and Mega Man creator Keiji Inafune, as well as a number of Western developers who have settled in Japan, like 17-Bit‘s Jake Kazdal, Oquonie developers Devine Lu Linvega & Rekka Bellum, Pico-8 creator Joseph White, and Papers, Please creator Lucas Pope.

[ CAN’T MAKE IT TO THE SHOW? GET IT ON STEAM NOW, ALONGSIDE A LAUNCH SALE ON MANY GAMES FEATURED IN THE FILM! ]

Of special interest to JUEGOS RANCHEROS regulars is the documentary’s focus on founding and flourishing of local communities of game developers that provide the lifeline and constant source of inspiration for fellow developers still not entirely convinced it’s possible to make it as an indie.

We’ll start the film at 7:45pm after a short introduction, so be sure to arrive on time, August 4th, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702 to get a prime seat. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink and get a fascinating look at the folks abroad changing the way we think about games!