| Game | Description | Website | Trailer | Download URL | Primary Contact | Contact Email |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| We should talk. | It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. We should talk is a short-form narrative game that will make players think carefully about the words they choose. Using the sentence spinner, a unique narrative choice mechanic, players craft sentences in response to the in-game characters in We should talk. Through this careful choice of words, players express themselves as they discuss ongoing problems about life and romance with their in-game partner over text messages, while also chatting with friends and strangers at their favorite local bar about what’s on their mind. The combination of words they choose impacts the conversations they have, how genuinely they can connect with their partner, and whether their relationship can survive the night. | http://www.weshouldtalkgame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MotLidp9IxE | https://store.steampowered.com/app/1255990/We_should_talk/ | Carol Mertz | carolmertz@gmail.com |
| Electric Zine Maker | The Electric Zine Maker is a printshop and art toy for making zines. It’s a playful tool somewhere between software-as-art, a net-art project, and a very approachable art program with which you can create cute little things. | http://unicornycopia.com/ezm/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oM_waZiM_50 | https://alienmelon.itch.io/electric-zine-maker | Nathalie Lawhead | nathalie.lawhead@gmail.com |
| The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] | The Eternal Castle [REMASTERED] is a remake of the original “ETERNAL CASTLE” from 1987, with additional game mechanics, sophisticated sound design, polished 2-bit CGA animated graphics, and modernized game design. | http://www.theeternalcastle.net/ | https://youtu.be/OkWdaz6Ut2s | Leonard Menchiari | leonard.menchiari@gmail.com | |
| Floppy Knights | Floppy Knights blends elements of grid-based tactical games with deck building and card collecting in a coming of age adventure about a young inventor named Phoebe and her bionic arm buddy, Carlton. Together, they have the ability to summon quirky companions known as Floppy Knights, who will help them fight monsters and find themselves in the process. | http://floppyknights.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cg_dtccI0VA | Chris Wulf | chris@thoseawesomeguys.com | |
| Skate City | Skate City aims to capture the heart and soul of street skating in an authentic light. Players will have the opportunity to explore three unique cities based off of real-world skate locations, including the streets of Los Angeles, Oslo, and Barcelona. Set to original lo-fi beats, you can ride like a local through each city’s Challenge mode, or take it at your own pace with Endless Skate. | https://skatecitygame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1VBWLA_mHw&feature=emb_title | apple.co/-SkateCity | Owais Akhtar | owais@builtbysnowman.com |
| Davigo | Davigo is an asymmetrical VR vs. PC multiplayer game. One player—in VR—embodies a powerful giant. The other player (or players!) controls a tiny, agile warrior tasked with defeating the giant in battle. As the giant, your goal is to knock the warrior off the stage. Your weapons are your environment and your natural movements. With your powerful hands, you can tear rocks and trees out of the earth and toss them at your foe. You can slam the ground to create powerful shockwaves and fissures. And if the warrior gets too close, you can grab them or swat them away. Protect yourself by dodging the warrior’s attacks or shielding yourself with rocks and trees. As the warrior, your goal is to destroy the giant’s head using projectile weapons and explosives. Bombs can be thrown at close range to keep the giant at a distance. Rockets can be collected from around the stage and can be fired from a much greater distance. Stationary cannons can be triggered to automatically fire at the giant, keeping them on their toes. If you get knocked off the stage, you can attempt to recover by burning a rocket like a jetpack. Davigo was initially inspired by the Japanese anime Attack on Titan. Virtual reality seemed like the perfect fit to recreate the feeling of the elaborate, physical action scenes between the colossal titans and tiny human protagonists. Beyond this, Davigo strives to be a social experience that bridges the gap between VR and PC players. | www.davigogame.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=74Xla432cpM | Robert Koch | rkoch@sfu.ca | |
| Minute of Islands | Minute of Islands is a colourful comic-art adventure and a vibrant tale of transformation and exploration. The game takes players on an adventure through an enigmatic world, set in a strange and beautiful archipelago, polluted by dangerous spores. The only thing keeping the islands safe are mysterious, mechanical-antennas built when Giants lived alongside people. But the machines are now failing, and the only person who can repair them is engineer Mo, and her versatile Omni-Switch. Driven to protect her family and friends, Mo sets out on a quest where she encounters a cast of curious creatures along the way. But, as she explores the depths of the islands and the giants’ history, she will begin to learn that maybe her focus and ambition are not always the assets she believes them to be. It’s this realisation that leads Mo on a different journey of self-discovery, as she learns to accept her weaknesses and let others in and better look after those in her life. It’s a journey that will have players discovering more about the island and Mo, while also having them examine their own lives and priorities. Minute of Islands is brought to vibrant life through its bold comic-book art style. It’s a look that sets the world apart from other games and adds to the charming personality of all of the strange and wonderful characters that Mo meets on her adventures. Features: – Use the wand-like Omni-Switch to solve environmental puzzles – Unravel an emotional, poetic story of self-exploration – Explore a colourful and fantastic world across multiple unique islands – Meet curious characters and uncover the islands’ secrets – Enjoy hand-drawn comic-style visuals and deeply atmospheric soundtrack | https://minute-of-islands.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OMruEYKRtxg | Alexandra Palme | ap@mixtvision.de | |
