It’s the final JUEGOS RANCHEROS meetup of 2017, but we’re finishing strong! Be sure to join us Thursday, December 7th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents new games from the creators of Towerfall and Starseed Pilgrim!
Due for release in January on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, XBox One, and Steam, Celeste is the latest game from Towerfall creator Matt Thorson, alongside Noel Berry, Amora Bettany, Pedro Medeiros, Lena Raine, and Power-Up Audio!
The team describe the game as a “hardcore mountain-climbing platformer”, which originally was developed over just 4 days for the low-bit “fantasy console”, Pico-8. You can try that version in your browser here, and you won’t believe how far it’s come since then!
In addition to that, we’ll also have the local debut of Inconsiderate Climbers, a 4-player cooperative/competitive game from Droqen, 1/4th of the indie-dev supergroup Gloam Collective, and creator of the hugely beloved puzzle platformer Starseed Pilgrim.
Created for the recent No Quarter exhibition at NYU’s Game Center, Inconsiderate Climbers starts from a traditional arcade/action foundation, but with one twist — when one player dies, they must pass their controller to a new player. Come see why it was a No Quarter favorite!
You can play both of these games and more Thursday, December 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!
Bring Fantastic Arcade home to you with six amazing and exclusive games, presented by Austin’s independent game collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS!
We brought together six of the most talented indie developers from around the world to create new games, all of which made their debut at our eighth-annual indie game festival, Fantastic Arcade, taking place in Austin, TX, November 17th through 19th, 2017.
Thanks to our distribution partner itch.io, all proceeds from the sale of this bundle benefit our non-profit organization. Help us showcase more amazing games both here in Austin and a city near you, and commission more fantastic developers to create new games like these!
Included in this bundle are all six games you see here! Here is what you’ll get:
PIPSQUEAK, by Jenny Jiao Hsia
Pipsqueak has only one purpose in life: to eat all the eggs he can find. Help Pipsqueak traverse through unseasoned terrain and vanquish any and all who get in his way. (Windows, Mac)
A collection of three projects, including one solo piece and two collaborations.
Panic Variants, by Loren Schmidt, begins as a short, branching arcade game, but opens up into something else as it is replayed and explored.
Pluinola, created with Tammy Duplantis, is an audiovisual instrument which uses cellular automata to drive sound generation.
Fossil Plant Slideshow, by KR Pipkin and Loren Schmidt (collectively, Withering Systems) is a diorama piece involving an interior design boutique. (Windows, Mac, Linux)
The base is breached! Navigate malfunctioning drones through the defense grid to discover the secrets of an invading anomaly. ROTOR is an abstract arcade game featuring an original soundtrack by Asthmatic Kitty recording artist Chris Schlarb. (Windows, Mac)
An endless stream of experiments from the GAME THAT NEVER WAS! Witness a shocking peek into the Artist’s mind as they delve deep into the AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM! (Windows, Mac)
Kyle Reimergartin is the developer behind our long-time favorite game Fjords, as well as a number of other tiny games and experiments available here on itch.io.
[NOTE: Though we refer to it simply as Banana Chalice, this bundle-exclusive version’s actual title is: Near My Sins // Awaken Thy Blood [newline] or, Never Feel Pain X274 Captured Beast Banana Chalice (_FROGDIRECTION360 rancheros dream SHAREWARE VISION) Everlastic Legacy of Jazz. -ed.]
FORGET-ME-NOT, by Brandon Williamson
Mazes and monsters and mushrooms and flowers and witches and potions and eyeballs and tombstones and turners and dashers and grinders and slimers, and bombs, and bombs, and bombs. Plagued with the curse of autofire, you roam the corridors of Forget-Me-Not forever, in search of a cure for your beloved… (Windows, Linux) (Mac version is forthcoming & will be available to all who purchased the bundle when it is available!)
Want to get the first look at the amazing games coming to this year’s Fantastic Arcade? Then be sure to join us Thursday, November 2nd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents an international handful of Spotlight and Showcase festival favorites!
We’ve just announced all 30+ games coming to this year’s Fantastic Arcade — both our 10 Spotlight games and more than 20 Showcase selections — and want to give you an early peek at some you still can’t play anywhere else!
Overpass is a rhythm adventure game celebrating form and space in motion. The player must move with the beat on a journey through 3D scapes in order to uncover the truth of the future.
You can play all of these games and more Thursday, November 2nd, 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!
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.
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.
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!
