Announcing the Indie Prize Finalists from South America and North America

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Announcing the Indie Prize Finalists from South America and North America

May 25, 2018 — by Catherine Quinton

Casual Connect Europe 2018 Indie Prize Finalists from South America:

Players who enjoy a good fight will appreciate the entries for Indie Prize from South America. All three are based on various kinds of warfare. But each of these three is completely different, taking place in environments that include a world of avatars and minions, the early British time of King Arthur, or present day multi-vehicle war. Each requires strategic thinking and challenging movement and will challenge players’ abilities.

Game Title: Teratopia
Developer: Ravegan
Platform: Console, Desktop Win
Country: Argentina

Teratopia is an action strategy game with the player controlling avatars who spawn different classes of minions. The minions are completely independent; the player can only decide where, when and which one to throw. Players advance through an open-end world as they defeat bosses to unlock new spawning portals. The game has humor, role playing elements and local multiplayer options.

Teratopia is scheduled for release in October 2018 on PC, PS4 and Xbox One.

Contributions Development Indie Postmortem

Fhacktions: Mapping the Way

March 14, 2018 — by Industry Contributions

By Juan de Urraza, Ceo of Posibillian Tech

Fhacktions is a location-based mobile MOBA game developed by Posibillian Tech, a Paraguayan startup founded in 2015. Set in a near future where the world is ruled by factions of hackers, players must battle each other to maintain control of strategically placed servers that provide them with currency and power. The core of the game is its location based mechanic, with servers placed in real world places, like your local coffee shop or the laundromat next door. Conceived before Ingress and Pokemon Go were launched, Fhacktions had an uphill road to follow in order to finance, code and promote a game with mechanics no one yet understood.

The game received several awards, like winning the “Best Audio” category in Indie Prize USA, and being finalist in Indie Prize in Asia and Europe in the “Best Multiplayer Game” category. Google selected Fhacktions as one of the 15 best games in the Google Indie Games Festival LATAM in 2018.

Development Exclusive Interviews Indie

Distortions: A Journey of Self-Discovery Through Music

September 14, 2017 — by Catherine Quinton

Distortions, the creation of the game studio Among Giants, is an unusual game that combines music with a journey of self-discovery in the making. CEO Thiago Girello describes the experience as “a piece of our lives during the past eight years.” Among Giants is the winner of the Best Brazilian Game at BIG Festival 2017, an Indie Prize Partner event, with their game Distortions. They competed at Indie Prize and Casual Connect USA in Seattle.

A Process of Experimentation

Distortions began with a group of close friends learning to express themselves through the media of games. They shared a love for games and experimentation but each of them brought a different background, including movies, literature, design, and photography. Their variety of backgrounds had the advantage of allowing new and fresh insights into their game project. As a result, the making of Distortions was a process of experimentation and talking about subjects rarely seen in games. And throughout the eight years they never gave up on the project because making the game was always a fun time with friends, although Thiago does admit that they often say he gets too excited and should choose less ambitious projects.

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Michelangelos of Interactivity: GameFounders Spring 2017

January 21, 2017 — by Khail Santia of Moocho Brain and The Bamboard Game Project

I wake up after a night of binge coding to a dawn awash in the song of the muezzin. I am on the 27th floor of a glass tower in the midst of a modernist mountain range that is Bangsar South. Below me is all of Kuala Lumpur incredible in the fading night.

Three weeks ago, I received a message asking if I was interested in applying to GameFounders. I said, “Of course.” To my mind, GameFounders is the modern equivalent of the Sculpture Garden of the Medicis. Sculpture not involving marble, chisel and hammer, but interactivity, pixels and code. GameFounders calls digital talent from all over the world to come to Kuala Lumpur to build the future; accelerating the process by providing investment, a first-rate workspace and a three-month mentorship by masters of the various disciplines that comprise game development.

Over the Holidays, I faced a series of interviews. The first was with Christina Begerska, GameFounders Program Manager, sharp as an adamantium blade and kept fresh – no doubt – by the tears of failed applicants. Next was Reinaldo Normand, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur, investor and author. And finally, Kadri Ugand herself, Co-Founder and CEO of GameFounders.

I was sleepwalking throughout the long wait for The Decision. Then I was told, matter-of-factly, that we were in. It took a lot of staring into space before it finally sunk in – our studio, Moocho Brain Interactive, would be in GameFounders Spring 2017!

This cycle is made of nine teams selected from a growing pool of more than a thousand applicants. Three teams are from South America, two are from Europe and four from Asia. Meet the teams of GameFounders Spring 2017:

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LATAM and USA at Indie Prize in Berlin 2017

January 11, 2017 — by Yuliya Moshkaryova

International Indie Prize scholarship program created by Casual Games Association for independent game developers has published the full list of participants for February’s showcase at Casual Connect Europe. One hundred-thirty finalists will showcase their games to the conference guests during three days of the event on February 7 – 9, 2017, at Station Berlin, Germany.