| Honey & Hot Wax: An Anthology of Erotic Art Games | An anthology of tabletop roleplaying games and LARPs themed on sex & sexuality. Some of the games focus on discussing the role of sex in society, while others explore how sex acts can be used as game mechanics. The games: In the Clefts of the Rock A surrealist game about touching each other’s bodies as explorers while imagining them to be other, fantastical worlds. Follow My Lead An exploration of kink and negotiation where you play dominants and submissives searching for your ideal partners by leading them blindfolded through space. Feeding Lucy Based on the novel “Draculaâ€. Play Lucy (whose body and desires are policed by society to be “pureâ€) or Dracula (who, in feeding off Lucy’s latent desires, seeks to help her free herself to join the creatures of the night). The Sleepover Play as adolescents learning and sharing knowledge about sex, sexuality, and gender. Explore how you take what you’ve heard from others and figure out what is true for you. Pop! Play as people who love and have sex with balloons. Build community and culture in cyberspace! The Echo of the Unsaid Two ostensibly straight college boys explore sexual tension and possible romantic attraction. You tell the story of sex by not talking about it, letting silence speak volumes. You Inside Us A romance for two people in one body. Play as a human host and the alien symbiote living inside them, sharing their senses. Learn new ways to touch and feel, letting yourselves blur together until it’s hard to say where one ends and the other begins. Pass the Sugar, Please Strangers meet for afternoon tea only to realize that they hooked up with someone there at a secret BDSM party. Can you convey messages about your intimate experiences using only descriptions of the food? | https://site.pelgranepress.com/index.php/honey-hot-wax-an-anthology-of-erotic-art-games/ | https://youtu.be/aCHHfhaOKiA | https://astrolingus.itch.io/honey-hot-wax-draft | Sharang Biswas | sharang.biswas@gmail.com |
| Lucifer Within Us | You are a digital exorcist, seeing beyond this reality into alternate timelines of the accused. Solve murders, purify the possessed, and purge their daemons. Lucifer Within Us asks you to solve non-linear, story rich mysteries with your wits, making observations and deductions in a world of daemonic possession and invasive soul-scanning technology. Investigate timelines | http://www.kitfoxgames.com/en | https://youtu.be/uUVIepHmMJw | Victoria Tran | victoria@kitfoxgames.com | |
| Tangle Tower | Tangle Tower is a murder-mystery detective adventure game! Unravel a thrilling mystery by exploring a strange and twisted mansion, discovering curious clues, interrogating peculiar suspects and solving unique puzzles. In the game, playing as a pair of detectives named Grimoire and Sally, you’re free to move between the many areas of the house and gardens, each with a detailed, digitally painted background. Sometimes you’ll find clues to add to your case file, sometimes you’ll find a puzzle to solve – which usually means one of the suspects is trying to hide something. The suspects themselves are the primary focus of the game. There are eight in total, each is fully animated and voice acted. Your job is to discover which one of them murdered the young artist Freya Fellow. You can talk to the suspects about a large array of subjects – of course, there is some essential information to collect, such as each suspect’s statement of what they were doing during the murder. But perhaps you’ll actually learn more by asking the suspects about any one of the clues you’ve collected, or asking them about each other – most of them are related, so it seems likely that they’ve formed pretty strong opinions of each other… Everyone living at Tangle Tower has a secret or two. You’ll slowly unravel a much larger story surrounding the murder mystery, dealing with themes of family lineage, isolation, living up to expectations, and the search for personal freedom. In terms on genre, our primary inspirations were the Ace Attorney series and the Professor Layton series – character-driven mystery stories with elements of traditional point-and-click interactions. As for the tone, I like to think of it as a classic adventure story – not too dissimilar from something you might find in a Tintin comic. | http://sfbgames.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMV3Sf_P71U | Tom Vian | tom@sfbgames.com | |
| Aria | Aria is a story-based emotional VR sitting experience, built in the Unity engine with a first-person view. It contains exciting pod driving in the space, puzzle-solving to dealing with problems during the journey and the emotional connection with the AI assistant – Aria. | https://leaves.itch.io/aria | https://vimeo.com/389894973 | https://leaves.itch.io/aria | Rong Deng | rongdeng@usc.edu |
| Wide Ocean Big Jacket | Take part in a classic camping trip: Roast hot dogs on the fire, go birdwatching, tell ghost stories, grab a beverage from the cooler and do cartwheels on the beach. WOBJ is a short story game including 20 chapters, 4 playable characters, 10,000 words of dialog and 8 explorable areas, all rendered in a beautiful 2D/3D art style. | https://wideoceanbigjacket.com/ | https://youtu.be/cAaGxw2N8Ns | https://turnfollow.itch.io/wide-ocean-big-jacket/download/YcUtoOrOSRvGjLLZRJTDObuUnEK4sDA6BlddkgEg | Carter Lodwick | turnfollow@gmail.com |
| Unheard | What if you could hear every word spoken at the scene of a crime? “Acoustic Detectives†wanted for testing our new device! Return aurally to crime scenes and use the voices you hear to identify potential suspects and solve the mysteries. What is it that’s connecting these seemingly unrelated cases? | NULL | NULL | https://store.steampowered.com/app/942970/Unheard/ | Di Zhu | gamesteam@bilibili.com |
| Paradise Killer | An island outside of reality. A rogue human civilization hoping to resurrect dead alien gods. A murder behind locked doors. Paradise is an island that regenerates every few millennia. The psychic power that the alien worshippers within release into the universe is meant to feed and eventually resurrect their fallen deities. But this force also attracts undesired interest from demons, who eventually corrupt each island — until a new alternate reality is birthed by the Council. The system isn’t perfect, but it will be one day — on Perfect 25, the next island-to-be. But on the eve of rebirth, the Council is murdered and Paradise is killed. In the aftermath, the “investigation freak†Lady Love Dies is summoned from exile to find the culprit. This is the crime to end all crimes. What are the facts? What are the truths? Are they the same? | http://paradisekiller.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7QBB_VDz3c | Suzanne Wallace | suzanne@fellowtraveller.games | |
