SEPTEMBER 28 – OCTOBER 1, 2015
AUSTIN, TEXAS
International games festival features lineup of independent games, including six premiere games, alongside major publisher showcase.
Source: Fantastic Fest/The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema
AUSTIN, TX – August 13th, 2015 – Organizers of Fantastic Arcade have announced the September 28th return of the yearly showcase of the best in independent games, now in its sixth year, and held in conjunction with Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest, the world’s largest genre film festival.
For the first time ever, with help from Humble Bundle, this year’s Fantastic Arcade will include six brand new games exclusively premiering at the festival from some of indie gaming’s top developers. Included in this premiere showcase, and detailed at greater length below, are games from the creators of Desert Golfing, Nuclear Throne, Gardenarium, MirrorMoon EP and Perfect Stride.
These never-before-seen games will be featured in custom-built, free-to-play arcade cabinets at the Highball event center throughout the duration of Fantastic Fest, alongside a selection of more than 30 independent games from around the world. The first ten of these games, detailed at length below, will make up this year’s Arcade Spotlight, and come from both new developers and returning Fantastic Arcade fan-favorites.
In addition to the selection of freely playable games on display throughout the entirety of Fantastic Fest, Fantastic Arcade will once again feature a number of special events, panel discussions, developer talks, and game tournaments from September 28th through October 1st. All games and related events at Fantastic Arcade are, as usual, free and open to the general public at the newly-renovated Alamo South Lamar theater and the Highball. More information about this year’s special events – including the fourth annual Gamemaking Frenzy competition – will be released in the coming weeks.
The 2015 lineup of games have been chosen from nearly 250 submissions by Juegos Rancheros, Austin’s independent games collective operated by Adam Saltsman, Wiley Wiggins, Katie Kizziar, Rachel Simone Weil, and Brandon Boyer, alongside Fantastic Arcade Technical Director Joshua Fields. In addition to selecting the showcase lineup, the Juegos Rancheros team also incubated the six, new experimental games that will debut at the festival.
“Fantastic Arcade is to the world of indie gaming what Fantastic Fest is to genre and cult film,” noted Wiley Wiggins, Juegos Rancheros co-founder and Fantastic Arcade Director. “It’s not like any other festival or trade show. It’s a party where the best and brightest outsider talents come to enjoy the company of their audience: both die-hard fans and newcomers. This year, we’ll feature new games from developers whose work has caught our eye again and again with its ingenuity, uniqueness, and artistic flair.”
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This year’s six original Fantastic Arcade game cabinets, presented with help from Humble Bundle, will include:
Wheels of Aurelia (Santa Ragione)
Wheels of Aurelia is a narrative road trip game set in the roaring Italian 70’s from the creators of Fotonica & MirrorMoon EP. Half racing game and half interactive fiction, it tells the story of Lella, a restless woman driving on the roads of the western coast of Italy, the famous Via Aurelia.
Hellmouth (Thu Tran and Ivan Safrin)
Hellmouth is a competitive cooking game where players collect ingredients from a hellish death course and cook it to perfection to feed Satan. Hellmouth is co-created by developer Ivan Safrinand Thu Tran, the mind behind the Independent Film Channel television show Food Party, and host of the ‘Barfcade’ at Fantastic Arcade 2014.
Hoky (Jan Willem Nijman and Kitty Calis)
Hoky is arcade action on ice for up to four players, from the developers who separately helped bring you Nuclear Throne and Action Henk, and who together created Adventure Minute, the winner of Fantastic Arcade’s Adventure Time Gamemaking Frenzy in 2012.
CRAP! No One Loves Me (Arcane Kids)
“My morning ritual is pretty simple: I check my phone and scream. Then I crawl into my coffin, it’s all warmed up… let’s go for a ride.”
CNOLM is a daily affirmation & multiplayer coffin bobsledding journey into the afterlife from Arcane Kids, the creators of Zineth, Perfect Stride, Bubsy 3D: Bubsy visits the James Turrell Retrospective & the Sonic Dreams Collection.
