For a name that I did not at all intend to actually catch on, it seems it’s not only just here to stay, but winning Major Awards: our own Austin Chronicle has just given JUEGOS RANCHEROS its prestigious & highly coveted ‘Best Video-Game Collective Name’ award in its annual Best of Austin issue!

Says the Chronicle:

Oh yeah, the group itself is pretty cool, too. Founded by the poster boys of the local indie gaming scene, Brandon Boyer, Adam Saltsman, and Wiley Wiggins, the group has monthly open meetings at the HighBall bringing game developers from Austin and elsewhere around the globe to share their visions and expertise. Don’t expect a tech-laden wonkfest though; Juegos welcomes and accommodates anyone and everyone who wants to see (and often play) the cutting edge of interactive arts. The schmoozing is top-notch, but, more importantly, the gabbing and flesh-pressing is getting results such as the under-construction Texatron indie video-gaming cabinet. Expect that chunk of solid awesome to be staring back at Austin very soon.

You’ve got until Thursday to get the issue itself, if you’d like to clip the article (page 46) & send it to your mom to have her hang it from the fridge. Thanks to the Chronicle for putting us in such amazing company!

JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be returning to the Highball after a post-Fantastic-Arcade hiatus Sunday, November 6th at 4:30pm. Mark your calendars now!

Hey everybody — finally it can be told! Our friends over at Alamo Drafthouse have just announced the full lineup for this year’s Fantastic Arcade — the sister games festival presented as part of their yearly week-long genre film blowout Fantastic Fest. And it’s in just two weeks! And it’s free and open to the general public, every day!

Not only are there going to be a ton of good games on display at the Highball — there are going to be a ton of good indies in town hanging out, showing stuff off and in general carousing pretty heavily from Thursday, September 22nd through Sunday, September 25th!

Block those days off on your calendar now, and come spend the whole weekend at the Highball — events open a bit after noon and continue on until well past midnight!

Below the fold is the full press Fantastic Fest press release, and I’ve added videos of each of the games that’ll be shown throughout the fest!

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Couldn’t make it to our last meeting of JUEGOS RANCHEROS, Austin’s independent game developer collective? Here’s what you’ve been waiting for: the full, hour-long recording of ADVENTURE TIME creator Pendleton Ward (@buenothebear) talking with Capy‘s Kris Piotrowski (@krispiotrowski) and Superbrothers‘ Craig Adams (@the1console) — two of the team behind the brilliant iOS adventure game SWORD & SWORCERY EP — about games, animation and all of the cross-over in between.

The chat is hosted and moderated by Austin’s own Adam ‘Atomic‘ Saltsman (@adamatomic), creator of CANABALT and the Flixel game-creation library, with a few additional questions & comments by yr humble blog post author, Brandon Boyer (@brandonnn).

Anyway, we hope you enjoy what will likely be just the first in a long series of chats by amazing artists and game creators — and hopefully by then we can work out a few of the video kinks and get you something a little more HD and a little less echo-y.

Spread the word (the Vimeo embed code can be found here), and subscribe to JUEGOS RANCHEROS updates either here or via Facebook and Twitter!

Attention indies both local and global: submissions have been opened for the 2011 Fantastic Arcade — taking place here in Austin, TX from September 22nd-29th — with an August 1st deadline already rapidly approaching.

Last year’s debut Fantastic Arcade, if you didn’t manage to make it, kicked things off in great form, bringing indies like Derek Yu, Cactus, Messhof, Jon Blow, Molleindustria and Superbrothers together for a week of panels, talks and general carousing.

Here’s how the festival — operated by Alamo Drafthouse, our local favorite theater organization & an instrumental part of getting JUEGOS RANCHEROS off the ground — describes itself:

Fantastic Arcade fuses the world of independent film and independent gaming. We bring together artists and professionals who are telling stories and creating experiences in film, games and online entertainment simultaneously. At Fantastic Arcade, we showcase a curated selection of brand new independent games as well as a larger sampling of important groundbreaking independent games from the last couple of years.

Attendees are invited to play the games as well as interact with the game developers via panels and nightly parties and happy hours. We also feature both panels with independent filmmakers side by side with game developers and intimate demo sessions by independent game developers. Lastly, we feel that video games rightfully belong side by side with shorts and feature films at Fantastic Fest. The artistic merit of these games will be honored with both audience awards and a juried competition.

Selected games will proceed to the second round of submissions and will be asked to provide a playable version of the game for Fantastic Arcade festival programmers. Official selections for the Arcade will be made based on each game’s art, story, characters, gameplay and, most importantly, connection with the character of Fantastic Fest.

Submit your game to be a part of this year’s festivities by clicking here!

Weren’t able to make it to the first meeting of the JUEGOS RANCHEROS? Destructoid editors Sean Carey & Allistair Pinsof have got you covered.

The two tag-teamed for both an extensive writeup & photo-set and the video above, where you can see both an interview with Twisted Pixel CEO Michael Wilford, and a joint session with Adam Saltsman and yrs truly, set in an amazing 80s graf/hip-hop decorated karaoke booth, where I apparently was going for the world record of most “likes” used over a five-minute period.

Belated thanks to the both of them for their support, and stay tuned for more details about our upcoming second meetup at the Highball!

It started with a tweet.

Or really, that’s obviously not totally true: the story of JUEGOS RANCHEROS starts years back, with the arrival of a handful of developers — Adam ‘Atomic’ Saltsman & Semi Secret Software, Twisted Pixel & Renegade Kid among them — to our own Austin, TX, who would meet on occasion to talk the life and business of being an independent game maker.

Over the following few years, these infrequent meetups would become more regular, and gather, Katamari-style, even more local like-minded individuals and indie startups: people from TigerStyle, Lightbox, Arkane, Armature, Smashing Studios & Dr. Fun Fun, Red Fly, CosMind (& Blue), GL33K, Karakasa, Flat Black.

At a certain point, it became clear that a solid group had formed beneath us, and so, like the Hand Eye Society, the Mount Royals and so many other game collectives before us, we decided to make it official, and stake our claim as an actual Austin Indie Collective. And so was born, with that misguided tweet, the JUEGOS RANCHEROS.

Over the coming weeks & months, we’ll be using this space as a platform for a number of initiatives: public events, game jams, and simply as a place to introduce ourselves and show the rest of the world what exactly is going on down here in Capital City. Beyond that, we hope to inspire Austin’s wider creative community get in touch, get involved, and collaborate with us on something amazing — if that sounds good to you too, start by saying hello here or on Twitter or on Facebook!