| Lost Words: Beyond the Page | Lost Words is an award winning atmospheric puzzler featuring a story written by Rhianna Pratchett. The game is set in the pages of a young girl’s diary and sees players using words to solve puzzles based on their meaning as well as making choices that help shape the story. Life isn’t easy for 12-year-old Isabelle ‘Izzy’. When her beloved grandmother suffers a stroke, Izzy uses her diary and the fantasy world she is writing about as a means to cope with what’s going on in the real world. | http://lostwordsgame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcX96Q6ZIu4 | Mark Backler | mbackler@outlook.com | |
| Secret Oops! | Secret Oops! is an innovative cooperative local multiplayer Augmented Reality game where players try to make sure that the world’s dumbest spy isn’t detected. When a new threat arises and briefcases start to disappear all over the world, the S.P.Y. Agency, the only agency in the world run by robotic pigeons, sends its best agent to investigate: Special Agent Charles. Charles is the best spy in the world but… he’s also as dumb as a rock. Security cameras? Deadly traps? Dangerous robot-guards? Charles will happily trigger them all. Luckily you and your friends are here, ready to help him! Thanks to the latest hacking device, the Spymatic 3000, you’ll be able to interact with the world remotely and disable the security systems, helping Charles to accomplish his mission. But remember, you’ll need careful planning and perfect coordination between all the players to succeed: communication is the key! Secret Oops! has been heavily inspired by classic local multiplayer games like Overcooked and Space Team. | http://www.secretoops.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mk6gGXhRzD8 | Mauro Fanelli | mauro@mixedbag.it | |
| Beyond Blue | Beyond Blue is a single-player narrative adventure that takes you deep into our planet’s beating blue heart. Set in the near future, Beyond Blue explores the mysteries of our ocean through the eyes of Mirai, a deep sea explorer and scientist. Become a part of a newly-formed research team using groundbreaking technologies to see, hear, and interact with the ocean in a more meaningful way than has ever been attempted. Features: An evocative narrative with full voice cast – Anna Akana (YouTube), Mira Furlan (Lost, Babylon 5), Hakeem Kae-Kazim (Black Sails, Hotel Rwanda), and Ally Maki (Toy Story 4) Exploration of an untouched world An adventure that challenges you with high-stakes decisions that have consequences A captivating and entertaining soundtrack featuring an original score and music from Miles Davis, The Flaming Lips, The Edisons, and more Seventeen unique mini-documentaries called Ocean Insights that feature original footage and interviews with science’s leading ocean experts Embracing the same inclusive development process that was used to create Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna), E-Line’s BAFTA award-winning game about Alaska Native culture, the company partnered with BBC Studios (developers of the acclaimed Blue Planet II), OceanX Media, world-class game makers, and some of science’s leading ocean experts to craft an experience that reflects the awesome wonder and unbounded mystery that infuses our planet’s beating blue heart. | https://beyondbluegame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFzaXnxvO3Q | Steve Zimmermann | szimmermann@elinemedia.com | |
| Signal Decay | Signal Decay is a co-op stealth action roguelike emphasizing on communication and coordination set in a cyberpunk universe. Signal Decay is where XCOM meets Monaco: Players team up together to infiltrate enemy bases to destroy hypnotizing machines — Broadcasters, and leave the bases safely. Players also pilot a mothership around the world to customize their ops between missions. Signal Decay is a strategy game in disguise. In each procedural mission, players encounter with a series of emergent problems. They must find a path to solve or avoid challenges to reach the goal, while collecting resources and information. With all the information shared in the top-down perspective, players have to not only master coordinated combat, but also manage information and time. From moment to moment, players should decide to stick together for imminent challenges or to separate in order to gain line of sights and explore the floor. The weapons and gadgets that players equip with give players different abilities and actions. Each weapon and gadget functions in a unique way with different mechanics, e.g. shooting from behind, stunning, shielding, pushing, luring, detecting, operating, etc. These enable players to co-op in different ways. Players plan out a team attack based on their available actions and improvise when anything goes wrong. The ideal plans vary with different load-outs even under the same situation. Between missions players pilot their mothership to find the next mission and make new weapons and gadgets on the tech tree to counter new enemies in the next mission. Each task takes time to complete. Players arrange the tasks in the timeline before arriving at the next mission. Because of permadeath, as pressure goes up when you go further and further in a run, the cooperative experience emerges in an even more intense way. | signaldecaygame.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E95YGKCErQo | https://zacx-z.itch.io/signal-decay | Zack Zhang | zacx.zh@gmail.com |
| The Everyone Shares One Butt Game | This is THE EVERYONE SHARES ONE BUTT GAME! You and up to three other players are torsos that want to complete their bodies by connecting to the only butt in the world! Build your stomach and sabotage your opponents to be the first one to reach the Almighty Butt in this unpredictable path-building party game! | https://www.everyonesharesonebuttgame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijbM09TWC_U | Brian Kim | brianminjaekim@gmail.com | |
