Indie Games at E3

By: Derek Yu

On: July 10th, 2007

e3

With the death of the giant laser show / burlesque club that was the old E3, and the rise of what it supposedly a toned-down, more exclusive new E3, it feels like independent games are the smart, well-dressed classmates that are getting invited to a teaparty that E3’s mom is making him have for his birthday instead of the huge kegger he wanted to throw for CliffyB. This is courtesy of Indiecade, which, in this analogy, would be like indie games’s mom, who called E3’s mom and convinced her to invite indie games because she felt they were spending too much time on their homework and needed to have some fun. In the end, E3 has a great time and with the help of his new friends (and the magic of montage) he actually raises his GPA to a C+ and gets his high school diploma.

Check out the line-up after the extended. It’s a good crop of games and developers:

Hands-On Demos

8, by Tale of Tales

And Yet It Moves, by Vienna Institute of Technology

Braid by Jonathan Blow

Cloud, by That Game Company

Everyday Shooter, by Jon Mak, Queasy Games

Fijuu2, by Julian Oliver and Pix

N, by Metanet Software

Night Journey, by Bill Viola with Tracy Fullerton, USC
Revolution, by MIT Education Arcade

Rumble Box, by Digipen

Whyville, by New Medeon

Video Compilation

Arcade Wire, by Persuasive Games

Bone, by Telltale Games

Can You See Me Now, by Blast Theory

Freedom Fighter 56, by Lauer Learning

Game Over (Machinima), by Pes

[giantJoystick] (Installation), by Mary Flanagan

Out of Your Mind, by gameLab

Steam Brigade, by Pedestrian Entertainment

(Source: Kotaku)

  • Rz.

    that was the most wonderful analogy i’ve ever seen. what is this salty discharge coming from my eyes? ;_;

  • rinkuhero

    What the — how do they have a demo of “8”? I thought Tale-of-tales was still working on The Path and had saved 8 for after that…

    As a side note, Indiecade is run by Jenova Chen’s professor, Celia Pearce, who is a pretty good game designer herself.

  • fartron

    In the John Hughes version of the gameospherex indie should be the motor-heads, or at least carry a whiff of leather.

  • http://rav.realitybytes.tk ravuya

    Go Rumble Box, Go!

  • PoV

    What?

  • Melly

    Most of those titles are very promising and interesting. I’m especially looking forward to one day play Braid, even if just a demo (doubtful it’ll be freeware, unless somebody can correct me).

  • gum

    I’ve almost played it through now (what’s the point of being a games journalist if you can’t brag about all the cool games you get to play, eh?). It’s the bestest and wonderfullest game I’ve ever played.
    No really, it’s an instant classic.