Indiecade Festival Nominees Announced, Are Great

People often throw around the term “indie.” To some it just means anything that doesn’t have a budget of umpteen million dollars, but for others it describes a certain passion or dedication to a project that you don’t see every day. Regardless of definition, Indiecade is an annual conference that celebrates just about everything that could ever conceivably be hit with the “indie” label.

Held in Culver City, California, Indiecade tries to highlight a few of the most promising games every year. The nominees for this year’s festival (running Oct. 23-25) include some pretty wacky, inventive projects.

I’ve had a chance to play a few of them myself at various conferences. Line Wobbler is probably the strangest, because it’s the first and only game I’ve ever seen that takes place in one dimension. And it’s a dungeon crawler. That you play with a doorstop. You had to be there.

There’s also some more traditional games like the cuddly, almost kid-friendly video game version of Game of Thrones, Armello. Squad’s Kerbal Space Program also got a nod, as did everyone’s favorite investigation simulator Her Story.

Not all of these games are available for PC, and some, like Line Wobbler, can only be played on a purpose-built machine. Either way, all of these games are at least worth a gander if you can spare it. The ideas that they toy with are fascinating on their own, and it’s always good to know what the next generation of developers are busy hammering out.

&MAYBETHEYWON’TKILLYOU [official site]
60 Seconds [official site]
Aboard the Looking Glass [official site]
Armello [official site]
Codex Bash [official site]
Consentacle [official site]
Darknet [official site]
Donut County [official site]
Eleanor of Ayer [official site]
Engare [official site]
Fabulous Beasts [official site]
Find Maria Rivera [official site]
Her Story [official site]
Home Improvisation [official site]
Kerbal Space Program [official site]
Kwaan [official site]
Line Wobbler [official site]
Memory of a Broken Dimension [official site]
Monarch [official site]
Museum of Simulation Technology [official site]
Myriad [official site]
Nevermind [official site]
Plug & Play [official site]
Prune [official site]
Puzzlets [official site]
Red & Pleasant Land [official site]
SCALE [official site]
Seltani [official site]
Sentree [official site]
Seven Day Band [official site]
Story Warriors: Fairy Tales [official site]
The Meadow [official site]
Throw Trucks With Your Mind [official site]
Tribal & Error [official site]
Walden, a game [official site]
Wonderland: A Solvitur Ambulando Mystery [official site]