| Gamer Girl | Gamer Girl is a harassment simulator that forces the player through uncomfortable interactions with students studying game design and development. The player takes on the role of a female student in her second year of a game-based degree who is in an all-male programming class. Based on real interviews with women majoring in Game Design and Development at the Rochester Institute of Technology, Gamer Girl challenges its players to navigate complex dialogue webs that always seem to be stacked against them while attempting to maintain their academics, their reputation, and their sanity. The game forces the player to choose one of five classmates to work with on a semester-long project. The five classmates are based off patterns of abuse identified as common threads throughout our interviewees’ stories. Each character harasses the player in their own way – through physical intimidation, emotional manipulation, stalker-like behavior, negging the player, and angry outbursts. Just like in real life, there is no way to ‘win’ any specific conversation. The game tracks how the player interacts with their chosen project partner and often forces players into bad situations due to their actions. If you are too kind to your partner, they will talk down to you, dismiss your ideas, or even ask you out. If you are too assertive, they will fight back against everything you say, going so far as to threaten violence to keep you in line. The goal of the game is to educate non-predatory men who are studying games about the constant stress their female peers are under. While Gamer Girl does not claim to offer some sort of magical fix-all answer to the sexism running rampant in the games industry, it has been an incredibly effective tool for teaching students how to step up and protect vulnerable women. | http://www.gamergirl.games/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vX1LnqLvA0Y | Emily Turner | ekt6170@g.rit.edu | |
| Down the Rabbit Hole | Down the Rabbit Hole is a VR adventure set in Wonderland prior to Alice’s arrival. You will guide a girl who is looking for her lost pet by solving puzzles, uncovering secrets and making choices about the story along the way. | https://downtherabbitholegame.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRnb0OjBx1o | Vanessa Andersson | vanessa.andersson@beyondframes.com | |
| Star Dynasties | Star Dynasties is a sci-fi strategy game set in a divided galaxy following the destruction of Earth. The game mixes a light empire management strategy layer with a procedurally generated narrative of human drama and feudal politics. Humanity had just taken its first tentative steps in space, when the catastrophic destruction of Earth plunges the galaxy into a new Dark Age. Centuries later, the surviving colonies have stabilised into a simple feudal society, unable to comprehend or advance the technological artefacts they use to survive. Internecine fights between an aristocratic elite decide the fate of the scattered fragments of human kind. As the leader of a faction of star systems, you must seek to ensure the survival and prosperity of your dynasty. Expand your empire, herd your unruly vassals, build political alliances, and navigate a web of agendas, political intrigue and social obligations, to emerge as the dominant power of the galaxy. Features – Take on the role of the head of a political family through multiple generations, and lead it to dominance over the remnants of human civilization – Experience an emergent narrative of personal and political drama – Uphold the traditions and laws of society and earn a reputation for honor, or seize power and risk turning the galaxy against you – Interact with hundreds of characters with realistic personalities, emotions, and relationships – Punish those that have wronged you, and reward your allies | https://stardynasties.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtWOgMD7Y48 | Glen Pawley | glenpawley@stardynasties.com | |
| Journey of the Broken Circle | A narrative platformer game In this beautiful, fun and intriguing game the imperfect Circle sets out on an existential journey to look for something to complete it. By overcoming obstacles, meeting NPCs with different personalities and discovering new places, the Circle grows and develops as a character. It learns about the world and itself, and we, along with it. With a deep story that throws the main character into a self-discovering journey makes ‘Journey of the Broken Circle’ a rewarding and different kind of game. | lovablehatcult.dk | https://vimeo.com/417221921?utm_source=email&utm_medium=vimeo-cliptranscode-201504&utm_campaign=28749 | Andrea Brasch | andrea@lovablehatcult.dk | |
| Mutazione | Mutazione is a beautifully illustrated narrative-driven 2D adventure game that follows 15 year- old Kai, as she visits a strange and isolated community known as ‘Mutazione’. Kai leaves home to visit her dying grandfather, Nonno, for the first time. He is the mysterious Shaman of Mutazione, and unbeknownst to Kai, looking to train a successor. As the game progresses Kai will find new friends, gossip, intrigue, conflict, and seven magical musical gardens – with a beautiful generative soundtrack – which she must grow and tend to each day. But the problems run deeper than Nonno can say, and as things take a turn for the worse, Kai must discover the mysteries about the history of Mutazione in order to save both Nonno, and all of her new friends. | https://gutefabrik.com/index.html | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OnTQMKuiZTQ | Chris Nguyen | chris@akuparagames.com | |
| Queer Quest: All in a Gay’s Work | Queer Quest is a point-and-clit adventure, think gay Monkey’s Island meets a feminist Leisure Suit Larry. You play Lupe, a long haired butch with a heart of gold. Her girlfriend, Alexis, has gone missing and it’s up to Lupe to get to the bottom of things. Traverse the gayborhood solving puzzles ranging from crossing the naked bike ride to making hungover nachos. This game is a little slice of life and a love letter to the queer community. | queermogames.com | https://youtu.be/lrQrmG_RFks | https://queermogames.itch.io/queer-quest-demo | Mo | boss@queermogames.com |
| Endlight | Smash a concrete whirlwind | http://bigpants.ca/endlight/ | NotYet | Jim McGinley | jim@bigpants.ca | |
| Thousand Year Old Vampire | Thousand Year Old Vampire is a novel solo story-based role-playing game usually played in a physical journaling format. The game asks what it means to live for a thousand years and the very memories of the character are tokens that can be lost in game play. The character has a will of its own and will thwart the intentions of the player. It’s sad, disturbing, and infinitely replayable. | thousandyearoldvampire.com | i’llmakeoneavailableuponrequest | Tim Hutchings | dearleadergame@gmail.com | |
