IndieCade was great.

The incredible awards from the IndieCade award ceremony. To the left we have the Innovative Gameplay award for Marc Ten Bosc's Miegakure, and to the right we have the Sublime Experience award for Steph Thirion's Faraway.

This was my second year attending the IndieCade conference down in Culver City, and as one can expect from these kinds of things, this one was even better than the last. Mingling along the ranks of courageous developers and other aspiring game makers (like myself), it's hard to leave IndieCade without the motivation to just get excited and make things. And with games spread across the city's gallery spaces while swarms of people play ARG games into the night, you become overwhelmingly charmed by the spirit of imaginative play that colors this conference like no other.

I spent the majority of my time attending lectures and playing games alongside Steph, Cory, and Maré. Of course there was plenty of buddy mingling too with the likes of Brandon Boyer, Richard Lemarchand, Adam Robezzoli of Attract Mode, and many other game folks where just standing next to them is like inspiration by osmosis. My favorite lecture was That Game Company's presentation around their upcoming game Journey, which demonstrated just how much care is put into designing a game that feels organically cooperative (The Brainy Gamer has a great summary of the talk here.) And of course, Mr. Boyer's talk "All Play is Personal" served as a loving reminder that now is really the time to make a game if you've ever want to.

The Indicade award show was also better orchestrated than last year, having the perks of Levar Burton hosting and leading an all-audience Reading Rainbow sing-a-long, Old Spice actor Isaiah Mustafa (!), and a of course Ron Gilbert awarding Tim Schafer the Trailblazer award. The fact that Steph received the "Sublime Experience" award for his game Faraway was another unexpected but delightful treat. I can't tell you how proud of him I am.

Overall, a terrific experience. Well done Indiecade! I am definitely looking forward to what's in store next year.

P.S. Aside from the live demonstration of Humanoid Asteroid, the coolest thing that I saw this past weekend by far was this awesome Out Run go car. The photo below was taken by Ted Martens (another inspiring game maker!), but you check out this video by Cory to see how fast it went! Also, random, does anyone else see Richard Lemarchand as the Tim Gunn of indie games? I'd watch Project Gamemaker the show (I would!)!

Comments

[ScottyG]

Sounds like it was a fun time!

Although... how is that Outrun cabinet not just... deadly. I mean, slow or not you're basically just driving blind. Don't get me wrong, it's cool, but I'm just waiting to see a headline of an accident involving it. ;)

[.tiff]

I *think* somewhere on that vehicle there is actually a front facing camera that is displayed to the driver so that they don't bump into anyone. That said, he was driving around in the dark and everyone looked observed the car from a comfortably safe distance :)

[cory schmitz]

Memories :'D

[kimmi8]

omg, those awards are awesome. :)