It’s the final JUEGOS RANCHEROS meetup of 2017, but we’re finishing strong! Be sure to join us Thursday, December 7th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents new games from the creators of Towerfall and Starseed Pilgrim!

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

Due for release in January on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, XBox One, and Steam, Celeste is the latest game from Towerfall creator Matt Thorson, alongside Noel Berry, Amora Bettany, Pedro Medeiros, Lena Raine, and Power-Up Audio!

The team describe the game as a “hardcore mountain-climbing platformer”, which originally was developed over just 4 days for the low-bit “fantasy console”, Pico-8. You can try that version in your browser here, and you won’t believe how far it’s come since then!

In addition to that, we’ll also have the local debut of Inconsiderate Climbers, a 4-player cooperative/competitive game from Droqen, 1/4th of the indie-dev supergroup Gloam Collective, and creator of the hugely beloved puzzle platformer Starseed Pilgrim.

Created for the recent No Quarter exhibition at NYU’s Game Center, Inconsiderate Climbers starts from a traditional arcade/action foundation, but with one twist — when one player dies, they must pass their controller to a new player. Come see why it was a No Quarter favorite!

You can play both of these games and more Thursday, December 7th, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!

Bring Fantastic Arcade home to you with six amazing and exclusive games, presented by Austin’s independent game collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS!

We brought together six of the most talented indie developers from around the world to create new games, all of which made their debut at our eighth-annual indie game festival, Fantastic Arcade, taking place in Austin, TX, November 17th through 19th, 2017.

[ CLICK HERE OR USE THE WIDGET BELOW TO BUY THE 2017 FANTASTIC ARCADE BUNDLE AND SUPPORT JUEGOS RANCHEROS! ]

Thanks to our distribution partner itch.io, all proceeds from the sale of this bundle benefit our non-profit organization. Help us showcase more amazing games both here in Austin and a city near you, and commission more fantastic developers to create new games like these!

Included in this bundle are all six games you see here! Here is what you’ll get:

PIPSQUEAK, by Jenny Jiao Hsia

Pipsqueak has only one purpose in life: to eat all the eggs he can find. Help Pipsqueak traverse through unseasoned terrain and vanquish any and all who get in his way.  (Windows, Mac)

Jenny Jiao Hsia is the artist behind games like Beglitched and Stellar Smooch, and is currently creating Consume Me. You can play more of her work here on itch.io.

PANIC VARIANTS, by Loren Schmidt

A collection of three projects, including one solo piece and two collaborations.

Panic Variants, by Loren Schmidt, begins as a short, branching arcade game, but opens up into something else as it is replayed and explored.

Pluinola, created with Tammy Duplantis, is an audiovisual instrument which uses cellular automata to drive sound generation.

Fossil Plant Slideshow, by KR Pipkin and Loren Schmidt (collectively, Withering Systems) is a diorama piece involving an interior design boutique. (Windows, Mac, Linux)

Loren Schmidt is the creator of Strawberry Cubes, Realistic Kissing Simulator and the IGF-nominated Star Guard. You can find more of their work here on itch.io.

ROTOR, by Connor Mccann

The base is breached! Navigate malfunctioning drones through the defense grid to discover the secrets of an invading anomaly. ROTOR is an abstract arcade game featuring an original soundtrack by Asthmatic Kitty recording artist Chris Schlarb. (Windows, Mac)

Conor Mccann is a Texas-based artist best known for his Mystic Western Game Jam game Black Gold, and many more games and experiments found right here on itch.io.

In addition to his extensive discography, Chris Schlarb’s work has also featured in videogames including Dropsy and NightSky, available on PC and Nintendo 3DS.

THE STAKES ARE TOO HIGH, by Fernando Ramallo

An endless stream of experiments from the GAME THAT NEVER WAS! Witness a shocking peek into the Artist’s mind as they delve deep into the AMERICAN HEALTHCARE SYSTEM! (Windows, Mac)

Fernando Ramallo is the creator of the incredible interactive music/landscape app Panoramical.

BANANA CHALICE, by Kyle Reimergarten

CAT DREAM WORLD OF BANANAS
FJORDS 2  (Windows)

Kyle Reimergartin is the developer behind our long-time favorite game Fjords, as well as a number of other tiny games and experiments available here on itch.io.