| Brukel | Brukel is a walking simulator that explores the childhood and teenage years of my grandmother, Bie Verlinden. She was born at the Brukel farmhouse in 1925, which is where the entire game takes place. While designing the game, I interviewed and recorded my grandmother reminiscing about her life at the farmhouse for over 5 hours, and these stories provided the foundation for the game – as well as most of its spoken audio. The game itself lets players explore the abandoned farmhouse and take pictures with their smartphone to hear Bie’s stories that are connected to some of the old objects that are still in the farmhouse. However, after midnight, the house reveals its World War 2 history as players are forced to relive some of the traumatic events that Bie and her family had to live through. | http://www.brukelgame.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQecghIYPXI | http://www.brukelgame.com | Bob De Schutter | bobdeschutter6@gmail.com |
| Mantis Falls (a game of trust) | Mantis Falls is a hidden traitor tabletop game for 2-3 players. The game is set in the dark, mafia-ruled mountain town of Mantis Falls. You have been witness to something you were not meant to see and now people are coming for you. You have some trusted friends who know of another witness in a similar situation; they’re arranging for the two of you to meet and protect each other on the dangerous journey out of town. But when you meet your companion you realize you aren’t certain this person actually is the witness that was sent. Perhaps this person killed that witness, and is here to kill you as well. Mantis Falls is an immersive and highly interactive hand-management game in which play is either truly cooperative or a fight to the death…and witnesses don’t know which version they are playing. If there is no traitor, witnesses must survive the night and escape the town together to win. A coop win requires trust to prevail over events and actions designed to breed suspicion. Assassins, however, will hide themselves behind seeming good deeds until the right moment, at which point witnesses must transition from protecting their companion to fighting for their lives. Mantis Falls is a game in which strategic decision making must constantly walk the line between self-protection and self-sacrifice. It was built to simulate a important truths about life; that often we must depend on people we don’t truly trust, and that having that leap of faith tested and rewarded, even in the context of a game, is a genuine and cathartic experience. | http://www.distantrabbitgames.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFGHd0KayxU | Julianne Bierwirth | info@distantrabbitgames.com | |
| Tales By Candlelight | GAMIFIED IMMERSIVE PERFORMANCE: Based on tabletop RPG (10 Candles, D&D, etc.) participants collaborate with a storyteller to tell a story through their sense of smell. This can be applied to world-building or character generation for any RPG, story or creative endeavor. Depending on tiered orders, participants may receive a custom-made, scented Cantrip Candle with the scents of their story, customized tea lights, or a scented narrative fragrance card. | TalesByCandlelight.com | https://youtu.be/XYId3q9vj6w | Spencer Williams | spencer@towalkthenight.com | |
| Labyrinthe City | Labyrinthe City is a 2D puzzle video game where players have to find their way through huge mazes to catch Mr. X, an infamous thief who stole the Maze Stone. The players can explore each level to find all the collectibles, solve the mini-games and talk to all the characters to discover the story of Opera City. Labyrinthe City is adapted from the bestselling book: Pierre the Maze Detective. ?Take a trip through a fantastic world of amazing cities, tree-top towns and haunted houses. Trace your way through each maze, spot the clues and solve the extra mystery challenges along the way. Hours of fun, for all maze detectives! | https://www.labyrinthecity.fr/ | https://vimeo.com/332642642 | Léa Pernot | pernot.lea@gmail.com | |
| Zenith Junction | Zenith Junciton is a digital deck-building RPG where players use tiny sets of cards to defeat massive foes. Zenith Junction takes deck-building strategy to the next level; not only do players craft their decks both in and outside of battle, but each turn they split their cards into three “engines,” making the best possible combination to outsmart the enemy. Zenith Junction bridges the gap between tabletop and digital card games- and does it all on top of a runaway train. | https://dnelk.itch.io/zenith-junction | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iA-FMb-MSmU | https://dnelk.itch.io/zenith-junction | Dylan Nelkin | dylannelkin@gmail.com |
| Terrarium: An Alternate Reality Game | Terrarium is an alternate reality game (ARG) scaled for approximately 1,700 players during the University of Chicago orientation for first-year students in 2019. This five-month experience used transmedia storytelling and gameplay to increase engagement with climate change. Terrarium was an experiment in mixed reality storytelling that combined the streaming platform Twitch, Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) software for live streaming, live-action performance, video game mechanics, team-based scavenger hunt tasks, and transmedia puzzles that stretched across websites and augmented reality experiences. Our mixed reality platform allowed users to engage in real-time text interactions with performers who respond via voice, text, or gestures in a designed environment. Through several phases, this ARG invited players to participate in co-imagining a preferable climate future. In May, players discovered “wormholes†that initiated a large-scale online scavenger hunt and transmedia puzzle trail. Following two months of intensive play and coordination via Discord, players began interacting with characters from four versions of 2049 who were trapped in “inverse escape rooms†accessible only via Twitch. In order to facilitate character escapes, players solved multimedia puzzles, improvised interactions, and played live-action networked games. The game used asymmetrical cooperation mechanics that connected live characters with players, who had different information to share via Twitch chat. While the entire game was focused on climate change, the four future scenarios adopted themes of CO2 emissions, nuclear disaster, surveillance, and population growth. The experience culminated in September with the live “Futures Design Challenge” in which players pitched ideas linked to the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and arts that could combat climate change. Terrarium combines a site-specific experience that is personalized and improvised with a flexible design that can be replicated and distributed digitally across contexts. The following short documentary demonstrates the overall design and levels of Terrarium: https://vimeo.com/398398843. | http://www.patrickjagoda.com/projects/terrarium | https://vimeo.com/398395023 | Patrick Jagoda | patrick.jagoda@gmail.com | |
