FANTASTIC ARCADE 2012 BEGINS: A SLIDESHOW

Today marks the first day of Fantastic Arcade proper — the yearly indie-game celebration run alongside the Alamo Drafthouse’s genre film festival Fantastic Fest — which means updates to Venus Patrol will become slightly spottier through to the end of the week until I can emerge with a handful of stories to tell of how the event went down.

In the meantime, a brief slideshow from the past several hours, including, above, some of the first screenshots of Hotline Highball, a custom version of Dennaton’s fantastically brutal Hotline Miami that takes place inside the actual locale of Fantastic Arcade itself, featuring the greeting you can see by festival co-organizer Wiley Wiggins, inside its own custom arcade cabinet.

The Highball exterior, with the new Cory Schmitz-designed Fantastic Arcade identity.

Two more custom arcade cabinets: Terry Cavanagh’s Super Hexagon and Molleindustria & Jim Munroe’s Unmanned.

Another cabinet, featuring Capy’s Super Time Force.

Local upstart studio Stoic shows off their upcoming Norse strategy game The Banner Saga.

Austin Wintory, composer of games including ThatGameCompany’s flOw & Journey as well as The Banner Saga, explains his role in co-producing emotional content in games.

Vlambeer’s Jan Willem Nijman shows off a new T-shirt featuring their Venus Patrol-exclusive first-person-shooter Gun Godz.

More updates will be coming throughout the next few days and into next week!