[NOTE: Though we refer to it simply as Banana Chalice, this bundle-exclusive version’s actual title is: Near My Sins // Awaken Thy Blood [newline] or, Never Feel Pain X274 Captured Beast Banana Chalice (_FROGDIRECTION360 rancheros dream SHAREWARE VISION) Everlastic Legacy of Jazz. -ed.]

FORGET-ME-NOT, by Brandon Williamson

Mazes and monsters and mushrooms and flowers and witches and potions and eyeballs and tombstones and turners and dashers and grinders and slimers, and bombs, and bombs, and bombs. Plagued with the curse of autofire, you roam the corridors of Forget-Me-Not forever, in search of a cure for your beloved… (Windows, Linux) (Mac version is forthcoming & will be available to all who purchased the bundle when it is available!)

Brandon Williamson is known best for the original Forget-Me-Not, and has a number of other game and music projects available for download at nyarlu.net.

Want to get the first look at the amazing games coming to this year’s Fantastic Arcade? Then be sure to join us Thursday, November 2nd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents an international handful of Spotlight and Showcase festival favorites!

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

We’ve just announced all 30+ games coming to this year’s Fantastic Arcade — both our 10 Spotlight games and more than 20 Showcase selections — and want to give you an early peek at some you still can’t play anywhere else!

Games appearing on Thursday will include:

10 Beautiful Postcards (thecatamites)

A “dream computer tripadvisor”, from the creator of Fantastic Arcade favorite, Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog.

Freeways (Captain Games)

You are a traffic engineer.

Draw freeway interchanges.

Optimize for efficiency and avoid traffic jams.

Overpass (Studio Bean)

Overpass is a rhythm adventure game celebrating form and space in motion. The player must move with the beat on a journey through 3D scapes in order to uncover the truth of the future.

You can play all of these games and more Thursday, November 2nd, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!

Step right up! This year’s Fantastic Arcade Gamemaking Frenzy has officially begun! From now until Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST we are calling on developers from around the world to participate in our two-week game jam, Phony Island!

We are inviting you to create your best 2-player microgames in the style of alllllmost copyright-infringing carnival games, that juuuust manage to stay on the right side of the law (above photo credit).

TO ENTER THE JAM:

– Your game must be a head-to-head simultaneous two-player game. Your game must run on Windows (sorry!) and use WASD + SPACE for player one and ARROW-KEYS + ENTER for player two as input in order to be considered for inclusion in the Phony Island “cabinet.”

– It must have a short duration, 30 seconds or less, resulting in a WIN or LOSE for each player. (We’ll be keeping score offstage.).

– After the match is over the game must QUIT AUTOMATICALLY.

– Your jam must reference this year’s secret ingredient.

THIS YEAR’S SECRET INGREDIENT IS:

​​​​THE TICKET

Before ending your game, please award the winning player with an arbitrary number of tickets, which we will tally during our playthrough on November 19th. The player with the most amount of tickets will redeem them for a fabulous prize!

All of the submitted games will be compiled into a custom launcher and run as part of a live game-show-like event on the final night of this year’s Fantastic Arcade, at the festival’s new home: Alamo Drafthouse’s boardwalk carnival-esque bar, the Barrel O Fun.

From now until Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST you can submit your game at itch.io’s #phonyisland jam site. We look forward to seeing your game!

Following our announcement of brand new games from the artists behind Panoramical, Beglitched, Fjords and Strawberry Cubes making their debut at Fantastic Arcade, we have just announced more than 20 additional games rounding out this year’s showcase lineup.

The games join the 10 previously-announced Spotlight games coming to Austin, TX’s Alamo Drafthouse Mueller this November 17-19th, and were chosen by JUEGOS RANCHEROS from the hundreds of games submitted from developers around the world.

This year’s showcase games will include long-anticipated breakouts like Capy’s dungeon crawler Below (above), the Junji Ito-inspired point and click adventure World of Horror (pictured at top) and Wilmot’s Warehouse, the latest game from the creators of Hohokum and last year’s Audience Choice award winner, Loot Rascals. All of the 20+ showcase games coming to this year’s festival are listed in full below the fold.

