Ars goes crazy for indie at E3. Video by Jennifer Hahn
LOS ANGELES — The last few years of the Electronic Entertainment Expo have seen a flurry of small fry and indie game projects on the otherwise over-the-top super-sized show floor. Big companies like Sony and Microsoft have started adding indie kiosks to their giant displays, and in addition there are indie-specific showcases that only seem to add to the craziness.
To wit: The Indiecade Festival has had an E3 booth for a while, while the Media Indie Exchange party has a more casual rooftop approach to help game fans and creators meet and play new, weird stuff. We visited both events with Ars’ rocking videographer Jennifer Hahn in tow, and found no shortage of compelling, quirky games.
Click above to see footage of the following games, which we link here in case you want to know more: In tune, GNOG, Wattam, maquisard, Royals, Sunset, Tribal and Error, More and more curious, Veloci box, Butt Sniffin’ Pugs, typo manand Beyond the eyes.
Plus, the indie booths had a lot of games that we love but already wrote about at Ars, including sword-like and Gravity Mind, but there were also some new gems that we didn’t have time to show in the video. Which included Plug and playa bizarre, sexually charged story game in which strange-looking finger creatures plug sockets together; SMS racinga VR racing game where you have to look away from racing to send text messages mid-race; tetheron, a six-player game with a simple, great grappling battle mechanic; and D buga platform game that does super cool stuff with the typically dreaded virtual button system on a tablet screen.
Frame image by Jennifer Hahn