THE EVENTSFANTASTIC ARCADE OPENING PARTY

Come celebrate the opening day of Fantastic Arcade with DJs, visuals and party games like Butt Sniffin’ Pugs, Catnips, Worlds Fastest Pizza and Super Russian Roulette as well as an exclusive

peek into the Russian fairytale world of Forest of Sleep, at Empire Control Room, September 28th, 9pm-1am. Sponsored with help from our friends at Sony Playstation.

LOCATION: Empire Control Room / Sept. 28th / 9pm - 1am

STARCADE - “DUPLICADE”With your host Wiley Wiggins, watch as two contestants go head-to-head, answering

game trivia and playing this year’s best Gamemaking Frenzy games. All your favorite classic games will be discreetly replaced with just-as-good versions of indeterminate origin, all in a

showdown we have christened: DUPLICADE.LOCATION: Highball

FANTASTIC ARCADE DEVELOPER COMMENTARIESEvery day of Fantastic Arcade will be filled with panels led by the creators of this year’s

selected games, as well as special guests. Panelists include Her Story’s Sam Barlow, Headlander creators Double Fine, Superhypercube creators Kokoromi,“Food Party” and Hellmouth creator Thu Tran along with co-creator Ivan Safrin, Wheels of Aurelia creators

Santa Ragione and many more. Check schedule online for dates and times.LOCATION: Alamo South Lamar Theater 9

WELCOMEEach year Fantastic Arcade is tasked with bringing games to the greatest genre film fest in America, and it’s a task we take seriously. Games occupy a huge space in our culture, but they’re often viewed as a single monolithic commercial product — an arms race of spectacle and technology that rarely shows the blemish of human fingerprints. But we at Fantastic Fest already know that there are plenty of folks who would make the same sweeping generalizations over the state of movies, and we know better, don’t we? So it’s with great pride that we bring you this year’s collection of games, each one unique in some way, each one infused with the idiosyncratic vision of its creators. Welcome to Fantastic Arcade 2015!

-WILEY WIGGINS

OUR SPONSORS

JUEGOS ORIGINALSFor the sixth year, we bring you the best in new indie video games, plus talks, tournaments and special events. One major highlight: this year, we have six games housed in custom arcade cabinets that will ALL be ORIGINAL titles debuting for play at the fest. With help from Humble Bundle, Austin’s indie game collective, Juegos Rancheros, set some of the most explosively creative talents in the gaming world loose, and they returned to us with these six premiere games:

ALEAPALOMA DAWKINS

CALE BRADBURYCAILA THOMPSON-HANNANT

Co-created by Paloma Dawkins, best known as the artist behind KO-OP Mode’s Gardenarium,

Alea is a hiking simulator & experience of infinity: a reminder of the endless light and dark currently occurring in all directions, at all times. Just don’t

die and you should be okay.

HELLMOUTHTHU TRAN

IVAN SAFRIN

Hellmouth is a competitive cooking game where players collect ingredients from a

hellish death course and cook it to perfection to feed Satan. Hellmouth is co-created by Ivan Safrin and Thu Tran, the mind behind

the Independent Film Channel television show “Food Party,” and host of the Fantastic

Arcade 2014’s “Barfcade.”

CRAP! NO ONE LOVES MEARCANE KIDS

“My morning ritual is pretty simple: I check my phone and scream. Then I crawl into my

coffin, it’s all warmed up… let’s go for a ride.” CNOLM is a daily affirmation & multiplayer

coffin bobsledding journey into the afterlife from Arcane Kids, the creators of Zineth, Perfect Stride, Bubsy 3D: Bubsy visits the James Turrell

Retrospective & The Sonic Dreams Collection.

HOKYJAN WILLEM NIJMANKITTY CALIS

HOKY is arcade action on ice for up to four players, from the developers who separately helped bring you Nuclear Throne and Action Henk, and who together created Adventure Minute, the winner of Fantastic Arcade 2012’s Adventure Time Gamemaking Frenzy.

RISKY BISONJUSTIN SMITH

Risky Bison is a game about managing the financial affairs of a herd of buffalo, created by “the game developer’s game developer” Justin Smith, best known as the designer behind Enviro Bear 2000 and Desert Golfing.

WHEELS OF AURELIASANTA RAGIONE

Wheels of Aurelia is a narrative road trip game set in the roaring Italian ‘70s from the creators of FOTONICA & MirrorMoon EP. Half racing game and half interactive fiction, it tells the story of Lella, a restless woman driving on the roads of the western coast of Italy, the famous Via Aurelia.

JUEGOS ORIGINALS

A GOOD SNOWMAN IS HARD TO BUILDALAN HAZELDEN

BENJAMIN DAVIS & RYAN ROTH

A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build is an adorable puzzle game about being a monster and making snowmen.

BEGLITCHEDALEC THOMSON

JENNY JIAO HSIA

Beglitched is a game about insecurity, in our computers and ourselves. In a pastel world of networks where nobody truly knows what they’re doing, hacking is a magical art and the

notorious Glitch Witch is the most premium archmagi of the Net. By random circumstance, YOU are her new apprentice.