In addition to the new games, we are also announcing the theme for this year’s Fantastic Arcade Gamemaking Frenzy. Games submitted during the two-week game jam will be exhibited at Fantastic Arcade’s game-show-like live finale, Starcade.

This year’s theme is Phony Island, in homage to Fantastic Arcade’s new home — Alamo Drafthouse’s boardwalk carnival-esque bar, the Barrel O Fun. The jam will be open to developers from around the world to submit their best 2-player microgame in the style of an almost-but-just-this-side-of-not-copyright-infringing carnival games (above photo credit).

The two-week game jam will kick off Monday, October 30th at itch.io’s #phonyisland jam site, with a submission deadline of Sunday, November 12th, at 11:59pm CST.

In the coming weeks, Fantastic Arcade will also be announcing its full lineup of its special nightly tournaments — an annual fan-favorite tradition — exposition plays, panel discussions, developer talks, and much more.

Tickets for Fantastic Arcade are available now at its website. Now a fully independent festival, Juegos Rancheros would like to remind all attendees, developers and staff that the event is covered by our Safe Spaces Policy, which can be reviewed in its entirety at the Fantastic Arcade website.

This year’s Showcase games will be created by:

10 Mississippi (Karina Popp)

10 Mississippi is stop motion game about a day’s routine, played over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again.

A Mortician’s Tale (Gabby DaRienzo)

A Mortician’s Tale is a narrative-driven death positive video game where you play as a mortician tasked with running a funeral home. Take on the role of recent funeral direction graduate Charlie as she learns the ropes of the business and industry. Prepare the cadavers of the deceased (via embalming or cremation), attend their funerals and console their loved ones, and interact with Charlie’s coworkers, clients, and bosses. A Mortician’s Tale is an informative, honest, and sometimes humorous look at the current state of and the future of the western death industry.

Alien Caseno (Grace Bruxner)

ALIEN CASENO was born from the question “what if aliens built a casino from memory?” and grew into a museum-like 3D exploration space. The player learns about each scene through the descriptions on the walls, and can find secrets hidden throughout the game.

https://vimeo.com/159233457

Below (Capy)

You’re a tiny warrior, exploring the depths of a remote island. The first goal is to explore, but really the key part of exploration is surviving.

Blind Drive (Lo-Fi People)

Blind Drive is an audio-based, arcade-style driving game with a dark and humorous narrative. You’re blindfolded and driving against traffic as a mysterious voice gives you suicidal commands on the phone. Swerve away from on-rushing vehicles with only your hearing to guide you.

Chuchel (Amanita Design)

Chuchel is a comedy adventure game from the creators of Machinarium, Botanicula and Samorost. Help Chuchel to chase down the mysterious villain and retrieve his cherished cherry!

Cosmic Express (Cosmic Engineers)

Cosmic Express is a puzzle game about planning the train route for the world’s most awkward space colony. It’s cute, harder than it looks, and guaranteed to give you hours of frustrating fun across hundreds of levels.

You draw a route for the train to take, picking up aliens and dropping them off at their destinations. Unfortunately the train is never big enough, the track can’t cross itself, and the aliens are too damn lazy to just walk from A to B…

Dig Dog (Rusty Moyher, Matthew Grimm)

Dig Dog is an action roguelike platformer. Dig to discover treasure, adventure and bones! Jump, dash, stomp and dig your way through a strange world inhabited by stranger creatures.

https://vimeo.com/192071128

Everything is Going to be OK (Nathalie Lawhead)

“Everything is going to be OK” is a playable zine. It is a collection of life experiences.
Each icon represents a “page” (an abstract “page” out of my life). It offers alternative views of power from a survivor’s standpoint, and is a commentary on struggle.

Freeways (Captain Games)

You are a traffic engineer.

Draw freeway interchanges.

Optimize for efficiency and avoid traffic jams.

Fugl (Team Fugl)

Take flight and embark on a never ending voyage as a shapeshifting bird. Experience the thrill of flying as you explore the natural beauty of the vast voxel world. Discover hundreds of unique animals whose characteristics you can absorb. Feel free as a bird as you make your own adventure.

Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den)

Genesis Noir is a poetic adventure game about stopping The Big Bang to save your love. A cosmic gunshot expands towards the heart of a god and the player must explore the universe, seeking clues on how creation might be undone. With an emphasis on exploration, simple interactions, and generative art, Genesis Noir seeks to create memorable moments and tactile gameplay.

