Every month, as part of the regular monthly meetings of the Austin, TX independent game community JUEGOS RANCHEROS, we do a very casual & chatty rundown of the ten or so games from the previous month for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed. The featured games are both local and global, and both indie and, on occasion, a bit-bigger-budget — what binds them together is simply that they’re all amazing.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are presented here on Venus Patrol for your reference, each fully-annotated, -linked, and off-the-cuff blurbed, in addition to their home on the JUEGOS RANCHEROS site.

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Following what I think we all can pretty much agree was an amazing lineup last year, I’m super happy to announce that Venus Patrol will once again be partnering with LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art to present the next installment of HORIZON: an alternative press conference that showcases beautiful, original games from studios both small and large.

The conference will be held at 10AM PST on Thursday, June 12th, 2014 — the same week as this year’s E3 expo — and hopes to give you a second dose of games as exciting as the ones we brought you last year, like Below, Sportsfriends, Hohokum, Kachina and, well, you remember last year’s big surprise still, don’t you.

If you’d like your game to be considered for the showcase, we’ve set up this survey for you to fill out over the next week. While we won’t be able to show everything submitted, we hope to once again highlight a selection that provides an alternative to the genre of games typically announced that week.

If you’re a member of the press, invites to the event will be headed your way shortly — so save the date now — email horizon@venuspatrol.com if you’re especially excited about attending and we’ll do what we can to make sure you’re there!

Thanks again to MOCAtv, Sarah Brin and our sponsors — who this year include Humble Bundle — for making this year’s conference possible, and see above to rewatch last year’s conference in its entirety if this is the first you’ve heard of this whole affair!

We hope to have much more to say about HORIZON in the coming weeks — and hope you’re as excited about the conference as we are!

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

You may have caught little snippets throughout the history of JUEGOS RANCHEROS meetups, but the time has finally come to bring it all together! Join us at Austin’s North Door next Thursday, May 1st, at 7:00PM, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents the first look at the final release of Sportsfriends, the new gold-standard indie multiplayer collection.

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

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Now that you’ve probably worn deep grooves into Wave Patrol — the Arcane Kids mix released a few weeks back from That Venus Patrol Wild Rumpus Party — here comes another set that’ll likely be in heavy rotation for the foreseeable future.

# (that’s ‘hashtag’) is a two-hour mix put together by Christopher ‘tru luv‘ Hedborg, a name you’ll recognize from his earlier game work like Eleven and as co-founder of art/game collective #weirdkids.

In addition to that group having just exhibited at Berlin’s Amaze Festival, Hedborg’s been devoting much more time to his musical output as tru luv, including #ghosts — a forthcoming collaboration with Moscow-based artist Pixelord.

Above, then is the # mix in its entirety (with cover art by Natalie ‘coffeemakescreative‘ Hanke), which you can also find & listen to via its mixcloud page, right over here.

Every month, as part of the regular monthly meetings of the Austin, TX independent game community JUEGOS RANCHEROS, we do a very casual & chatty rundown of the ten or so games from the previous month for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed. The featured games are both local and global, and both indie and, on occasion, a bit-bigger-budget — what binds them together is simply that they’re all amazing.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are presented here on Venus Patrol for your reference, each fully-annotated, -linked, and off-the-cuff blurbed, in addition to their home on the JUEGOS RANCHEROS site.

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Here’s some hopefully happy news for folks who couldn’t manage to make it out to That Party — the Venus Patrol Shop has just been refreshed & our new Legend of Romantics T-shirt is now shipping worldwide!

The shirt’s the latest in Keita Takahashi & Venus Patrol’s ‘Videogame Romantics’ line & comes in two colorways: MIDNIGHT (above), which features glow in the dark ink that lets the stars & ‘legendary objects’ shine through the evening…

…and ATHLETICS, printed navy on heather-grey — perfect for jogging or whichever calisthenic endeavor you personally prefer.

If you pick up one of the new shirts or already have, don’t forget to add yourself to the Wall of Romantics by submitting a selfie here!

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

Bummed out that you missed the debut of the ultimate game of competitive feline poise & grace? Then join us next Thursday, April 3rd, at 7:00PM at Austin’s North Door, as JUEGOS RANCHEROS presents Musclecat Showdown, a new game from Major Bueno & Bee and Puppycat creator Natasha Allegri!

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

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Even through I’m not sure any of us have actually fully recovered yet from last week’s That Venus Patrol Wild Rumpus Party, I don’t think I’m alone in already wishing I could relive all of its exhaustive glory over again.

Enter: Wave Patrol, the full DJ set performed by Arcane Kids (the studio behind games like Perfect Stride, Bubsy3d.com and Room of 1000 Snakes) at the party, now available online for all to enjoy, as I have been on constant repeat since the Kids surprised me with the preview link last night.

In addition to the embedded version below, you can also listen to the mix at Arcane Kids’ dedicated site for the set, where you can also find a rotating display of Vines from That Party, which are a pretty good start at recapturing what made the night amazing.

There’ll be more updates shortly about the rest of the acts performed that night, but in the meantime you can also dig way deeper into the Kids themselves over at their own site, including what might be my all-time favorite videogame manifesto.

For the February meetup of Austin’s indie game collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS, local developers Tiger Style took to the stage to give the city the first look behind the curtain at their upcoming game Spider: Rite of the Shrouded Moon.

The game — a sequel to the 2009 iPhone original Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor — is set to expand on the first with an even larger and richer world, which again layers super approachable web-slinging and insect-eating mechanics over the deeper, unspoken mysteries of the locations in which it takes place, left for the player to delve into and uncover of their own accord.

To help give everyone everywhere equal opportunity to prepare to piece together those mysteries, we present here full video of the night’s proceedings. Above you’ll find a complete walkthrough of some early levels that introduces many of the mechanics you will remember from the first, as well as a number of new features, including one that changes the content of the game based on the time & weather around you in the real world.

And, at top, Tiger Style co-founder Randy Smith gives some background on the locations, magic & secret societies which inspired the fiction of the game, which will be followed by some additional new material appearing on Tiger Style’s own blog soon… along with more information on the game itself, which you can find right here.

In hopes of giving everyone a little more lead time this year, organizers of Fantastic Arcade — the indie game offshoot of Alamo Drafthouse’s Fantastic Fest — have just opened submissions for this year’s festival, which will take place here in Austin, TX on September 18th-21st.

Once again, the festival will be curated by Austin’s game collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS, and will give the developers the opportunity not just to showcase their game (including some in custom-built arcade cabinets, like at top!), but give talks in whatever manner they choose.

In the past that’s led to music performances for FJORDS & Lioness (above), one-on-one developer chats between Gone Home‘s Steve Gaynor & Tiger Style’s Randy Smith, or more traditional presentations by Sword & Sworcery co-creator Craig Adams, many of which you can find in full right here on Venus Patrol.

Even if I wasn’t part of the curatorial team, I’d still call Fantastic Arcade one of my favorite festivals of the year: it’s super open & free-form and basically exists to bring some of the best developers together for a week to eat, drink & celebrate awesome games, and the FA team have a bunch of other really cool things to announce as the date draws near.

If you want to be part of that, submit your game to the festival via this form here, or check Fantastic Arcade’s website for more information about festivals past. Hope to see you there!