GNOGKO-OP MODE

Gnog is about exploring giant monsters and their inner worlds. Each head is part of an interconnected realm filled

with tantalizing secrets. Created by Montreal’s experimental game collective KO-OP Mode.

HOT DATEGEORGE BATCHELOR

Speed dating, with pugs.

FROGGY (IT’S HUNGRY)NATHALIE LAWHEAD

In this “no-holes-barred froggame,” you frog as FROGGY, a seasoned veteran with a strong inner voice

but no moral conviction, surviving one day at a time on Armageddon Highway.

SPOTLIGHTFantastic Arcade Spotlight games each display a unique quality we like to call “Arcadiness”. Together they make up the vanguard of the year’s entries, with new talent and new surprises from veterans.

SECRET LEGENDANDREW SHOULDICE

An homage to classic games with undeniable polish and style. An accompanying illustrated instruction booklet describes it as “...an adventuresome TRIANGLE-SEEK set in that place just beyond the farthest you’ve ever been. To avoid damaging your saved game, remember to hold the RESET button when turning the power off.”

STRAWBERRY CUBESLOREN SCHMIDT

Strawberry Cubes is an experiential open-world game which uses a cryptic set of glitches and magical transformations to abstractly evoke the feeling of losing a family member to Alzheimer’s disease.

THE TAMPERDROME COLLECTIONG.P. LACKEY

The Tamperdrome Collection is a suite of procedural generation experiments which allows you to create random dogs, islands, ghosts, cats and other strange things.

VERSNOOFKYLE REIMERGARTIN, IAN SNYDER

Fantastic Arcade award-winning developer Kyle Reimergartin and The Floor is Jelly creator Ian Snyder return with a game we describe as an experiment that will create shimmering mnemonic architecture in your mind, as you navigate a labyrinth using only your sonar-like extra senses.

SHELTER 2BASTIAN LEONHARDT STRUBE

Play the life of a mother lynx, pregnant at first, giving birth and continuing in to a journey of parenthood where nurturing her four cubs is paramount for their survival.

SPOTLIGHT

HER STORYSAM BARLOW

Her Story is a fresh take on the police procedural from Sam Barlow, creator of Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Aisle. This critically-acclaimed full-motion

video game is like an interactive true crime documentary, letting you go hands-on with a police database full of live-action video footage.

ANAMORPHINEARTIFACT 5

Explore the past as you resolve the present in Anamorphine, a surreal adventure of rendered emotions. Journey into the mind of the main character,

a young man in post-traumatic denial. Using first-person exploration with minimalistic gameplay, Anamorphine conveys the narrative through environmental storytelling as you delve into physical and mental turmoil.

BACKER REWARDBREAKFAST GAMES

As a Kickstarter Backer for an unfinished videogame, the destiny of the game, and of the developers, lies in your hands. Backer Reward

won “Best Overall Game” in the 2015 Global Game Jam.

CIRCA INFINITYKENNY SUN

Circa Infinity is a mind-bending platformer that blends twitch gameplay with puzzle elements. Navigate through 50 hypnotizing

levels set in a visually striking hellscape, as you strive to reach the depths of this spectral maze.

FLYWRENCHMESSHOF

Flywrench is a game about piloting an abstract morphing bird-spaceship through a complex web of colored lines. Each maneuver

that Flywrench performs, such as flapping like a bird, or tumbling like a baton, changes its color. Match the ship’s color with a shape to pass

through it, hit an obstacle as the wrong color and fail. The pace is unrelenting and in a blink the challenge resets without penalty.

SHOWCASE

HÖME IMPROVISÅTIONTHE STORK BURNT DOWN

Höme Improvisåtion is a game about building crazy modular furniture. It is playable solo or with up to 5 friends working together. You can try to build the furniture correctly, or you can make new and terrifying furniture creations. The choice is yours.

LOVELY WEATHER WE’RE HAVINGARTIFACT 5

A video game about weird, cool, beautiful things that sometimes happen in the outdoor world.

HYLICSMASON LINDROTH

Hylics, the most ambitious project yet by Mason Lindroth, takes traditional RPG conventions and squishes, flattens, rolls and coils them like so much dough through the pixel-dithered vision of its creator. Randomly generated textual elements round out this surreal playscape, leaving something that will continue to entertain and mystify long after you finish interacting with it.

LUMINO CITYJULIAN GLANDER

Lumino City is a BAFTA-winning puzzle adventure game, and the sequel to Lume. Three years in the making, it’s handmade entirely out of paper, card, miniature lights and motors. Discover gardens in the sky, towers marooned high on an immense waterwheel, and houses dug precariously into cliffs. To create the environment, a ten-foot-high model city was built by hand and by laser cutter, with each motor and light wired up individually, bringing the scenes to luminous life.

PLUG & PLAYETTER STUDIO

Explore the feelings of anthropoid creatures that go beyond sexuality and reproduction: love. PLUG & PLAY is a surreal play with plugs.

