News
IndieCade Announces Family Friendly Lineup for E3 Showcase
LOS ANGELES—MAY 30, in the year of our Lord 2014—IndieCade,
the premier international festival of independent games, will
bring more than 30 independently developed games for this year’s
IndieCade Showcase @ E3, providing the largest diversity of
indie games and developers of any exhibitor at the show.
The 2014 IndieCade Showcase @ E3 is presented in collaboration
with Hosting Partner The Entertainment Software Association
(ESA) and will be located in South Hall, Booth #2835.
Each game selected for the E3 Showcase was curated from
submissions for this Fall’s IndieCade Festival, to be held in
downtown Culver City, CA October 9-12. The E3 lineup serves as a
preview of what’s to come at the larger fall IndieCade event,
and covers nearly all platforms and genres, while also defining
new categories, and will include emerging game technologies like
Virtual Reality.
“The titles we’ve selected demonstrate the diversity and
vibrancy of the independent-development community and represent
the best of IndieCade’s mission and goals,” said Stephanie
Barish, chief executive officer and founder, IndieCade. “We are
thrilled to work with the ESA, as well as our partners at Sony
Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) and OUYA, to bring the
world’s best emerging developers, student teams, and established
independent creators to E3, the industry’s grandest stage. We
hope everyone takes time to stop by the booth and see something
a little different.”
Key partnerships with Premier Sponsor SCEA and OUYA are
providing additional titles that will be featured on each
platform. SCEA will offer three games on PlayStation platforms,
while OUYA will offer several games for the OUYA.
Family Friendly Games that will be available to see and play at
the IndieCade Showcase @ E3 include:
HOHOKUM [PlayStation 4] by: (Presented by SCEA) developed by
Honeyslug for PS4, PS3, and PS Vita, Hohokum is an expressive
and mesmerizing universe where players take on the role of a
curious flying kite-like being. Brought to life by the
imaginative artwork of Richard Hogg and an entrancing original
soundtrack from talented artists in collaboration with Ghostly
International, players will embark on a big game of hide and
seek to explore vibrant worlds and discover their secrets to
find each of their friends and unlock new levels.
COUNTERSPY [PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Mobile] by:
(Presented by SCEA) from upstart indie studio Dynamighty comes
CounterSpy, a new side-scrolling stealth shooter for PS4, PS3,
PS Vita, and mobile platforms. Combining the spy mythology and
bold aesthetics of the 1950’s and 1960’s and set during the Cold
War, CounterSpy puts players in a rogue third spy agency,
C.O.U.N.T.E.R., tasked with infiltrating military bases in
search of launch plans needed to stop world superpowers from
blowing up the moon!
THRALLED [OUYA Exclusive] by Team Thralled: (Presented by OUYA)
Thralled follows the journey of a young woman named Isaura, a
slave traumatized by the disappearance of her child and
tormented by memories of an agonizing past. After years living
under oppression, she escapes and takes to the thick forest to
locate her lost son.
TOTO TEMPLE DELUXE [OUYA Exclusive] by Juicy Beast: (Presented
by OUYA) From the makers of Knightmare Tower, Toto Temple Deluxe
is a 2D platforming local-multiplayer game where up to 4 players
must hold on to a goat for as long as possible, while their
friends jump and dash around trying to knock it out of their
hands.
SO MANY ME [OUYA, PC] by Extend Interactive: (Presented by OUYA)
a new innovative twist on puzzle solving and platforming with a
charming 2D art style. The game stars Filo and his band of
misfit clones as they attempt to save a world threatened by an
ancient, malevolent evil.
ROAD NOT TAKEN [PlayStation 4, PS Vita, PC, MAC] by Spry Fox: an
original puzzle about life's surprises where players adventure
through a vast, ever-changing forest in the aftermath of a
brutal winter storm.
FRACT-OSC [PC/Console] by Phosfiend Systems: a musical
exploration game where the player explores a vast landscape of
an abandoned world that was once built on sound. FRACT features
a beautiful open world to explore and decipher with music-based
puzzles, stunning visuals, and an amazing score that changes as
you play.
WHAT?!? OH… [Table] by Games Without Strings: What?!? Oh...
started as a simple, experimental mechanic where players could
generate a conversation simply by playing back and forth phrase
cards from their hand. Randomly chosen Starter Emotions,
Settings, and Comments start the game with a laugh and a
concrete scene, and ensure that no conversation is ever the same
twice.
DREI [Mobile] by Etter Studio: Three builders have to work
together to build a tower in a game about skill, logic and
collaboration. The game connects players across the world to
help each other in the battle against gravity.
