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!

Greetings from the West Texas high desert town of Marfa, where for the third year JUEGOS RANCHEROS has presented a selection of games at the Marfa Film Festival!

As you’ve probably seen by now, we brought out a number of games from our recent Mystic Western Game Jam (which saw nearly 50 games entered from developers all around the world), which we’ve installed here in the old Chamber of Commerce office suite at the historic Paisano Hotel.

The @JUEGOSRANCHEROS #mysticwestern arcade is open in Marfa, Texas, and it's beautiful.
💕💕💕💕 pic.twitter.com/xlSlZtcNiz

— cathode • rae (@partytimeHXLNT) July 14, 2016

We’ll be set up here through the end of the festival on Sunday, but if you weren’t able to make it out, we’ve got good news: we’ll be bringing our selections back home to Austin for a special exhibition in our indie arcade space, the Museum of Human Amusement, next Friday, July 22nd.

We’ll have all the game stations we brought out west available, alongside drinks and other music performances and projections starting at 8PM and going until everyone’s had their fill.

[Special thanks also to our new friends at Big Bend Brewing — our actual favorite West Texas beer — for providing the drinks for our Austin show!]

Below the fold, we’ve included the mini-poster we’ve papered Marfa with, which we’ll also have for sale at the event (special thanks to G.P. Lackey for his amazing poster art & animation at top), as well as a list of some of the Mystic Western Game Jam games we’re rotating through our multi-selector.

The Mystic Western exhibition will be held next Friday, July 22 at 8:00 PM, at Museum of Human Achievement, Austin, TX. The event is open to all ages, with donations warmly accepted.

(more…)

Over the past 14 days, some of our favorite developers and friends alike have risen to the challenge, and now the results are available: there are now 50 some odd games created for our Mystic Western Game Jam, ready for you to play.

There are plenty of familiar faces, old Fantastic Arcade featured developers, as well as more than a few amazing newcomers that have contributed, so clear away your weekend plans now and visit the Mystic Western page on itch.io to start perusing and downloading.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll be collecting our favorite games together & preparing to bring them out to the real-actual mystical West Texas desert for the Marfa Film Festival. There, they’ll be exhibited at the historic Hotel Paisano, located at 207 N Highland Street, right there in that last set of three windows on the far right of the circa-1930s postcard below.

After the Film Festival, they’ll also be part of our next exhibition at The Museum of Human Amusement here in Austin — we’ll have more details on that in the coming weeks.

Our biggest thanks to all of the developers who took part in the jam — we hope you had as much fun creating the games as we’ll have showing them to the wider world!

Hey developers! This is your annual warning that submissions for Fantastic Arcade 2016 will be closing in just two short weeks. If you would like your game to be considered for the festival, please click here to submit it before July 13th, at 11:59 PM Central Time.

We’ve added a countdown timer on our main page so you can keep track of when that is for you, but please don’t wait until the last minute and risk missing the deadline!

[ CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR GAME! ]

This year’s Fantastic Arcade will take place at Austin’s South Lamar Alamo Drafthouse & Highball lounge, from September 26th through the 29th, during the second week of the Fantastic Fest film festival.

After the July 13th deadline, the JUEGOS RANCHEROS board will begin the selection process to determine which games from among your submissions will be showcased during Fantastic Arcade. All of the games selected will be accessible to both festival attendees and the general public, for free, in a casual atmosphere of camaraderie and love for games.

We look forward to playing all of your submissions, and especially to seeing you all in September for this year’s Arcade!

Ready to fulfill your lifelong dream of playing music on rainbow-colored hot dogs, gummi bears & jelly beans? Then be absolutely sure to join us Thursday, July 7th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Playthings, the debut virtual reality game from New York’s Always & Forever Computer Entertainment.

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

Always & Forever calls Playthings “a VR music playground set on an island filled with cheeseburger drums and other junk-food instruments”, where where your room transforms into “a rhythm game where you fend off a musical onslaught of candy.”

The game is the creation of George Michael Brower, formerly of Google’s Creative Lab, and who you might also recognize as one-half of similarly sweet musical duo George & Jonathan, most famous for creating an entire interactive website for their final album (go play with that immediately if you haven’t already).

A video posted by always & forever (@aaf.nyc) on Jun 4, 2016 at 8:30am PDT

With sound design assistance from Jon Baken (aka the Jonathan half of George & Jonathan) and Anamanaguchi‘s Peter Berkman, alongside Brower’s own brilliant production (which you can hear for yourself in the video above), Playthings has become one of our top virtual reality places, which we think you’re going to love being in just as much.

Playthings will be playable Thursday, July 7th, 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!

Attention all developers: clear off your calendars from June 16th to June 30th now, because JUEGOS RANCHEROS is proud to announce The Mystic Western Game Jam, a spiritual sequel to our 2014 Space Cowboy Game Jam.

The game jam, hosted with the help of itch.io, is open to all developers worldwide, and will run for two weeks, after which entries will be judged by players for the week following, on a variety of to be determined criteria like truth, vastness, benevolence and psychedelia.

And, as with the Space Cowboy Game Jam before it, JUEGOS RANCHEROS is partnering with the Marfa Film Festival to exhibit a selection of the games in the real-live mystical West Texas desert. The games will be on display July 13th through July 17th, alongside the festival’s film & video works, free and open to both festival attendees and the general public.

You can find more detailed information at the official Mystic Western Game Jam site, and then begin to submit your games starting on June 16th. In the meantime, you can start dreaming up big star-gazing, truth-seeking & self-reflecting ideas, and discussing collaborations on twitter via the hashtag #mysticwestern. We’re all looking forward to seeing what you create!