SHOWCASE

SKY ROGUEFRACTAL PHASE

A simple, accessible-yet-difficult, fwooshy, “feelgood” arcade flight simulator. Blow things up over land, sea and air, on an infinite number

of procedurally-generated islands. Choose one of a diverse set of aeros and kit it out with a dizzying array of weaponry. Go toe-to-toe with

enemy aces or assault giant flying aircraft carriers and battleships, but watch out for volleys of missiles; when you die, you’re dead.

SUPER RUSSIAN ROULETTEANDREW REITANO

Pull up a chair and rustle up some virtual nihilism, pardner. Super Russian Roulette pits you and up to two friends or strangers against a trash-talking

cowboy, impatient to get on with the ultimate game of chance. There’s a light bullet in the Zapper’s chamber: is your name on it? Super Russian Roulette is a new title running from a homebrew cartridge in an actual vintage Nintendo

Entertainment System… with a cowboy hat on it.

MURDEREXOTWORKING

Try to become king and stay in the throne to secure a lasting reign in this nasty stab-a-roo. A game about trust, mistrust and embracing danger with open

arms in order to acquire true bliss.

PSYCHIC CATGEORGE ROYER

In the wake of a failed Psychic Voyage, an intrepid feline traverses a blasted psychosphere.

VIGNETTESPOL CLARISSOUARMEL GIBSON

A toyish surprise-o-rama. A contemplative game, without either text or characters, where an object shapeshifts as the player spins it around,

revealing the underlying story.

SHOWCASE

FULCRUMBEN SWINDENRICHARD FLANAGAN

Lost on a snowy mountaintop, amidst rad ruins of an ancient alien civilization. Your path is clear. Do tricks, get orbs, be cool.

EAST VAN EPCEMELUSINE

East Van EP is a collection of short games by Glitchhiker creator ceMelusine. The first two games in the collection presented at this year’s fest are titled ORACLE and Summon The Apgrod. Find out who or what an Apgrod is, serve drinks, shoot things, complete a procedural summoning ritual, witness prophecies and more.

CHASMDISCORD GAMES

Chasm is a procedurally-generated Platform Adventure, taking equal inspiration from hack ‘n slash dungeon crawlers and Metroidvania-style platformers. It will immerse you in a procedurally-generated fantasy world full of exciting treasure, deadly enemies, and abundant secrets.

BLOCK’HOODJOSE SANCHEZGENTARO MAKINODA

Envision your neighborhood, seek abundance, and avoid decay by building beautiful modular arcologies that reach towards the sky.

SUPERHYPERCUBEKOKOROMI

Get a sneak peak at one of the first titles for Sony Playstation’s Project Morpheus VR headset. In this first-person puzzler from Kokoromi, fly through endless waves of abstract geometry in the warm analog glow of virtual neon, and rotate a cluster of cubes to narrowly fit through an endless stream of form-fitting walls. Surrounded by glowing light and gorgeous color, your awareness focuses on the cluster slowly growing before you, and the ever-changing passages that lie ahead.

SHOWCASE

BADBLOOD | WINNIE SONG

Badblood is a violent stealth game for two. Outwit your neighbor in this intimate and visceral local multiplayer, where each challenger sees the arena from different orientations. Same bloody field, different bloody perspective. Hide, seek, and kill.

N++ | METANET SOFTWARE

N++ is a fast-paced, action-packed puzzle platformer set in the distant future. You play as a ninja -- darting through obstacles, narrowly evading a slew of inadvertently homicidal enemy robots, and collecting gold in a minimalist, sci-fi world. You know, traditional ninja stuff.

INVERSUS | HYPERSECT

Inversus is a minimalist action-strategy game by Ryan Juckett. It is played on a grid of black and white tiles where each player is restricted to either side. Players flip tiles towards their color to gain control and close in on the enemy. With every action changing the play space, each round evolves into a unique battle field.

BOTOLO | IAN SNYDER

Fast-paced electronic keep-away for two.

VIDEOBALL | ACTION BUTTON

VIDEOBALL is a new sport for your television. VIDEOBALL is simple enough for a party. VIDEOBALL is deep enough for the best party ever.

ROCKET LEAGUE | PSYONIX

Soccer meets driving once again in the long-awaited, physics-based multiplayer-focused sequel to Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars!

HOKY | JAN WILLEM NIJMAN / KITTY CALIS

Join Hosts JW Nijman and Kitty Calis as we hit the ice for their premiere follow-up to minimalist sports game TENNNES.

REGULAR HUMAN BASKETBALL | POWERHOOF

Just Regular Human B-Ball. No giant mechanical death machines here!

As with every year, Fantastic Arcade is home to some of the most exciting and unconventional live tournaments of any games festival. Competition is open to all; battle for prizes and glory as an audience cheers you on. This year we’ll be bringing the following tournament games to you LIVE on Twitch’s Venus Patrol channel, along with surprise matches each night at midnight. Every event will be emceed by Fantastic Arcade special guest hosts (who are serious professionals) as well as the game’s creators!

TOURNAMENTS