LONG TAKE [PC/Console] by Turtle Cream: A platformer that is not
a platformer. A player that isn’t really the player. In Long
Take, you play as a cameraman who must keep the hero inside of
the viewfinder to record a cool gameplay video.
GROW [Table] by Chris Hasssebrook: A 3-dimensional strategy game
where 2-4 players compete to become the dominant flower color on
an abstract tree. Key mechanics include territorial acquisition,
a 3-Dimensional modular board, route building, and a light
simulation that mimics the growth of an actual tree.
PROJECT HEERA: DIAMOND HEIST [PC, PS4, Xbox One] by Mazhlele: A
top-down, team-based multiplayer game that pits players as
thieves or cops in a battle over who can steal or defend
diamonds.
ELEGY FOR A DEAD WORLD [PC/Console] by Dejobaan Games: Three
portals to long-dead civilizations await you. Your job is to
explore these worlds, write about what you find, and share your
stories with the rest of the universe. Other players will read
what you write and assess it. Your goal is to write something so
moving that a thousand others applaud you. Each of the three
worlds was inspired by the works of a British Romance-era poet:
Shelley, Keats, and Byron
CELESTIA [PC, MAC] by Yang Shi and Cheng Yang: a vocal
interaction game where the player guides a newborn star through
the universe by singing different pitches/notes to help the star
absorb satellites and fend off treacherous threats in her
journey of stellar evolution.
BLOOM – The Game [Installation] by Plethora Project:
Commissioned by the Greater London Authority as part of Wonder
series to celebrate Olympics and Paralympics games, ‘Bloom’ is
and interactive architectural installation designed and
developed by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez from The Bartlett
School of Architecture at UCL, London. The project proposes a
crowd-sourced approach for assembly by using game mechanics as
part of the design of one unit. This unit (The ‘Bloom Cell’)
would be produced in an Array of 60.000 identical copies where
proposed for manufacturing allowing and expecting the public to
Play and assemble diverse formations.
STORY POPS [iPad, iPhone] by Localite Games Inc.: StoryPops
empower young readers with a smartphone as a dynamic prop to
PLAY with their favorite stories and lets readers enact
narrative events or roleplay with characters.
ANAMNESIS [PC, Oculus] by Studio Guts: a first-person
exploration game set in near-future L.A. that is recovering from
a deadly virus. You are a FEMA relocation agent visiting a
temporary shelter complex in order to find out why some of the
tenants have lost contact. The Oculus Rift serves as a secondary
display port: the monitor displays the first-person view of the
character, but players may bring up the Oculus Rift to their
eyes at any time in the game to inspect game objects. In the
game’s fiction, these are specially designed goggles that read
“psychological imprints” left by people that were previously
there, giving players the narrative perspective of the character
who lived in the space. Anamnesis uses this technique to explore
multiple narrative perspectives, environmental storytelling and
the utilization of role-play and ritual in the gameplay process.
please be nice :( [PC/Console] by Aran Koning: a PC game where
the players come up with the features. The first player that
beats the current version of the game gets to submit a new
feature for the next version of the game. After that, we update
the game with the suggestion added to the game and then the
cycle restarts.
NOVA-111 [PC/MAC/Linux] by Funktronic Labs: a sci-fi themed
turn-based adventure game with a twist of real-time action.
Navigate your trusty orange science vessel as you voyage through
mysterious planets in search for the famed scientists who were
lost into the cosmic REAL-TIME vortex.
T.R.E.E. [PC, MAC, iOS] by Franz Michael Ressel: a continuous,
community-driven art development game where a community works
together to grow and shape a tree to be their own over the
course of a few days or weeks.
…and then it rained [Mobile] by Megagon Industries: a minimalist
arcade game and an acoustic and visual experience. Set in an
abstract world, the player has to catch colored and different
sounding rain drops by dragging and reordering matching towers,
resulting in a rhythmic and nearly meditative world of sounds
and colors.
BOUNDEN [Mobile] by Game Oven: a whimsical dancing game with
choreography by the Dutch National Ballet. Twist and twirl
elegantly, or get entangled with a friend. Holding either end of
a phone, you tilt the device around a virtual sphere following a
path of rings.
CHOOSATRON DELUXE ADVENTURE MATRIX [Table] by Monkey With A
Mustache: a Wi-Fi connected Choose Your Own Adventure®-inspired
story printer, blending digital and analogue storytelling. It is
designed to be easily assembled by kids into a small interactive
fiction game box, and encourage social reading, learning, and
play. As you play, you make decisions that affect the outcome of
the story printing out on the thermal paper. This results in a
paper scroll artifact, representing a linear, personal path
through a much larger story.
It is possible the games listed here contain offensive content.
Family Friendly Gaming has little to go on in regards to these
games. The games with known offensive content were removed from
the press release.