IndieCade 2012

Martin and I are just back from IndieCade - where we had the pleasure of seeing many dear friends. Eileen, Friend of Funomena and Riot Games goddess, agreed to let us stay in her place for a bit, so we decided to head down to the city on Tuesday. That meant we got to spend a few extra days hanging out and absorbing the LA vibe. Yes, we miss it! On the first night, we had a lovely dinner with Richard and friends, where we caught up about life in general. Rich has recently moved from Naughty Dog to USC, where he's teaching and experimenting with game design ideas - it was very exciting to hear about this! Nova has been very busy doing projects of all kinds -including a lovely interactive maze that she created using electronics and delicate moss. I have several moss-based plant arrangements, and we bonded over the way it feels to submit to the daily misting ritual that is required to keep the moss happy and healthy.

It was our first time meeting Kaho, who was very instrumental in organizing Keita's most recent exhibit at BabyCastles in NYC, and I had explicit instructions from him to meet and hang out with her. Her game Hit Me created quite a buzz at the festival and we really enjoyed speaking with her about some ideas for a festival of physical games that we would like to run here in SF next fall.

And then... well, it's all kind of a blur of games, meals, meetings and hangouts. Throughout the week we were able to visit with many people we love and admire - including Ian Dallas of Giant Sparrow, whose game arrives on PSN next week, Jon Blow who is hard at work on the Witness, and a whole huge list of wonderful game developers who were so kind and supportive - including Kellee Santiago, who has agreed to be an advisor for Funomena.

This was probably the best Festival Year yet for IndieCade, and Robin Arnott gets a special shout-out for doing such a wonderful job of curating the Night Games. We loved seeing Gl33k's Cosmic DJ, Super Hexagon played super huge, and from last year's Experimental Gameplay Workshop - Renga. Overall, the games this year were fantastic, and we're very happy to congratulate all the finalists & award winners!

The last (and best) part of our trip was meeting up with Matt and Austin to talk about collaborating on a new project. It's been really fun speaking to them over Skype these last few weeks - but getting together in person (over gigantic burgers) was not to be missed. Especially the dinosaur talk. And gushing about the world's best origami folders. And our critical quorum on the Transformers series of films. That's probably been the biggest inspiration this week, as we settles back into working on the prototype.

Ok that's a fib. We were inspired by it all. We'll miss you, LA. We love you, IndieCade!