Indiecade 2012

I was starting to think that I had been cursed to never again attend Indiecade, as 2 years ago I came down with the flu this time of year*, and last year it was Nick who was let's-go-to-the-hospital sick right over Indiecade.  But this year we were both in good health, and ventured down to Culver City to check out all the games.  There was lots of cool stuff, but here are some of my favorites:

Unfinished Swan
I'd seen this ages ago and forgotten about it completely, and was delighted to find it again.  The basic idea is the world is completely flat white, so it looks like a blank screen.  You throw blobs of black paint to splatter and reveal the geometry so you can find your way around.  But be careful not to over splatter paint, otherwise you'll end up with the same problem as no paint at all!


Guacamelee
This game has an amazing, delightful, and whimsical art style that reeled me in right away.  The combat is kind of quirky and unusual, but fun, though the transitions can be a little awkward, especially in co-op.  But you get to play as a luchador (or luchadora) AND can turn into a chicken!  What's not to love??


Super Space
In this 4-player asteroid-shooter, every player is attached to one ship.  The only way you can move the ship is how you propel it by your shooting.  Also you're competing to steal asteroid shots, but still have to be careful and keep the ship from crashing into the sides.  Competitive cooperative game that will instantly reveal the true nature of your friends.


Against the Wall
You pull blocks out of a wall to make platforms to get to a place.  I would have played this all day if Nick hadn't dragged me away.


Hundreds
A simple yet surprisingly intense ipad game.  Circles with numbers, press and hold the circles to make the numbers go up and the circles grow bigger.  Try and get the total from all the circles to 100.  Obstacles bounce around and will run into the circles and reduce them to 0.  The bigger the circle, the more vulnerable it is to hazards, so you have to get your timing just-so.  If I had an ipad I'd get this game in a heartbeat.  I couldn't find any video footage, but there's an old browser version of the game running around.

We also bumped into Jake Sones, who showed us his iOS prototype of a sort of match-3/defense game mashup.  It was quite fun and looked promising!

Anyway, Indiecade is lots of fun and I'm looking forward to next year.

*As a metric of how sick I was at the time: I was laying on the couch right under the A/C hoping to bring my fever down.  On the coffee table were some fries from In-n-out brought by Nick (I was in the "demand comfort food" stage of the flu).  Mr. Davis had been sitting with me, but jumped down and started to pull fries out of the bag, one by one, and eat them.  I was too weak to move.  I couldn't even raise my voice to shoo him away.  So I watched in a fevered stupor as my cat ate each and every one of my fries.