Hypnospace Outlaw (Tendershoot)

Hypnospace Outlaw is an alternate reality operating system sim in which players assume the role of an Enforcer, a volunteer moderator of the internet of the future. Find violations on the vast frontier of the fake internet, accrue HypnoCoin, and spend it on all manner of (possibly virus-ridden) virtual doodads, including pets, themes, screensavers, games, and more.

Jettomero: Hero of the Universe (Ghost Time Games/Gabriel Koenig)

Play as Jettomero, a giant, indestructible, and incredibly clumsy robot determined to save the human race. Explore a procedurally generated universe by flying through space and landing on planets while trying not to destroy everything in your path. Relax as you blast through the cosmos on a hero’s uncertain quest. Will you ever save the humans?

Liquorice (boris)

hyperreal realtime 70bpm.

Connect programmable Node-Terminal machines and create a sonic singularity.

Love Is Moving (Jared Johnson)

Love Is Moving is an artistic game that is inclusive to gamers and non gamers alike. With simple controls you play as a flying heart that is always moving forward. Love Is Moving is inspired by personal life experiences and the feeling that love cannot be stopped.

MOLOCH (Zero) (Seemingly Pointless)

MOLOCH (Zero) is a narrative game that puts the player through a shift manager job interview. The player must control the flow and speed of workers as they progress down hallways. MOLOCH (Zero) has the player question and balance their own personal in-game ambitions against the health and safety of their workers. Fast is efficient, yet it risks the lives of the workers. How badly do you want this job?

Overpass (Studio Bean)

Overpass is a rhythm adventure game celebrating form and space in motion. The player must move with the beat on a journey through 3D scapes in order to uncover the truth of the future.

Palmystery (Paloma Dawkins)

Welcome to the castle of Palmystery where the spirit of a princess guards the entrance into the the realm of hands and loud techno. Palmystery is a surreal cartoon 2.5D game through a hellish imaginary world inhabited by gesturing hands.

Small Talk (Pale Room)

You are invited to a party of colorful characters, strange thoughts, and surreal mindscapes.

Trackless (Aubrey Serr)

Trackless is an atmospheric first-person exploration and puzzle game set in the distant future.

Wandersong (Dumb and Fat Games)

A musical adventure game where you use singing to try to save the world! Play as a silly bard who embarks on a globe-trotting journey to learn about the mysterious Earthsong, said to be able to prevent the universe’s imminent end. Along the way there’s a huge cast of characters to meet, puzzles to solve and songs to sing!

Wilmot’s Warehouse (Hollow Ponds & Richard Hogg)

Wilmot’s Warehouse is a videogame about working in a warehouse. Managing deliveries and dealing with customer orders, that kind of thing. At its heart the game is about ordering and arranging a load of stuff. The warehouse is big and there are many hundreds of different stock items. How you arrange and organize the goods within the warehouse is entirely up to you. You have to find your own system and learn your way around a unique, ever changing, ever growing topography of stuff.

World of Horror (Paweł “panstasz” Koźmiński)

The year is 198X. Disgusting creatures terrorize a small seaside town in Japan as reality starts to crumble, and the Old Gods reawaken to sate their primal hunger. It’s a losing battle, but maybe you’ve got what it takes to postpone the inevitable. The end of the world is at hand.

The time has finally come! We’ve just started to announce our plans for this year’s Fantastic Arcade — our first year independently curating, organizing and operating the festival as JUEGOS RANCHEROS, hosted by the Alamo Drafthouse at their newest Mueller theater this November 17-19th (full, three-day passes are available now).

Most excitingly, as we did last year, JUEGOS RANCHEROS has commissioned six games from some of our favorite developers to premiere at the festival in custom mini cabinets, all of which will be simultaneously released worldwide via a bundle on itch.io.

This year’s cabinets will include new games from: Jenny Jiao Hsia, the NYC-based artist behind games like Beglitched and Stellar Smooch, as well as Loren Schmidt, creator of Strawberry Cubes, Realistic Kissing Simulator and the IGF-nominated Star Guard.

