Missed our GDC party and have been kicking yourself ever since? If you’re in the NYC area, you’re in luck: Venus Patrol is partnering with local DIY videogame space Babycastles to bring you an all-day, all-ages event on May 9th, featuring Qrion — the Sapporo-based producer who became an actual honest viral sensation on Vine based on her Venus Patrol/Wild Rumpus party appearance in March.

To celebrate that success, we’re bringing her back for another show — which has since expanded into her first ever full U.S. tour — where she’ll be supported by Anamanaguchi’s Peter Berkman (who also gave an incredible performance at our party), and, super excitingly, NYC’s Doss, another local favorite who you can preview below.

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Originally pitched as a physics-based toy that let you “play with the creatures and artifacts of North American mythology”, Ben Esposito’s Kachina quickly became one of my most anticipated games back in 2012, with its vaguely Katamari-in-reverse mechanics that allowed you to swallow up successively larger objects with a player-controlled hole that grew wider every time something fell in.

After its showing at various festivals throughout 2013, including last year’s HORIZON conference, news about the game went somewhat dark, as Esposito simultaneously continued development on Perfect Stride — the first-person skateboarder he’s creating with LA game collective Arcane Kids — as well as that collective’s numerous side projects like the cult hit Bubsy 3D.

But now, Esposito has just revealed that he is re-imagining Kachina as something new: Donut County, which is set to make its debut at this year’s Fantastic Arcade in Austin, Texas on September 18th.

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After another couple long weekends spent with a few hundred excellent games, the first eight selections of this year’s Fantastic Arcade have just been announced, each of which will be given the full arcade-cabinet overhaul (as above, from last year) and put on public display for all Fantastic Fest & Arcade-goers in Austin, TX from September 18th to 21st.

Once again, the games have been selected by the operators of Austin indie collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS (aka Adam Saltsman, Jo Lammert, Rachel Weil, Wiley Wiggins & yours truly), with some of those games also serving as public tournaments throughout the festival’s five days — full information on each follows below.

Banana Chalice

Developer: Kyle Reimergarten

The next major game from Kyle Reimergarten — creator of Fantastic Arcade 2013 selection (and one of my overall top 2013 games), Fjords — Banana Chalice is a tunnel shooter about cats, bananas and monsters, with all of the off-kilter and lo-fi home-spun charm that by now has become his signature. Reimergarten promises as much mystery and magic out of Chalice as he brought to Fjords, which is to say, a lot.

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