Independent developers submitted 470 games for Indie Prize Berlin, 130 of which were chosen by the judges. These best-of-the-best indie developers from all over the globe are invited to showcase their games in the Indie Prize area during Casual Connect Europe 2017 in Berlin. The best games from the showcase will be awarded at the 17th Indie Prize Awards ceremony.

Four games from Argentina and 4 games from USA were selected to represent America continents in Berlin in 2017!

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EVA 2016: A Retrospective of One of the Biggest Developer Expos in South America

December 21, 2016 — by Industry Contributions

Article by Florencia Orsetti
PH: Marisol Estevez
Designers Logos: Carola Lucía and Agustín Cordes

EVA 2016 (Argentine Videogames Exposition) has been reuniting game developers from all over Argentina and other countries since 2003. The event is an incredible opportunity for devs to showcase their games, attend lectures by regional and international speakers, assist to workshops and access to business networking meetings with publishers and influencers from all over the world. The latest edition of EVA was held on November 4th and November 5th, earlier this month, in Palermo, Buenos Aires, at Centro Cultural de la Ciencia, a cultural venue that hosted hundreds of assistants, including game developers, entrepreneurs, gamers, and press, among other actors from the video game industry.

EVA 2016 in Numbers

Event organizer ADVA (Argentine Videogames Developers Association) estimates an attendance of more than 1500 visitors. EVA Play, the exhibit booth area, hosted more than 80 Argentine videogames, including a VR-ready area. The complete event program included over 30 lectures from regional and international speakers and networking meetings attended by more than 50 studios, including Epic Games/ Unreal Engine, Unity, Globant, NGD, Pixowl and reputable Universities such as UAI and Image Campus. Those lectures that were deliver at the central auditorium from 2pm to 5pm were live streamed on EVA official Website and can be watched now on YouTube: Day 1 video here, and Day 2 video here. ADVA also give away prizes worth $150,000 ARS.

EVA Play, the exhibit booth area, hosted more than 80 Argentine videogames, including a VR-ready area.

Game Development Postmortem

BalanCity: Balancing Gamedev and Kids

November 22, 2016 — by Industry Contributions

BalanCity is a goofy mixture between the oldschool Sim City and Jenga. In this physical city builder you need to make a towering metropolis over a treacherous seesaw. You can build houses, offices, parks, transportation, landmarks and more. Eventually, disasters will hit your city, so you must have your emergency services ready to act. Citizen approval is also a thing you must take care of if you do not want your people to start rioting and burn the city down. There is a Free Build Mode as well as Challenges and Scenarios where you must build real life metropolis with their famous landmarks.

Exclusive Interviews Indie

Roque Rey: Power to the People in Okhlos

November 1, 2016 — by David Radd

Roque Rey is a member of Coffee Powered Machine, an Argentinian development studio. The indie developer created Okhlos, which won Best Game at the Awesome Games Awards in Córdoba, Argentina and will be shown off at Indie Prize Berlin 2017. The game was published by Devolver digital.

“On a personal level, its a huge achievement,” said Roque. “We were approached by a few publishers, and even then we wanted to remain independent and do self-publishing. Eventually, the Devolver option simply made sense and the pros outweighed the cons. Also, Devolver has a proven record, so for our first big game, it made sense to launch with them.”

“The Indie Prize was a complete surprise,” Roque added. “We weren’t expecting to win it. We weren’t even sure if we were gonna be able to attend the main event. Happily, we ended up deciding to make some time and go. I personally have never crossed the Atlantic ocean, so travel to Berlin to the Casual Connect will be a completely new experience.”

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Cordoba Leading Argentina to Strengthen Their Position in LATAM Video Game Industry

October 25, 2016 — by Industry Contributions

BY HERNAN LOPEZ, EPIC LLAMA

After a lot of hard work, the new law “Ley audiovisual” was approved by the legislature in Cordoba, Argentina. What does it mean? Why should you care about it?

Well, first let’s talk about the law itself: to clarify, it’s not a law that helps only video games, but any audiovisual production, but since we like videogames… let’s talk about what it does for the video game industry!

Events News

LATAM Games at Indie Prize Tel Aviv 2016

October 10, 2016 — by Yuliya Moshkaryova

The international Indie Prize showcase for independent developers will take place on Nov 1-3, 2016 in Tel Aviv. Sixty games from 21 countries were provided with Indie Prize scholarship by Casual Connect and will be showcased at Habima Square during three days from 9 AM to 5 PM.

Three games will represent from Argentina and Brazil were selected by Indie Prize judges and provided with the Indie Prize scholarship to attend Casual Connect Tel Aviv.

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