Risky Bison (Justin Smith)
Risky Bison is a game about managing the financial affairs of a herd of buffalo, created by “the game developer’s game developer” Justin Smith, best known as the designer behind Enviro Bear 2000 and Desert Golfing.
Alea (Paloma Dawkins, Cale Bradbury, Caila Thompson-Hannant)
Co-created by Cale Bradbury, Caila Thompson-Hannant, and Paloma Dawkins, the latter best known as the artist behind KO-OP Mode’s Gardenarium, Alea is a hiking simulator & experience of infinity, and a reminder of the endless light and dark currently occurring in all directions, at all times. Just don’t die and you should be okay.
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In addition, ten Arcade Spotlight titles will be highlighted from this year’s nearly 250 game submissions during Fantastic Fest. The 2015 Fantastic Arcade Spotlight selection consists of:
Secret Legend (Andrew Shouldice)
An homage to classic games with undeniable polish and style, an accompanying illustrated instruction booklet describes it as ” …an adventuresome TRIANGLE-SEEK set in that place just beyond the farthest you’ve ever been. To avoid damaging your saved game, remember to hold the RESET button when turning the power off.”
Beglitched (Alec Thomson, Jenny Jiao Hsia)
Beglitched is a game about insecurity, in our computers and ourselves. In a pastel world of networks where nobody truly knows what they’re doing, hacking is a magical art and the notorious Glitch Witch is the most premium archmagi of the net. By random circumstance, YOU are her new apprentice.
GNOG (KO-OP Mode)
GNOG is about exploring giant monsters and their inner worlds. Each head is part of an interconnected world filled with tantalizing secrets. Created by Montreal’s experimental game collective, KO-OP Mode.
Strawberry Cubes (Loren Schmidt)
Strawberry Cubes is an experiential open-world game which uses a cryptic set of glitches and magical transformations to abstractly evoke the feeling of losing a family member to alzheimer’s disease.
A Good Snowman is Hard to Build (Alan Hazelden)
A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build is an adorable puzzle game about being a monster and making snowmen.
Hot Date (George Batchelor)
A romantic evening of speed dating. With pugs.
Versnoof (Kyle Reimergartin)
Fantastic Arcade award-winning developer Kyle Reimergartin and The Floor is Jelly creator Ian Snyder return with a game Reimergartin describes as “PARASITIC SYMBIOSIS AND PROPAGATION THROUGH PREEXISTING AMBULATORY MECHANISM”. We describe it as an experiment that will create shimmering mnemonic architecture in your mind, as you navigate a labyrinth using only your sonar-like extra senses.
Froggy (Nathalie Lawhead)
In this ‘no holes barred froggame’ you frog as FROGGY, a seasoned frog veteran with a strong inner-voice but no moral conviction, surviving one day at a time on Armageddon Highway.
Shelter 2 (Bastian Leonhardt Strube)
In Shelter 2, you play the life of a mother lynx, pregnant at first, giving birth and continuing in to a journey of parenthood where nurturing her four cubs is paramount for their survival.
The TAMPERDROME COLLECTION (G.P. Lackey)
The TAMPERDROME COLLECTION is a suite of procedural generation experiments which allows you to create random dogs, islands, ghosts, cats, and other strange things.
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Dozens more additional games will be announced as part of the full Fantastic Arcade lineup in the coming weeks, alongside special nightly tournaments – an annual fan-favorite tradition – exposition plays, panel discussions, and developer talks.
For the latest developments, visit the Fantastic Arcade Facebook and Twitter pages or sign up for the Fantastic Arcade mailing list.
For press inquiries and free media registration for Fantastic Arcade, please email arcade@fantasticarcade.com.
Attend Fantastic Fest 2015
DAYTIME ONLY Badges, FAN Badges, and 2ND HALF Badges for Fantastic Fest 2015 are available for purchase here.