| Sin Sol / No Sun | Sin Sol / No Sun is an augmented reality art game about a woman who is stuck inside, because of wildfire smoke. The game allows users to experience the feelings of a climate change event, in order to deeply consider how climate change disproportionately effects immigrants, trans people and disabled people. Players can see and hear a story told through poetry about living through climate change induced wildfires, from a trans latinx AI hologram, Aura. The main mechanic is walking through the AR environment to encounter holograms of Aura. Set fifty years in the future, Aura tells the story of environmental collapse from the past, which is our present in 2020. Part environmental archiving project, the environments in the game include 3-D LIDAR scans of forests from the Pacific Northwest. Following Donna Haraway’s urging to stay with the trouble, Sin Sol asks players to be with the grief caused by climate change. The game is based on my personal experience of living near the 2017 wildfires in British Columbia, and my research into the ways climate change harms people of color, low income people and immigrants. My primary inspiration is Chicana poet Gloria Anzaldúa, who brilliantly combines theory and poetry, describing the borderland as a site of knowledge for queer, trans, disabled and othered people. Anzaldúa’s engagement with land inspires me to consider environmental trauma through personal trauma. Other inspirations include the games Firewatch and Sayonara Wild Hearts, and the artists VNS Matrix and Stephanie Dinkins. “If anyone is left who can hear this any android goddesses any rebellious holograms any sad, angry, dancing, traumatized but hopeful AI REJECT YOUR PROGRAMMING INTERRUPT ALGORITHMS OF DAILY RITUAL THIS IS NOT A NORMAL RUNTIME ENVIRONMENT we must end this so called order†– Excerpt from Sin Sol | https://criticalrealities.sites.ucsc.edu/ | https://vimeo.com/424403639/223fb7f772 | micha cárdenas | michacardenas@ucsc.edu | |
| Swordswallower | Swordswallower is a surreal, psych-goth action platformer where players traverse and fight only by throwing their massive enchanted sword. The player can’t jump, instead launching their sword into the environment and pulling themselves toward it with tremendous force. Around this unique mechanic is built a mysterious and hostile fantasy world that unfolds in every direction. This vast and intricate environment requires players to be constantly on their toes, and the speed and ferocity of the game means anything and everything is a potentially deadly threat. You play an enslaved sculptor, who has spent years locked in a tower sculpting statues of her master. When she suddenly finds herself inhabiting one of her statues, she escapes, and sets out seeking revenge and answers. During her pursuit, she will switch bodies repeatedly, with each body being a progressively more disturbing projection of her subconscious. The game plays out like a psychedelic thriller that explores the character’s perception of herself and her place in this dreamlike world. Swordswallower is part of the 2020 NYU Game Center Incubator, a highly competitive program that financially supports developers to work full-time during the summer. We are currently looking for a publisher to both support us while we finish the game and distribute it when it’s finished next year. | https://utiazulay.itch.io/swordswallower | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UV6YglXkevE | https://utiazulay.itch.io/swordswallower | Uti Azulay | agustin.azulay@gmail.com |
| Hexagroove: Tactical DJ | Hexagroove combines elements of strategy, rhythm, and action games in a unique blend of self-expression. Your goal as a DJ is to combine musical loops in real time to regulate a virtual audience’s energy, working them into a state of euphoria with your artistic skills. The action swings from contemplative to frantic as you move between song sections in one of eleven dance music genres. Over time you’ll unlock new musical loops, DJ tricks, and club venues to play in. Perform together with friends in your room or on the dance floor with this truly creative title. The game draws influences from rhythm games like Gitaroo Man, as well card-based titles like DropMix, and real-life challenges of remix artists and DJs. | https://ichigoichie.org | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3J4JyEoo_U | David Ventura | dev@ichigoichie.org | |
| Curious Expedition 2 | Curious Expedition 2 is the follow-up to the popular expedition simulation, which was selected by Rock, Paper, Shotgun as “Best Roguelike Game of 2016â€. Featuring a brand new art style, improved gameplay and vastly expanded content, this sequel aims to provide hours of unique adventures to existing and new fans alike. A grand discovery has been made: mysterious islands that have begun to appear and vanish from the Atlantic as if by magic. The great Explorer Clubs are funding expeditions to these strange islands to bring treasures back for the 1889 World’s Fair in Paris. Are you bold enough to join the adventure? | http://maschinen-mensch.com/ | https://youtu.be/wC43-xmjl9w | Lorenzo Pilia | lorenzo@maschinen-mensch.com | |
| Morse | Step into the shoes of Ida Brockett, a working class telegraphist using timing, tactics, teamwork and telecommunications to break the attrition of the Great War. Batter trenches, sink ships and shred recon planes all whilst learning a lost language. In between your shifts, wander the grounds of the manor in-between and get to know the other women working on the base. Can you change the world with the push of a button? .– …. .- – / …. .- – …. / –. — -.. / .– .-. — ..- –. …. – Morse is a minimalist strategy game with rich narrative elements currently in development for Mobile and Desktop. The game orients around using Morse Code to send transmissions, calling down artillery strikes on land, air and sea. As you tap out dots/dashes and create up to 36 different combinations of code, you’ll become more proficient at the language and in turn discover secrets, decode messages and unlock missions. The game itself is accompanied by a wooden cabinet housing a custom controller, which allows a much more tactile and cathartic experience of pushing spring loaded buttons and tapping away on a makeshift Morse Key. A major inspiration for the project came from historian Mar Hicks, who wrote “Programmed Inequalityâ€, a book about the prominent role women played in the rise of computing, their historical erasure and how the dismissal of the majority female workforce contributed to the collapse of the British computing industry. | https://alexvscoding.itch.io/morse | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xaOfBSNJv0 | https://alexvscoding.itch.io/morse-web?secret=H11t37wEPzxWfTps9UuGlHoac | Alexander Johansson | alexjohansson@hotmail.co.uk |
