[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! ]

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[Fridays on Venus Patrol are designer Dominique ‘Dom2D‘ Ferland’s day to present TIGSource DevLog Magazine, a visual guide to the newest & most interesting in-development games making the rounds on the invaluable TIGSource forums. Looking for inspiration, or just the very first look at the amazing games we’ll be talking about in the future? Click any image to learn more, and come back on Fridays for the latest picks!]

This week’s selection shows some love for pixel art, with fourteen games in development showing true skill with the pixel brush! We have Chasm in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign, Tale of the Stolen Rainbow creating an epic Zelda-like adventure with minimalist black and white pixels, and then there’s The Bitter End.. oh wait, it seems to have been made in Hexels!

I’d also like to point out that Dungeon Hearts, a puzzler for the quick mind, has finally been released on the App Store, after over two years of thorough devlogs on the TIGSource Forums. You should probably read their entries, especially if you enjoy the soundtrack – there’s a freebie in there somewhere!

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.

Good news for those across the pond, as UK supergroup Wild Rumpus have officially announced the date, time & nautical location of their next multiplayer games event.

The group will be taking to the high seas, sort of, for a party aboard the MS Stubnitz that will not only include a live set from Super Hexagon composer Chipzel, but the UK debut of Keita Takahashi’s Tenya Wanya Teens, its first appearance abroad following our GDC party & most recent JUEGOS RANCHEROS meetup.

The Rumpus is happening Saturday, May 11th, just one day after the UK indie conference Bit of Alright, which will also be aboard the Stubnitz and will include talks from Thomas Was Alone‘s Mike Bithell, Hide & Seek’s Holly Gramazio, Wild Rumpus’s own George Buckenham, writer & game designer Cara Ellison, Redshirt creator Mitu Khandaker and many more.

Tickets for the Rumpus are currently on sale via eventbrite here, just a few hops away from Bit of Alright’s own eventbrite, where you can purchase tickets for the day-long conference. More of the lineup for both events will be available soon via Wild Rumpus & Bit of Alright‘s respective sites.

In addition to the new David Kanaga drops, we also get this: Blue Skies, Green Hills, a free Sonic the Hedgehog tribute album put together by Paul Veer (he of Sega Zine & Gun Godz & general art renown).

The album features a who’s-who of indie game musicians, including Luftrausers & Gun Godz composer Kozilek, Souleye — the musician behind Terry Cavanagh’s VVVVVV, Reckahdam — composer, programmer, and the drummer you’ve seen supporting any given live Disasterpeace performance, and, notably, Anticon’s Doseone, who you’ll no doubt recognize as the artist behind Gun Godz‘ title theme.

As usual, you can stream the entire album above, or download the whole thing gratis at Bandcamp.

The first of two new album drops worth noting today: Proteus & Dyad musician David Kanaga has just let loose a small flurry of EPs, including Dinosaur Planet Remixes, a downloadable version of the set he performed live at our Venus Patrol / Wild Rumpus GDC party.

If the name Dinosaur Planet only half-rings a bell, you may know it better by its eventual commercial release: Starfox Adventures, the GameCube title eventually Rare re-branded and released it as, after its long lead as a Nintendo 64 original IP.

The source material comes from effects gleaned from leaked video of the original Planet footage (an hour of which is below the fold), as well as the actual score from superstar composer Grant Kirkhope, famous for his work on basically every great Rare franchise including GoldenEye, Perfect Dark & Banjo-Kazooie.

The remixes are available now for streaming above or purchasing for any amount via Kanaga’s Bandcamp — also worth grabbing while you’re there is Frog Plays His Videogames, Kanaga’s set from our 2012 party.

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[Fantastic Video is a regular Venus Patrol feature where we recap the goings-on of the 2012 installment of Austin’s Fantastic Arcade, the indie-game spinoff of Alamo Drafthouse’s genre film festival Fantastic Fest. You can find all the Fantastic Videos by clicking here, and find out more about Fantastic Arcade here!]

In this latest installment of Fantastic Video, we’re joined by a slightly inebriated Rob Lach (in the true spirit of Fantastic Arcade), for a forty minute look behind the scenes of POP – Methodology Experiment One (the trailer for which is below).

In it, Lach explains how the game is both an attempt to both “extend the definition of what a game is” (POP standing for the “philosophy of play”), and to flip the script of the standard methodology of creating a game — working from concept to asset creation to music to technology to final product — by here beginning with the music and working forward from there.

In the interim, Lach also lays his books wide open, showing the results of his “pay what you want” sales, and comparing the breakdown between those that came in from game sites versus those that discovered the game from art & design blogs (hint: the favor’s not in the game-fan’s court)… and gives you more information than you ever knew you wanted about firearms.

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

It’s been years since we’ve last seen a new game from Keita Takahashi — most famous for his Namco cult classic Katamari Damacy and the even cultier PS3/iPhone game Noby Noby Boy — but this Thursday, April 4th, at 7:00PM, JUEGOS RANCHEROS will be showing not one but two brand new works from the esteemed designer at the North Door.

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

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[Fantastic Video is a regular Venus Patrol feature where we recap the goings-on of the 2012 installment of Austin’s Fantastic Arcade, the indie-game spinoff of Alamo Drafthouse’s genre film festival Fantastic Fest. You can find all the Fantastic Videos by clicking here, and find out more about Fantastic Arcade here!]

In this latest installment of Fantastic Video, we’re joined by Dennis Wedin & Cactus — the duo now better known as Dennaton, for a thirty minute look behind the scenes of the creation of their 2012 ultra-violent & ultra-sytlish Hotline Miami — a game that now sports its own bonus level based on Fantastic Arcade itself.

Not only do you get a look at the prototyping process that spans back to versions Cactus had created nearly a decade ago, but also the real-world cultural touchstones that inspired the game’s neon-lit and blood-drenched scenery.

As a bonus, below you’ll find the post-mortem aftershow in its entirety: the Catline Meowmi Megamix, about which there is little more to say than ‘just watch’.

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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