That’s it, Indiecade is over. This is my second conference ever, the first one was GDC earlier this year. A comparison feels apropos.
First of all, the average quality of the speakers at Indiecade does not quite match the incredibly high standards of GDC. But the mood is a different thing entirely. The mood at Indiecade was all about fun. It’s a lot more relaxed. There are much, much fewer people and they seem to be here much more to be here and a lot less because their profession or obligations dictate that they should. Not to say that GDC wasn’t fun and interesting, but the overall “vibe” was more directed, focused. People came to accomplish something and did it. Indiecade was about trying, wandering, discovering, not knowing what to expect.
At GDC, I carefully planned where I wanted to go. At Indiecade, I let myself follow some sort of flow. Some things seemed utterly pointless while some were nothing short of astonishing. There were astonishing things at GDC as well, of course, but the difference was that at Indiecade, the astonishment came without warning, at any time, in any context. Be it about games, technology, general information or just who happened to be in the audience at the time.
Gorogoa, by Jason Roberts
The first wow moment of Indiecade for me was the incredible Gorogoa. It’s a graphical adventure with a mechanic like no other. The innovative nature of its gameplay leaves Loom in the dust. It’s beautiful, moving, fascinating, engaging, surprising and a lot of other good things. It’s, on the other hand, not close to finish and, at the time of writing, quite a bit buggy. The goal of Gorogoa is, apparently, to help a young boy defeat a monster that’s ravaging a city. In order to do this, the boy seems to want to collect color-coded MacGuffins. Nothing too original so far. What makes the game magical is that rather than control a character or his environment, the sets in the game are made of Photoshop or animation cell-like layers and the player gets to re-arrange them to reshape the world, changing the meaning of each shape as it shifts contexts and the meaning of the resulting image. The graphical style of the game is like a nineteenth century engraving, delicate, detailed, organic and understated. It’s a work that could only exist in its medium and that pushes the limits of what I, for one, would have considered within the realm of a single person’s imagination.
Still, I find Gorogoa somehow reminiscent of the experimental works of the French comic book artist, Marc-Antoine Matthieu. Particularly his Julius-Corentin Acquefacques, prisonnier des rêves series as well as his stand-along comic Le Dessin.
Renga, by Wallfour
On Saturday night, I saw a hundred people play Renga by Wallfour. Wallfour, with Renga, has solved what I believe to be a huge problem with many users sending input to a single screen in a way that’s easy to understand: they used laser pointers. A hundred people joined forces to interact with a single using nothing other than laser pointers. The whole experience was fun and riveting. They used a perfect mix of technology and, of all things, stage know-how and dramatic structure.
Super Hexagon, by Terry Cavanagh
Everyone at Indiecade seemed to be playing Super Hexagon, an extremely simple game that got me hooked even though I’m still not sure why. The gameplay is ridiculously simple but irresistibly engaging.
Prom Week and more
The final highlight I want to address here is a project that I believe has a huge future in entertainment in many ways: Prom Week. It was not, however, a surprise because I had tried it before. What was a hugh surprise was that I got to meet Aaron Reed, author of what is probably the most remarkable work of interactive fiction in existence so far, Blue Lacuna. There’s a saying: “don’t meet your heroes.” The meaning is supposed to be, “they’ll never live up to your expectations.” In this case it meant, “He will well beyond your wildest expectations and you’ll make a complete fool of yourself in front of him. Or feel like you did.”
Prom Week has a new interface, which is a huge improvement on the old release. I got to speak with Prom Week team member Ben Samuel whose enthusiasm was infectious. He told me a bit about the engine. I still have high hopes for their engine Comme Il Faut, even though, apparently, it is not available for independent distribution quite yet.
Sill, my main takeaway from Indiecade was to have actually met the author of Blue Lacuna, which, to my great shame, I haven’t finished yet. I should really get done with that.
Emmanuel Eytan :: Storyteller 