Members of the film industry who purchase either a FAN or SUPERFAN badge can apply for a free INDUSTRY upgrade and Fantastic Market access by filling out the form here. Only approved industry will be considered for access to FANTASTIC MARKET. All Industry requests must submitted by no later than August 15th, 2015.
For the latest developments, visit the Fantastic Fest official site www.fantasticfest.com and follow us on Facebook & Twitter.
We are now accepting press credential applications for Fantastic Fest 2015. To apply, please send your name and outlet as well as a letter of assignment from your editor or a business card to the FONS PR team at press@fantasticfest.com for consideration. The deadline to apply for press credentials is Wednesday, September 2nd. Please note all applications are subject to approval.
About Fantastic Arcade:
Fantastic Arcade is a four-day event that showcases a curated selection of brand-new independent games as well as a larger sampling of groundbreaking independent games from the last couple of years. International and local developers will be in attendance to show off their work, talk about the state of independent gaming via panels, and interact with attendees during play sessions, nightly parties, and happy hours. 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. Admission to Fantastic Arcade is free and open to the public.
Fantastic Fest is the largest genre film festival in the U.S., specializing in horror, fantasy, sci-fi, action and just plain fantastic movies from all around the world. In years past the festival has been home to world premieres of JOHN WICK, FRANKENWEENIE, MACHETE KILLS, RED DAWN, THERE WILL BE BLOOD, APOCALYPTO, ZOMBIELAND and RED while the guest roster has included such talent as Tim Burton, Andy and Lana Wachowski, Robert Rodriguez, Rian Johnson, Mel Gibson, Bill Murray, Keanu Reeves, Martin Landau, Winona Ryder, Edward Norton, Ryan Reynolds, Karl Urban, Josh Hartnett, The RZA, Dolph Lundgren, Paul Rudd, Bill Pullman, Paul Thomas Anderson, Kevin Smith, Jon Favreau, George Romero, Darren Aronofsky and Mike Judge. Fantastic Fest also features world, national and regional premieres of new, up-and-coming genre films. Fantastic Fest has seen the acquisition of many titles, including BULLHEAD, KILL LIST, MONSTERS, KLOWN, THE FP, PENUMBRA, HERE COMES THE DEVIL, NO REST FOR THE WICKED, VANISHING WAVES, COMBAT GIRLS and I DECLARE WAR. Fantastic Fest is held each year at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, Texas. Alamo Drafthouse has been named the best theater in the country by Entertainment Weekly, Wired and TIME. Variety included Fantastic Fest in a list of “10 Film Festivals We Love,” and was also named one of the “25 coolest film festivals” by Moviemaker Magazine.
Our Partners
Presenting Sponsors for Fantastic Fest include Texas’ own Shiner Beer, whose family of products will be featured throughout the festival. And Chiller, the only cable channel devoted to delivering round-the-clock scares.
Tim and Karrie League founded Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in 1997 as a single-screen mom and pop repertory theater in Austin. 17 years later, the now 19-location chain has been named “the best theater in America” by Entertainment Weekly and “the best theater in the world” by Wired. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema has built a reputation as a movie lover’s oasis not only by combining food and drink service with the movie-going experience, but also introducing unique programming and high-profile, star studded special events. Alamo Drafthouse Founder & CEO, Tim League, created Fantastic Fest, a world renowned film festival dubbed “The Geek Telluride” by Variety. Fantastic Fest showcases eight days of genre cinema from independents, international filmmakers and major Hollywood studios. The Alamo Drafthouse’s collectible art gallery, Mondo, offers breathtaking, original products featuring designs from world-famous artists based on licenses for popular TV and Movie properties including Star Wars, Star Trek & Universal Monsters. The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema is expanding its brand in new and exciting ways, including Drafthouse Films which has garnered two Academy Award nominations in its short three year existence and Birth. Movies. Death, an entertainment content platform edited by veteran journalist Devin Faraci.