| CHANGE: A Homeless Survival Experience | CHANGE is an emotional homeless survival experience set in a randomly generated city with rogue-like elements. Explore, survive, earn perks, find items and kindness to develop your character and escape to a new life. | https://www.delveinteractive.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqXUls867o8 | https://store.steampowered.com/app/926140/CHANGE_A_Homeless_Survival_Experience/ | Danny Hayes | danhayesgamer@gmail.com |
| Starstruck: Hands of Time | Starstruck: Hands of Time is a story-rich, genre-defying roleplaying rhythm adventure where you play guitar and explore a miniature diorama world as two guitarist claymation kids, and then help them progress by rampaging around their city as a giant destructive time-travelling hand. Race against time together as all three protagonists to rewrite history and defeat “The Mold”. Save the World of 1000 Years Ago In 30XX, Earth is no more. In its place, a repressed façade corrupted by a mysterious force called “The Mold†lingers. To save the world, a moon colonist travels back in time 1000 years to a pivotal moment in Earth’s history, armed only with their own hand, a charming spaceship computer, and the knowledge two children in this time period are critically important to Earth’s history. Play Along to the Rhythm Explore a miniature diorama world as Edwin and Dawn, two musical children whose stories are bound to the fate of the planet. Play guitar to a genre-spanning original soundtrack, from prog rock and metal to pop ballads, featuring live instrumentals and vocals. Strum along to their epic musical journey in a story about idolization and following your own path. Lend a Helping Hand Reach into the lives of Edwin and Dawn with a giant, rampaging human hand — your own! Stomp around their city as a giant disembodied hand, solving puzzles as the omnipresent moon colonist. Open new paths, remove obstacles, and change their world to save your own. Switch perspectives between all three protagonists to uncover the truth of what happened to Earth and change the future. Inspirations – Love-de-lic (Chulip, UFO: A Day in the Life, etc) – Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood – Jacques Tati | http://playstarstruck.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-z8ecski_8 | https://store.steampowered.com/app/1297720/Starstruck_Prologue/ | Max Ponoroff | max@createdelic.com |
| Propaganda | Propaganda is a board game that unravels the contemporary methods of control and manipulation that structure what we accept as reality. Grasping current events from the perspective of a propagandist, players establish loyalties and target audiences in order to build power – for power produces and silences ‘truths’ – and increase the number of followers, which will make their perspective win. Beside strategic decisions, players encounter lucky and unlucky moments extracted from our post-truth era, including hashtag movements, conspiracy theories, and data protection laws. Propaganda ultimately suggests that one story is not the only story, but a story that happened to win the game of propaganda. | https://www.sindibreshani.com/propaganda-game | https://vimeo.com/307157870 | Sindi Breshani | sindi.breshani@network.rca.ac.uk | |
| I Was a Teenage Exocolonist | Spend your teenage years on an alien planet in this narrative life sim with card-based battles. Explore, grow up, and fall in love. The choices you make and skills you master over ten years will determine the course of your life and the survival of your colony. | http://exocolonist.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DmbxPmji7Y | Sarah Northway | sarahnorthway@gmail.com | |
| Operation: Tango | It takes two to save the world in this Asymmetrical Spy Thriller. Pair up with a friend as a special agent or elite hacker, and work together to bring a high-tech global menace to its knees. As an exclusive team of two, you and your partner will become AGENT and HACKER, working together to infiltrate, investigate, and eradicate the forces threatening the free world. Work in tandem from two different points of view with only your voice to link you. Teamwork is crucial, and communication is key! Superior Teamwork – Be observant, keep talking, and make sure nothing explodes. Combine complementary skill-sets to overcome intense challenges against “impossible” odds. Authentic Espionage – Exotic locations filled with thrilling scenarios create classic “Hollywood†spy moments. Experience the ultimate secret agent fantasy! Technological Toys – Enjoy the visual splendor and technological advances of a fully-connected augmented world. Innovative Brainteasers – Overcome obstacles in ways you’ve never dreamed. Each mission features unique challenges, keeping you and your partner on your toes while delivering some of the most satisfying “eureka!” moments in modern gaming. | http://www.clever-plays.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP65Hn4I4BQ | Mattieu Bégin | matt@clever-plays.com | |
| Mini Motorways | Mini Motorways is a minimalist traffic simulator, the spiritual successor to Mini Metro. Build a road network, one road at a time, to create a bustling metropolis. Redesign your city to keep the traffic flowing, and carefully manage upgrades to meet the changing demands of your city and terrain. Inspired by the hectic flow of real-life traffic, Mini Motorways allows players to design a spawn-reactive road grid in a world of bright, stylized houses and businesses. The game is accessible and simple on the surface, but has complex underlying mechanics that make it a challenging responsive puzzler—it grows more complex the better you get at it. | www.dinopoloclub.com | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boWKCXoeH_U | Casey Lucas-Quaid | casey@dinopoloclub.com | |
