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BitSummit 4 takes over Kyoto with more indie games and devs
BitSummit is back. The annual Japanese indie game festival recently announced its lineup of musicians and speakers including Koji Igarashi of Bloodstained and Castlevania fame, Rez creator Tetsuya Mizguchi, Tom Happ (the man behind Axiom Verge) and Goichi "Suda51" Suda. Oh, and Sony Interactive Entertainment's president of worldwide studios, Shuhei Yoshida.
A ton of great indie games take over Kyoto at BitSummit 2015
BitSummit has been at the forefront of Japan's independent gaming scene for the past two years, hosting an event that shows off projects from small studios and industry veterans alike, plus live music and an awards show. Last year's showcase attracted 5,000 fans and 130 game developers, including Mega Man designer Keiji Inafune, Epic Games, Sony and Microsoft. For the 2015 show, BitSummit has partnered with four studios -- 17-Bit, Vitei, Q-Games and Pygmy Studio -- to establish the Japan Independent Games Aggregate, which will oversee all event planning. Plus, one of the leading indie-game promotion houses in the Western world, Indie Megabooth, will help organize BitSummit 2015, lending it an extra layer of delicious credibility. Indie Megabooth President and CEO Kelly Wallick joins JIGA on its board of advisers, and she spoke with us briefly about the new collaboration.
Japan's BitSummit indie festival hosts 5,000 people, 130 developers
Japan's BitSummit festival is a three-day showcase of indie games from the region and around the world, and this year it attracted 5,000 attendees, developers, publishers and press from March 7 - 9. BitSummit 2014 hosted 130 developers, three times as many as it had last year. During the show, Keiji Inafune announced his new 3DS project, Azure Striker: Gunvolt, in collaboration with Mega Man 9 studio Inti Creates. It's due out on the Japanese eShop in the summer, with a North American date on the horizon. The Behemoth co-sponsored BitSummit 2014, and studio founder John Baez provided a keynote, as did Lumines studio founder and ex-Sega head, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Musical acts included Super Hexagon's Chipzel, PixelJunk Eden's Baiyon and Panzer Dragoon's Saori Kobayashi. BitSummit 2014 included the festival's first-ever awards show. First-place winners were, in part, Flying Carpets Games (The Girl and the Robot) for Narrative Design, Onion Games (Million Onion Hotel) for Public Choice and Media Choice, Team Poyhaymen (Graffiti Ninja) for Visual Design, and Vitei, Inc. (The Modern Zombie Taxi Driver) for the Grand Jury Prize. Japan's indie scene is garnering more mainstream attention, as last year's Tokyo Game Show debuted the Indie Game Area, and we took a tour of all the wild, worldwide games. Check out all of the BitSummit 2014 developers on the festival's site. [Image: BitSummit]
The Behemoth co-sponsoring Japanese indie festival BitSummit
Castle Crashers and Battleblock Theater developer The Behemoth is co-sponsoring the BitSummit festival this year. Set to to take place in Kyoto, Japan, the event offers a venue for independent developers to show off their games. It typically has the primary mission of bolstering the presence of Japanese indie game developers, though the event is open for developers outside of Japan to attend and showcase their work. In the case of The Behemoth, it believes that through events like this year's BitSummit MMXIV, "independent Japanese developers can build a healthy counterpoint to the industrial strength AAA video game industry in Japan." The event will be held March 7 through March 9; developers hoping to attend must register before February 7. [Image: BitSummit Organization Committee]
