[This post is re-blogged from Venus Patrol sister-organization JUEGOS RANCHEROS, our local Austin indie game collective.]

Multiplayer games have been undergoing a beautiful renaissance over the past couple years, and we’ll be bringing three of the best examples to Austin’s North Door next Thursday, May 2nd, at 7:00PM, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Monaco, Towerfall and a brand-new version of Nidhogg.

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

A long-standing staple of JUEGOS RANCHEROS events, we’ll be celebrating the debut of our first permanently-installed TEXATRON cabinet by bringing a brand-new version of Messhof’s brilliant lo-fi sword-fighter Nidhogg, complete with a visual overhaul, a fantastic new soundscape, and a stack of new moves that’ll make this round feel fresh, even if you’ve faced off against a local rival a thousand times before.

We’ll also be debuting Towerfall, the “retro archery platformer” by Canada’s own super prolific developer Matt Thorson, who you may recognize from his frequent contributions to Adult Swim, including Give Up Robot, Fat Wizard and, most recently, Planet Punch. Fans of Spelunky‘s deathmatch or Beau Blyth’s Samurai Gunn will feel right at home here.

And last, but certainly not least, we’ll be featuring Pocketwatch Games’ long-anticipated and just-released multiplayer heist game Monaco — winner of 2010′s IGF Grand Prize, and near-universally praised as a new gold standard in multiplayer games.

Everything will be kicking off Thursday, May 2nd, at 7:00PM at North Door, 501 Brushy Street, Austin, TX 78702! The show is free and open to all the public — come drink, play, and meet the people changing the way you think about videogames!

After well over a year of build-up and preparation, the day has finally come: Austin indie collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS has officially given the first of its TEXATRON machines a permanent home at Guzu, Austin’s new best designer toy/art/comic shop & gallery.

What this means for you is that now you can go play Messhof’s still-unbelievably-highly-anticipated Nidhogg, for free, whenever you want, during Guzu’s operating hours — as well as a slew of other games on the Winnitron network, including special 2-player builds of Canabalt & Super Crate Box, and much more.

The installation is just the first of what we hope will be many more to come, as well as the prelude to many enhancements to the Winnitron’s front- and back-ends to make machines like the TEXATRON perfect cultural-outreach machines to bring interesting, beautiful videogames to a wider and cross-cultural audience.

If you’re in Austin, drop by Guzu at 5000 N Lamar Blvd — just next door to Austin Books & Comics — and be sure to browse around for a legitimately amazing selection of books & toys while you’re there. Keep your eyes on the TEXATRON site for more news about upcoming locations, and investigate the Winnitron site if you’d like to bring machines like this to your own town.

Here’s the major lede buried in this video showcase of all the games coming November 24th to VERSUS — the live music/game/amazingness mega-show being hosted at Rotterdam, Netherlands venue WORM: a brand new look at what creator Mark ‘Messhof‘ Essen has been cooking up under deep cover for the past couple years with his still-commercially-unavailable swordfighting cult-hit Nidhogg.

While the main thrust (no pun) seems to be the same, you’ll see new arenas and updated versions of the one you’re used to, new dynamics, and a new sorta kooky-eyed version of the game’s titular wyrm starting at around the 10 second mark.

Not to be too far upstaged, the event will also be bringing a number of the games much ballyhooed about around here, including Fernando Ramallo & David Kanaga’s Panoramical, minimalist racing game Chalo Chalo, Beau Blyth’s Samurai Gunn (also sporting a freshly updated tile set), and Super Space ______, a “couch co-op arcade shooter about competition, cooperation, communication and the democracy of physics”.

You can find much more about the lineup and event specifics via WORM, which having watched this trailer I’m now deeply despairing about missing.

Another location-specific update: Portland-area readers will want to clear off their Friday nights for XOXO Fringe‘s arcade, a free-to-the-public event starting at 7PM at Union/Pine, as part of the recently Kickstarted XOXO arts and tech festival, created by Andy Baio & Andy McMillan.

This very website curated the selection of games available at the arcade, which will include Messhof’s Nidhogg, Ed Key & David Kanaga’s Proteus, Noah Sasso’s Barabariball, Terry Cavanagh’s Super Hexagon, Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust, the very first look at the new game from Big Bucket, the team behind the 2010 iPhone/iPad/Mac game The Incident, and more.

In addition to the games, there’ll also be a live performance from Disasterpeace, the musician behind the soundtrack to Polytron’s Fez, which I can say from experience is an unmissable show.

Below the fold, I’ll stick video of all of the above for the uninitiated, so you can see what you’re getting into. I unfortunately couldn’t make it out to the event, so take lots of pictures for us! See the official XOXO Fringe site for more information.

(more…)