We’ll also have a new game from Conor Mccann, the Texas-based artist best known for his Mystic Western Game Jam game Black Gold, and Fernando Ramallo, creator of the Fantastic Arcade favorite interactive music/landscape app Panoramical.

Finally, we’ll have games from Kyle Reimergartin, another Fantastic Arcade mainstay dev behind our long-time favorite Fjords, and Brandon Williamson, known best for Forget-Me-Not, a would-have-been 1980s classic arcade hit, had it not been created just a few short years ago.

Below the fold is the first press release for the upcoming 2017 Arcade with more information on our arcade cabinets and the first ten games we’ve chosen as our Spotlight selections, alongside links, images and videos for all the games detailed below. All of us here are looking forward to seeing you all at this year’s Arcade!

FANTASTIC ARCADE MAKES INDEPENDENT RETURN TO ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE WITH NEW GAMES BY THE CREATORS OF QWOP, TOWERFALL, FTL & MORE

NOVEMBER 17 – 19, 2017
AUSTIN, TEXAS

International Games Festival Premiering Six Custom Created Games Alongside Stellar Lineup Of Underground And Independent Games

AUSTIN, TX – October 9th, 2017 – Organizers of Fantastic Arcade have announced the November 17th return of its yearly festival, which showcases the best in cult and independent games. Now in its eighth year, the latest installment of Fantastic Arcade will feature brand new games from the creators of beloved indie hits like Spelunky, QWOP, and FTL, alongside a wide variety of work from fresh and up-and-coming talent.

For the first time since its founding in 2010, this year’s Fantastic Arcade is being curated, organized and operated entirely by Juegos Rancheros, Austin’s independent games collective, and will be located at the Alamo Drafthouse’s Mueller location — the chain’s newest theater — and its built-in boardwalk carnival-esque bar, the Barrel O Fun.

The collective will be bringing a selection of more than 30 independent games from around the world, alongside custom-built, free-to-play arcade cabinets created for six games. These six games were incubated by Juegos Rancheros from some of the festival’s fan-favorite developers. Ten of its Arcade Spotlight titles are detailed below, along with information about the six developers joining this year’s custom cabinet program.

In addition to the selection of free play games on display and open to the general public at the Barrel O Fun and the upper floors of Alamo Drafthouse Mueller, Fantastic Arcade will once again feature a number of special events, panel discussions, developer talks, and game tournaments from November 17th-19th. Full, three-day passes are available now at the Fantastic Arcade website, and include a downloadable bundle of all six original games being created for this year’s festival, and a ticket to this year’s opening night party.

The 2017 lineup of games have been chosen from hundreds of submissions by Juegos Rancheros, Austin’s independent games collective operated by Adam Saltsman, Wiley Wiggins, Katie Kizziar, Rachel Simone Weil, and Brandon Boyer, alongside Fantastic Arcade Technical Director Joshua Fields.

“We’re excited to premiere another batch of original games as Fantastic Arcade becomes its own stand-alone event,” noted Wiley Wiggins, Juegos Rancheros co-founder and Fantastic Arcade Director. “While there will be plenty of new changes, we’re devoted to maintaining those qualities that have brought developers and attendees back each year. Our goal is to continue to be the best underground videogames party in the universe.”

Dozens more additional games will be announced as part of the full Fantastic Arcade lineup in the coming weeks, alongside a schedule of its special nightly tournaments — an annual fan-favorite tradition — exposition plays, panel discussions, and developer talks.

Tickets for Fantastic Arcade are available now at its website. Now a fully independent festival, Juegos Rancheros would like to remind all attendees, developers and staff that the event is covered by our Safe Spaces Policy, which can be reviewed in its entirety at the Fantastic Arcade website.

This year’s Premiere games will be created by:

Jenny Jiao Hsia

Fresh off the back of her 2016 Fantastic Arcade appearance showcasing her Consume Me collection of body-image minigames, NYC’s Jenny Jiao Hsia — who also is known for her work on games like Beglitched & Stellar Smooch — will be creating a brand new work for Fantastic Arcade.

Loren Schmidt

The creator of games including Strawberry Cubes, Realistic Kissing Simulator, and Star Guard (which was nominated for an Independent Games Festival design award), Schmidt frequently explores procedural generation and the abstract, with a delightful sense of uncanniness even in more traditional platforming and arcade style games.

