FESTIVAL
IndieCade East (Day Three)
11:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. (Bartos Screening Room)
Winter Is Coming and Other Stuff They Tell Free to Play Indie Devs
Developers from three indie studios who have found success with the free-to-play model discuss what makes a winning game. Jeb Balise is the CEO of social gaming company PuzzleSocial, creator of Daily Celebrity Crossword. Ian Tien is the co-founder of SpinPunch.com, a startup building infrastructure for next generation browser games. Rich Gallup is the Executive Producer at Disruptor Beam, home of social game Game of Thrones Ascent. AJ Glasser is a partner manager for indie game developers at Facebook. Brought to you by Facebook.
12:00–6:00 p.m. (Digital Learning Suite, Seminar Room)
Code Liberation Foundation Workshop
A trans-inclusive coding workshop in Processing for women with a focus on game creation. Phoenix Perry is an Adjunct Professor at NYU teaching game development and design, visual design, and web development.
12:30–2:30 p.m. (Fox Amphitheater)
Game Design Workshop
Jeremy Gibson Bond is an independent game designer/developer who teaches game design and development at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He offers an introduction to game design and rapid prototyping, including how to think about games and their elements, design iteration, game balance, and how to get started as a developer.
12:30–1:30 p.m. (Redstone Theater)
I'm a Transsexual Witch Poet Gamecrafter and You Can Too
Merritt Kopas is a multimedia artist and game designer who investigates play as a utopian project. In a conversation that involves magic, forests, sadomasochism, and queer utopias, she challenges assumptions about what games and game developers look like to imagine a world where new kinds of play can flourish.
Tim Rogers and Bennett Foddy (Attempt to) Objectively Rank the Ten Best Sports Games of All Time
Tim Rogers is the founder and director of Action Button Entertainment, currently working on minimalist eSport VIDEOBALL. Bennett Foddy is an Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center and creator of QWOP, GIRP, and CLOP. Together they will, in front of a live audience, attempt the ridiculous task of determining once and for all which sport is objectively the best sport ever designed and played in human history.
12:30–1:30 p.m. (Bartos Screening Room)
Outsider Games: Why Leaving Your Expertise at the Door Might Not Be Such a Bad Thing
Hilary O'Shaughnessy makes "outsider games" under the name Make and Do. Her research focuses on creating a new methodology for making digital games based on theatre training methods. She explains how having no formal game design experience and no interest in whether or not something is a game can lead to interesting work and widen the pool of players and designers.
On Karl Rohnke, the Field Indie
Ropes Course inventor Karl Rohnke is one of the uncelebrated roots of independent games. Pete Vigeant tells how Rohnke captured and taught new games and game-like experiences as a way to create stronger communities. Pete Vigeant is a game, media, and experience designer, serving as Senior Designer for ESI Design and leading the ESI Game Lab.
3:00–4:00 p.m. (Fox Amphitheater)
GameSlam
Unveil your new game idea, show off your latest build, or pitch your project to a semi-captive audience. Sign up early and keep your presentations short and snappy.
3:00–4:00 p.m. (Redstone Theater)
Super Panel Fighter
Frank Lantz, Director of the NYU Game Center, hosts a raucous and unpredictable live game show where six secret indie game all-star guests compete to answer questions set by the audience. Tweet questions to @SuperPanelFight, and then watch the panel take on the hardest, weirdest, and funniest of the bunch.
3:00–3:30 p.m. (Bartos Screening Room)
The Rise and Future of Video Game Zines
Alejandro Quan-Madrid is an independent game designer, Glitch City LA member, and game design masters student at University of Southern California. He looks at the renewed interest in physical fan-made video game magazines at a time when most of the medium and its fandom have gone digital. The session culminates in the printing of a zine.
4:15–5:15 p.m. (Fox Amphitheater)
Festival Submissions Workshop
IndieCade Festival Director Sam Roberts discusses the ins and outs of submitting games to festivals and competitions, highlighting best practices, discussing how to find the right festival, and shining a light on IndieCade's selection process.
4:30–5:00 p.m. (Redstone Theater)
How Kirby and Smash Bros Taught Me to Design Better Games
Richard Terrell (aka KirbyKid) is an independent game designer, video game consultant, tournament organizer, and competitive player. He explains why designers must embrace details, as he presents his journey from player, competitor, blogger, tester, and researcher, to developer and how it helped him navigate creative challenges without losing his passion.
4:30–5:00 p.m. (Bartos Screening Room)
When Users Were Makers—Hobbyist Magazines in the Microcomputer Era
Josh Lee is a veteran designer and developer who served as creative director at Sifteo before starting Floor is Lava. He looks back at the magazines that defined the microcomputer era of the 1980s and describes how they fostered a culture of active media participation, creative recombination, and independent creation that parallels current indie and maker scenes.
5:30–6:30 p.m. (Redstone Theater and simulcast in the Bartos Screening Room)
Bennet Foddy: State of the Union (Keynote)
Bennett Foddy is an Associate Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center and is known for making punishingly difficult games. In this moment, as more and more game developers are labeled as "indie," some complain the term has become meaningless. In response, Foddy offers an indie State of the Union address in which he explores how the forgotten history of indie game development illuminates the current scene.
Exhibition: Indie Essentials: 25 Must-Play Video Games
On view through March 2, 2014
A playable exhibition of independent video games, including the IndieCade 2013 award winners alongside a selection of games from the last decade that have had great impact on game design and culture. Organized by Museum of the Moving Image and IndieCade. (Access to Indie Essentials is included with an IndieCade East pass or with Museum admission).
Show & Tell
Playtest prototypes, try unreleased games, meet other developers, or promote your new game. Developers demonstrate their games for two-hour sessions on Saturday, February 15 and Sunday, February 16. Sign up to show your game. (IndieCade East day pass is required to participate in Show & Tell. Table and power provided; participants must bring everything else required to play the game.)
Indie eSports Showcase
Compete one-on-one and with teams to be crowned champion of the indie sports video games of tomorrow.
11:30 a.m.–1:00 p.m. Gunsport, Necrosoft: Volleyball plus lasers. Every time the ball crosses the net in any direction, it is worth one more point.
1:30–3:00 p.m. Anodyne 100% Speedrun: David Barber (Chiron97) is a member of Speed Demos Archive, a community that plays video games as quickly as possible. Barber will beat action-adventure indie Anodyne at top speed while its developer, Sean Hogan, commentates.
3:00–4:30 p.m. Videoball, Action Button: Fire projectiles to stun other players or push balls into the opposing team's goal, holding the fire button to charge more powerful shots in this minimalist electronic sport.
4:30–6:00 p.m. Nidhogg, Messhoff: Storm your opponent's endzone to win in this tug-of-war fencing game of frequent death and immediate respawns.
Exhibitor Showcase
Play new independent titles for the PlayStation 4 and Vita, try on wearable virtual-reality technology Oculus Rift, experiment with some of Facebook’s recent releases, check out Ad Magic's custom printed card games and board games, and learn about FastSpring's e-commerce system.
Passes: $45 public / $35 students/seniors/Museum members. Order online or call 718 777 6800 during regular Museum hours to reserve passes. A full festival pass, allowing the holder access to all three days of IndieCade East, is available for $125 / $100. Free admission for Silver Screen members and above. Admission for children (ages 3–12) will be $10 per day. IndieCade East scheduled talks and workshops have limited capacity and are filled on a first-come, first-served basis. Pass holders are not guaranteed admission to all programs.
