Arts in Bushwick Article

Aniela Coveleski, a journalist for Arts in Bushwick, happened upon Artcade 3000 during Bushwick Open Studios and enjoyed the "good vibes" of the show. She interviewed me for a great article about games, art and NYC's indie scene. Read it here and decide for yourself if games are art!

Artcade 3000 wrap up

     The 2nd Annual Artcade 3000 Indie Game Arcade at Bushwick Open Studios took place this past May 30th - June 1st in my apartment in Bushwick. Over 300 people attended over the course of 3 epic days of games, drinks and demos.

     The local multiplayer game Futbol Forever by Anthony Marefat and Michael Kahane has gone on to premiere its new cabinet at the Death By Audio Arcade.

     Also playing was Crystal Brawl by Studio Mercato, which had an exclusive cabinet at DBA previous to Arcade 3000.

     Ink Blots was an Oculus Rift enabled adventure matching game by Boogie Down Games.

     Returning was game designer Jaime Fraina of Giant Fox Games with his take on the "difficult tapper" mobile genre. It was called Slippery Sloth.

     Friday, May 30th was the developer / participant opening. BOS revelers and game devs mingled the night away over controllers and the 2014 edition of the Bushwick Board Game (free beers!).

      ManipIt was a complex tilt puzzle game.

     Saturday different demos were loaded into the Oculus Rift and a constant stream of people poured in during the shows open hours of 11a-10p.

     Sunday was even busier than the previous day and wrapped up with the warm glow of love and happiness.

Local Multiplayer Rules Summer / New AR Project

The Arcade 3000 recap is coming soon (after the article on it is published). Till then, here's some gamey news.

GAMES! 

•I played God of War 3 on the projector, which is a tight epic classic. The “making of” films that are unlocked when you complete the game are excellent. 
•On iOS I played Ridiculous Fishing until I reached the credits, then continued to play until I unlocked more fish. Very addictive - I’m going to play until I unlock em’ all. Can’t wait till my next subway ride! 
•Played a couple wicked 4 player OUYA exclusives: Duck Game and Toto Temple Deluxe (from Juicy Beast). 

Wasn’t long before we went back to the perfect-in-every-way Towerfall. Did I hear a rumor that Towerfall: Ascension comes to OUYA later this month?

The biggest treat has been Broken Age on my OUYA. This is what all art should strive to do - present truths about our world in a  fun and interesting way. When I play the games of Edmund McMillen I think “this is how I feel”. Broken Age has these moments while shifting through levels of meaning. And in the spirit of Double-Fine's nothing-to-hide look at their creative processes, there's a "making of" documentary. Everyone interested in game creation should watch the Amnesia Fortnight series.

In other news - Where’s my Rift Dev kit 2?! “ships in July", right? Oh wait - it’s August. Does this mean I won't get mine?

I’ve also been working on a secret project with an app developer here in Bushwick Brooklyn. It’s a location based game that utilizes augmented reality in the gameplay. Very exciting stuff and will write more about it in the future. No, it doesn't play on Google Cardboard.

Artcade 3000 is #137 on BOS Map

The Bushwick Open Studios directory is up, and Artcade 3000 will be #137 on the map.

The hours will be:

May 30   4p-10p
May 31   11a-10p
June 1    12p-8p

So come by!

Submit your game by May 1st!

I'll be hosting another Artcade 3000 for Bushwick Open Studios May 30-June 1st. I want to show your game! If you have a project that is weird / "artistic", I'd like to have a look. Maybe we can hook up an alternate controller with Makey Makey.

Last year the event was a huge success. Here is the postmortem for it.

Shoot me a message if you'd like to submit something.

Play The White Rooms in your web browser!

Here is the link to play The White Rooms. You may have to download the Unity player. 

Here are the controls:

WASD - move
IJKL - look
Spacebar or O - jump
Y - Menu

ENJOY!

The first 20 days

The first 20 days that The White Rooms has been on OUYA it has:
-Gotten out of the Sandbox category and into the FPS / Shooter and Meditative categories
-3 out of 5 stars (20ppl voted)
-328 downloads and 18 likes
-been compared to Antichamber
-had it's flaws pointed out on the forums
-been called an "interesting concept"

All in all a fun experiment for me to get started with Unity and try my hand at exposure even if the game could have used more vigorous testing.

Now I'm adding touch controls for an attempt at my first Android launch. Wish me luck.