Conor Mcann

First coming to the attention of the Juegos Rancheros collective when he submitted the incredibly strong short-story game Black Gold to the group’s Mystic Western Game Jam, fellow Texan Mccann captures fantastic surreality, even in short, simple geometric loops. We expect his first arcade game will be a true wonder.

Fernando Ramallo

Ramallo made his Fantastic Arcade debut in 2013 with the interactive landscape/musical tool Panoramical, a game he’d brought along with him as a festival attendee the year prior. Currently working with Google on its Tilt Brush VR art package and now a true Arcade mainstay, Ramallo will be creating brand new work for his arcade cabinet some five years later.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcKV1ahCCLM

Kyle Reimergartin

Reimergartin’s game Fjords — as well as his idiosyncratic live musical performances at multiple iterations of Fantastic Arcade — quickly made him a festival favorite. Reimergartin is currently at work on finishing what is destined to be his new arcade classic, Banana Chalice, which itself earned the Most Fantastic Award at Fantastic Arcade 2014.

Brandon Williamson

Brandon ‘Nyarlu’ Williamson is best known for Forget-Me-Not, a 2011 PC and mobile game that feels every bit like a lost arcade game from the golden years of the early 1980s. This will mark his first appearance at Fantastic Arcade, after going under-represented for far too long.

Game titles, screenshots and other details from these teams’ ongoing work will be revealed closer to their festival debut, when they will be made available as a downloadable bundle on itch.io for purchase worldwide.

In addition, the following ten Arcade Spotlight titles will be highlighted during Fantastic Fest, chosen from the hundreds submitted to this year’s festival.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTrR-2dGFJE

Disco Bear (Brian Handy & Katie Pustolski)

Disco Bear is the heartfelt story of a bear being asked to dance once more.

Untitled Goose Game (House House)

Untitled Goose Game is a stealth & slapstick simulator from House House, creators of Push Me Pull You.

It’s a bit like a nice day out in the park, except you’re a goose, and you’re here to ruin everyone’s nice day out in the park.

Into The Breach (Subset Games)

The remnants of human civilization are threatened by gigantic creatures breeding beneath the earth. You must control powerful mechs from the future to hold off this alien threat. Each attempt to save the world presents a new randomly generated challenge in this turn-based strategy game from the developers of FTL.

Minit (Kitty Calis, Jan Willem Nijman, Jukio Kallio, Dominik Johann)

Minit is a peculiar little adventure played sixty seconds at a time. Journey outside the comfort of your home to help unusual folk, uncover countless secrets, and overcome dangerous foes, all in hopes of lifting a rather unfortunate curse that ends each day after just one minute.

Nidhogg 2 (Messhof)

The wurm has returned and it must feed! Shed your garments and paint the walls with the flesh of your enemies, for only one can be worthy of sacrifice.

The rules are simple. Reach the other side and kill anyone that stands in your way. Deftly parry and rend their throats, riddle their bowels with arrows, or squish their brains between your toes. The wurm cares not for chivalry.

Getting Over It (Bennett Foddy)

Why did I make this? This horrible hike up an impossible mountain. I could have made something you would have liked. A game that was empowering, that would save your progress and inch you steadily forward. Since success is delicious, that would have been wise. Instead, I must confess: This isn’t nice. It tastes of bitterness. It’s capricious, it sets setbacks for the ambitious. It lacks lenience; It’s bracing, and inhumane, but not everyone’s the same. I created this game for a certain kind of person. To hurt them.

Heat Signature (Tom Francis)

Fly your tiny defenceless pod up to larger ships, dock with their airlock, and sneak inside. Once you’re in, you creep through their corridors, ambushing guards, hiding bodies, stealing new weapons, blowing them up from the inside, or hijacking their turrets and even the whole ship.

Celeste (Matt Thorson, Noel Berry, Amora Bettany, Pedro Medeiros, Lena Raine, Power-Up Audio)

Celeste is a platformer about climbing a mountain, from the creators of TowerFall. Uncover the mystery of the mountain’s power and outrun your reflection on your journey to reach the top.

10 Beautiful Postcards (thecatamites)

A “dream computer tripadvisor”, from the creator of Fantastic Arcade favorite, Murder Dog IV: Trial of the Murder Dog.

