IndieCade brings the future of underground gaming to Santa Monica
At the cliffhanger end of the demo for “ARBox,” an in-development augmented-reality game that uses a mix of digital and physical objects to allow for escape room-like experiences in our home, players were given a choice: Join a magic revolution and risk it all or pledge allegiance to a corporation and opt for the promise of security. The cost? A life without sorcery.
For more than a decade, IndieCade has showcased what’s underground, what’s next and what’s important in interactive storytelling. Perhaps more vitally, IndieCade puts the emphasis on individual developers, highlighting gaming’s idiosyncratic voices who believe play is a language as much as it is a tool for a medium.
there was “Liberated,” a living comic book in which democracy slowly devolves into authoritarianism. As characters run through panels, billboards flash their credit score, showing a populace paralyzed by its debt. Both “Headliner: NoviNews” and “The Occupation” took differing approaches to journalism and the spread of information — or disinformation. “The Occupation” unfolds as a time-sensitive thriller in which controversial laws that will erode civil liberties and stoke anti-immigrant fervor are in the hands of those shaping the government’s narrative. “Headliner: NoviNews,” meanwhile, focuses on choosing headlines and staying one step ahead of an administration that increasingly may view the media as an enemy.
Thinking of play, however, as a communicative tool is still something of an experiment. About seven years ago, the mobile game “Spaceteam” became a darling of IndieCade for the way it asked mobile phone users to come together to stop a spaceship from failing. This was done by each player having a slightly different screen, and everyone working together under a time crunch to prevent failure. Essentially, players barked nonsense orders at one other.
“Video games are so ubiquitous now,” Smith said. “Bringing that out of the screen and into the world is exciting to people … It’s a shared space that people can navigate together and do interesting things in, and I think that can be the foundation for many different experiences.”
See the full story here: https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/story/2019-10-13/indiecade-shows-whats-next-underground-gaming