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

LittleBigPlanet and the upcoming Tearaway are among the most creative & beautiful games to land on the PlayStation platform, and their creators, Media Molecule, will be right here in Austin Thursday, March 7th, at 7:00PM at the North Door.

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

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

Want to get the first look at some of the best independent games of 2013? Then join us Thursday, February 7th, at 7:00PM at the North Door as JUEGOS RANCHEROS brings five games nominated for top awards at this year’s Independent Games Festival.

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

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

Want to meet the creators of 2012’s breakaway hit Dishonored, learn more about Sony’s first-person paint-em-up The Unfinished Swan and take the role of a Cosmic DJ in a late-night dance party? Then join us Thursday, January 3rd, at 7:00PM as JUEGOS RANCHEROS returns at its new night and ND Austin venue, where we’ll be featuring an unbelievably awesome triple-header bill.

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

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As I mentioned last week, this past Sunday’s meetup of our Austin indie collective JUEGOS RANCHEROS featured the local debut of Hundreds, the next game from Canabalt developers Semi Secret along with Greg ‘aeiowu‘ Wohlwend — creator of the original Hundreds prototype and co-designer of games like Solipskier — and local-favorite musician Loscil.

If you haven’t seen Hundreds before, it’s a fantastically austere & ambient action/puzzle game which I described at greater length a month back, and which — I predict — will likely be one of the next big App Store hits. That’s not just a hunch, as mentioned in my last Hundreds post, there hasn’t been a single person who I’ve seen casually start to play that hasn’t become instantly, deeply hooked.

And so, presented here is the full 30 minute talk Saltsman gave the assembled crowd (an abbreviated version of his overseas debut of Hundreds at GameCity) that goes into both the genesis of the project and the long, arduous task of taking such a simple and refined idea to its deepest logical conclusions, and paring down on all the ideas that creep in in the meantime and initially seem worthwhile but ultimately prove to be unnecessary complications and distractions.

After Adam’s talk, you also get to hear — remotely, via Skype — from Wolhwend, who takes questions not just on Hundreds and its cryptic narrative, but of his more recent game, Gasketball, and what the future holds for Mikengreg, his collaborative company with developer Mike ‘fucrate‘ Boxleiter.

As a bonus, and because I haven’t managed to edit them more cleanly into the video, below the fold are a number of Saltsman’s slides that show his early design sketches for Hundreds and early art tests from Wolhwend, to refer to directly, rather than squinting at the clip.

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[This post is re-blogged from Venus Patrol sister-organization JUEGOS RANCHEROS, our local Austin indie game collective, where we’ll be hosting the previously-featured game Hundreds for our latest regular meetup.]

Want to play the next hit game by the designers that brought you super stylish successes Canabalt and Solipskier before anyone else? Then join us this Sunday, November 4th, at 4PM for our sixteenth edition of JUEGOS RANCHEROS at The Highball, where we’ll be presenting the Texas premiere of Hundreds, the upcoming iPhone and iPad game from designers Greg Wohlwend (Solipskier, Gasketball), Austin’s own Semi Secret (Wurdle, Canabalt, Gravity Hook) and ambient electronic musician Scott Morgan, aka Loscil.

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

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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 — both local and global, and both indie and occasionally a bit-bigger-budget — for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which will now be presented here on Venus Patrol (even a bit tardy as this one is) 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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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 — both local and global, and both indie and occasionally a bit-bigger-budget — for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are be 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.

(more…)

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 — both local and global, and both indie and occasionally a bit-bigger-budget — for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are be 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.

(more…)

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 — both local and global, and both indie and occasionally a bit-bigger-budget — for the audience, to give people — especially those curious onlookers from outside the indie community itself — a look at what they may have missed.

In keeping with the tongue-in-tobacco-packed-cheek tone, we call these run-downs A Fistful of Indies, which are be 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.

(more…)