Bernband (Tom van den Boogaart)

Tom van den Boogaart’s beloved first-person exploration game from 2014 returns in 2017 in a brand new, remastered form.

Want to get the first look at an amazing new game from QWOP and GIRP creator Bennett Foddy? Then be sure to join us Thursday, October 5th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

Foddy’s games are renowned for being equal parts both brutally punishing and brutally hilarious, and Getting Over It is no different. A fantastically self-aware homage to Sexy Hiking — an infamous (and similarly infamously difficult) indie game from the early 2000s — the game tests players ability to traverse a mountain using only the swing of a hammer.

Coming to Humble Monthly on Friday, October 6th (and with a full Steam release in early December), we’ll be giving Austin players their first hands on with Getting Over It, as well as a selection of other classics from Bennett’s back catalog.

Foddy promises “great mysteries and a wonderful reward” to “the master hikers who reach the top of the mountain”. Will we witness an entire run over the course of the night? Why is the man in a pot? These answers may well be answered in just a few days’ time.

You can play Getting Over It Thursday, October 5th, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!

Ready for another look at amazing games from here in Austin and around the world? Then be sure to join us Thursday, September 7th, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents another mixtape of fantastic independent games.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

We’ll be bringing another selection of fantastic new and just-released single and multiplayer games, including a special look at Yo! Noid 2, a perfectly-imagined PlayStation/Nintendo 64-era licensed platformer that never actually was.

Created by an indie team for a recent game jam organized by fans of the videogame site Waypoint, Yo! Noid 2 is an unofficial “sequel” to the NES game released by Capcom in 1990, starring Domino’s Pizza’s almost-forgotten original mascot.

Though every bit as tongue in cheek as, say, the unlicensed output of groups like Arcane Kids, Noid 2 is also an honestly great platformer — one that leads you though pizza-box wormholes into the Noid Void and beyond (which you can get a brief taste of below, courtesy Extra Life).

We’ll have that and other fun surprises Thursday, September 7th, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!

Hey developers! This is your annual warning that submissions for Fantastic Arcade 2017 will be closing in just under two short weeks. If you would like your game to be considered for the festival, please click here to submit it before August 13th, at 11:59 PM Central Time.

We’ve added a countdown timer on our main page so you can keep track of when that is for you, but please don’t wait until the last minute and risk missing the deadline!

[ CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR GAME! ]

The 2017 edition of Fantastic Arcade will be taking place at Austin’s Alamo Drafthouse Mueller, the newest and swankiest of the theaters, from November 17th through the 19th. 3-day passes for the festival itself are available now, which includes a downloadable bundle of games premiering at the show!

You can read about all the changes to this year’s festival right over here.

After the August 13th deadline, the JUEGOS RANCHEROS board will begin the selection process to determine which games from among your submissions will be showcased during Fantastic Arcade. All of the games selected will be accessible to both festival attendees and the general public, for free, in a casual atmosphere of camaraderie and love for games.

We look forward to playing all of your submissions, and especially to seeing you all in November for this year’s Arcade!

Ready for another round of first looks at amazing upcoming games? Then be sure to join us Thursday, August 3rd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents a new mixtape of Summer 2017 favorites.

[ RSVP FOR THIS EVENT AND INVITE YOUR FRIENDS ON FACEBOOK BY CLICKING HERE! ]

We’ll be bringing another selection of fantastic new and just-released single and multiplayer games, including a special sneak peek at a new game from the team that brought you one of 2015’s top action games, Titan Souls.

The Postbirb is dedicated to delivering your letters. pic.twitter.com/TugTgEVDuG

— GLEESON (@_andrio) July 20, 2017

First created for this year’s Train Jam — a week-long game jam which takes place every year on an Amtrak en route from Chicago to San Francisco for the Game Developer’s Conference — Postbirb is a tiny and very cute adventure from Titan Souls creators Andrew Gleeson and David Fenn with art & writing from Kate Gray.

We’ll have that and other fun surprises Thursday, August 3rd, at 7:00PM North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702, with a short introduction at 8:00PM. The show is free, all ages, and open to all the public, so come join us as we drink, play and meet the people changing the way we think about games!