| NUTS | Gear up your caravan, spread out your map and head for the depths of Melmoth Forest, where you’ll track the movements of native squirrels. Where do they go? What do they do? And why is it that they behave so strangely? Explore the forest. Record the squirrels. Report your findings… and uncover the secret at the very heart of the forest. | http://nuts.game | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qnl5iorDdmQ | Joon Van Hove | joon@joon.be | |
| ‘ye or Nay? | The original Guess Who? is a tabletop game where players compete to be the first to identify a mystery character by asking a series of yes or no questions. Guess Who? features a broad range of facial features, multiple races and two genders because it is focused on finding binary distinctions. ‘ye or Nay? maintains the same rule structure, but subverts the original game by depicting only Black men. In ‘ye or Nay? players are asked to identify what is unique about each Black man, an identity category that games have traditionally treated as one-note caricature. Additionally, a gender binary is replaced by the more realistic binary of being Kanye West or not being Kanye West. | http://prettydarke.cool | https://vimeo.com/434249665 | http://yeornay.cool | A.M. Darke | darke@ucsc.edu |
| Nine Witches: Family Disruption | This alternate-history occult pixel art adventure game invites players to join the unlikely heroes, Professor Alexei Krakovitz and his capable assistant, Akiro Kagasawa, as they set out to investigate reports of witchcraft in the rustic Norwegian village of Sundäe and put an end to the Nazi’s hellish machinations. Soak in the Scandinavian scenery, brought to life with beautiful, retro-inspired pixel art, and a comical story dripping with gleefully absurd, dark humor. – Single player, dual character action-adventure with puzzle-solving elements. – Truly original story (99.99999999999% guaranteed.) – Beautifully retro-pixel style artwork. – Join professor Alexei Krakovitz and his loyal Japanese assistant, Akiro Kagasawa, in their heroic crusade against the Nazis. – Meet a quirky cast of strange characters (60+). – Visit the astral plane and talk with the dead. – Over 60+ locations to explore and 50+ inventory objects. | https://www.indiesruption.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oi-YDlfHeHU&feature=youtu.be | Diego Hernan Canepa | diegohcanepa@gmail.com | |
| ARCANA | ARCANA was a horror ARG that ran online in May of 2020. Players began by following the instagram of an artist named Jade. Struggling with loneliness and tortured by nightmares, Jade began making art pieces that contain puzzles, which the players in turn help her solve. But what starts as a harmless act of voyeurism slowly transforms into a darker tale of possession and rage. Over its four-week run, ARCANA expanded across multiple social media platforms and websites, involving multiple characters and even digging into a real piece of Los Angeles true crime history. | http://www.arcana-game.com | http://www.arcana-game.com | Eva Anderson | aotwitches@gmail.com | |
| Pirates and Lasers | Pirates & Lasers is a strategic struggle between ghost pirates and incompetent laser-wielding tourists. Keep the ship sailing as long as you can while lasers tear your ship asunder, managing resources and preventing damage to critical areas. Pirates & Lasers is played on Blinks, a smart tabletop game system. It is a turn-based, resource-management game that can be played as a one-person puzzle game or a two-person strategy game. The board is dynamically rearranged every turn to mitigate damage to and distribute resources across the pieces. | https://move38.com/ | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DjTRVFmV3BU | Ian Cummins | ianmcummins99@gmail.com | |
| Radio General | Inspiration: as a Canadian, I’ve always felt my country’s contribution to WWII to be criminally under-represented. Games are always about the U.S, Soviet Union and Britain (and we get lumped in with Britain). We actually contributed a HUGE amount compared to our population, and I wanted to create a realistic game to educate people about the horrors of war, the difficulties command, and Canada’s contribution. This game is currently being used in history classes of several highschools in my hometown (offered freely, of course). Description: Radio General is a real-time strategy game where you can’t see your units. Instead you talk with them over the radio. You receive verbal reports, and then issue orders back. Unfortunately for you, war is confusing. Your units won’t always know what’s going on, and you must make tough decisions based on these incomplete (and often confused) reports. All of this is done from a detailed command tent, as it would have been during WWII. Clear your throat, and show us your best commanding voice. By combining speech recognition with full voice-acting, you’ll feel like you’re a general on the horn with your troops. Behind the scenes, ammunition, morale, camouflage, sight and stamina are all being modelled. Elevation and terrain type will heavily influence battles. A smaller force will be more successful in launching ambushes in a forest than a larger force. Being on a road drastically improves movement speed, however affords little cover and camouflage. Being on a hill will drastically increase your spotting distance, whilst also increasing your range and damage. Study the map carefully, and identify how best to use your units. Carefully choose which companies to deploy – each company has unique strengths and weakness. Learn the quirks and personalities of your companies: zealous officers may refuse to retreat. Veteran companies will gain specializations, with each unit type having unique abilities. Everyone needs a break, and your companies must rest and replenish between missions. Exhausted units perform poorly, so watch your unit rotations. Play from the under-represented perspective of the 1st Canadian Army. Take part in the disastrous Dieppe Raid, crack the Hitler and Gothic Lines in Italy, land upon the Normandy beaches and close the Falaise Gap. Review 100’s of historical photos, documents and video. Learn how soldiers lived throughout the war, and gain a better understanding of their experiences. Recreate history’s most famous battles of the war using an easy to use map editor. Share your creations using Steam workshop. Create challenging scenarios for others to try to beat! Two heads are better than one – bring a comrade to fight at your side. Play the entire campaign cooperatively, or create your own custom missions. | http://www.foolish-mortals.net/radiogeneral | https://youtu.be/QEdeoElKiGw | Michael Long | michael@foolish-mortals.net |
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