These 8 Fantastic Arcade Spotlight games get custom arcade cabinets

"Going big" to Fantastic Arcade – the annual indie showcase in Austin, Texas – means building custom arcade cabinets for eight indie games. This year, the Spotlight games getting the full-cabinet treatment are Samurai Gunn, Wasteland Kings, Goblet Grotto, Panoramical, QED, Starwhal: Just the Tip, No Brakes Valet and Towerfall.

"Fantastic Arcade's Spotlight games are selected by a hard-to-define quality we like to call 'arcadiness,'" says Juegos Rancheros co-founder Wiley Wiggins. The Spotlight games were chosen by Wiggins, Adam Saltsman and Brandon Boyer, the founders of Austin indie collective Juegos Rancheros, and Arcade Technical Director Joshua Fields.

Towerfall has been a convention and Ouya favorite of ours for a while, while Wasteland Kings was just outed today as the next game from Vlambeer. It's an action roguelike starring mutants as they attempt to capture the Wasteland throne, and it's "a happy place where weird shit happens all the time," Vlambeer tells us.

These games are part of more than 20 total coming to Fantastic Arcade, an offshoot of genre film showcase Fantastic Fest. We've been impressed with Fantastic Arcade's offerings in the past, and this year is poised to please as well.

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National gaming event features new games and major publisher showcase

FANTASTIC FEST ANNOUNCES FANTASTIC ARCADE 2013
SEPTEMBER 19-22, 2013- AUSTIN, TEXAS

National gaming event features new games and major publisher showcase
http://fantasticfest.com/news/entry/fantastic-arcade-spotlight-games-and-tournaments-announced

AUSTIN, TX – [August 15], 2013 – More than 20 independent video games will be on display at this year's Fantastic Arcade, the fourth annual showcase of independent games from the organizers of Fantastic Fest.

The three founding members of Austin independent game community Juegos Rancheros -- Adam Saltsman, Wiley Wiggins & Brandon Boyer - selected the 2013 lineup of games, alongside Arcade Technical Director Joshua Fields. Panel discussions, developer talks and game tournaments will be held each day of the festival. All games and game related events in Fantastic Arcade will be free and open to the general public at the newly opened flagship Alamo Drafthouse Lakeline location. Last year's popular Gamemaking Frenzy contest will also return this year with a new surprise theme.

"Fantastic Arcade is, to the burgeoning world of indie gaming, what Fantastic Fest is to genre film," said Wiley Wiggins, Arcade Creative 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."

Eight games will be showcased during Fantastic Arcade as part of the Arcade's Spotlight section. "Fantastic Arcade's Spotlight games are selected by a hard-to-define quality we like to call 'arcadiness'," said Wiggins, "these games will each have a stand-up arcade cabinet constructed for them, to be presented for free play during the event".

The 2013 Fantastic Arcade Spotlight section consists of:

Samurai Gunn (Beau Blythe)
A suprise tournament favorite at last year's Fantastic Arcade, Samurai Gunn is a lightning-fast Bushido brawler with guns, meant for 2-4 players.

Wasteland Kings (Vlambeer)
Premiering at Fantastic Arcade, Wasteland Kings is a post-apocalyptic action roguelike about mutants fighting for the throne. Find powerful weapons, uncover secret areas and grow new limbs, all in a couple of minutes.

Goblet Grotto (The Catamites)
Stephen Gillmurphy and K Chastain's Goblet Grotto is a gleefully transgressive experiment in dungeon crawling that is as absurd as it is fun to play.

Panoramical (Fernando Ramallo)

Panoramical is a series of interactive musical landscapes. Players alter abstract environments, gradually changing the worlds' shapes and sounds. Every combination produces a different visual and musical landscape that is generated on the fly.

QED (Stephen Ascher)

Q.E.D. is a breakdancing videogame. It is bouncy and squishy. It is about the joys of kinesis. It is about busting an unfathomably wicked move in front of your rival and then striking a b-boy pose and uttering, cooly but decisively, "Q. E. D."

Starwhal (Breakfall)

Starwhal is a multiplayer game of floppy mayhem. Use all your space narwhal skills to pierce other players' hearts while keeping yours safe!

No Brakes Valet (Justin Smith)

Park all the cars as best you can. Do you have brakes or no brakes? Sometimes it's hard to tell.

Towerfall (Matt Thorson)

TowerFall is an archery combat platformer for up to 4 players. The core mechanics are simple and accessible, but combat is fast and fierce.


Dozens of additional games will be added to the full Arcade lineup within the coming weeks. Special tournaments and exposition plays are also planned, including Samurai Gunn, Towerfall, Pietro Righi Riva's VideoHeroeS, Starwhal, Marc "Messhof" Essen's Poocuzzi, and Ben Esposito's Pistol Cat.


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