Indie games and discussions about them thrive at Fantastic Arcade

The public and most widely-seen face of video games is full of action, explosions, colorful candies crashing together, obnoxious sounds and careful, polished, targeted marketing. The biggest video game releases blast onto the scene with clear influences of development decisions made at corporate levels to appeal to specific game players. With the sharp increase of reasonable and accessible game development tools and distribution platforms (like the Apple App Store and Vavle’s Steam on PCs), there has been a quiet but steady upswell of small groups of developers creating challenging, personal games that question what video games can do and sometimes tell very touching and real stories.

Fantastic Arcade, the video gaming arm of Fantastic Fest that runs through Thursday, highlights several of these more artistic ventures and offers their developers a chance to talk about what they've created at Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar and demo the games at The Highball next door.

All of the events are free and are being streamed at http://www.twitch.tv/venuspatrol for those who can't make the trip in person. The trip is worth your while, though. The events present a unique opportunity to play games, listen to the developers talk about them, and to ask questions about the development and creative processes that went into the games. You can even play competitively against other players in several tournaments.

The developer commentaries are loosely formatted but provide a lot of information for people who are interested in the creation of games and the personalities of the people behind them. On Monday, the developers of the abstract, surreal echolocation walking simulator Versnoof got the audience on their feet and took everyone through physically modelling the systems in the game. Then they used volunteers to demonstrate how they incorporate handmade clay models into their game. The commentaries are usually followed by a Q&A session, and are greatly enhanced if you have a chance to check out the arcade and take the game for a whirl beforehand.

The tournament events are very informal, fast, fun and furious. There is a sign-up clipboard for interested contestants to enter in advance for fame and prizes. Keep in mind that all of these competitions are being projected onto a big screen in the Alamo Drafthouse, then also broadcast out over the internet via the Twitch stream for the Fantastic Arcade, so your humiliation and/or fame are going to be shared with a wide audience!

The arcade part of the Fantastic Arcade is tucked away in the front-most part of The Highball. There is a row of custom arcade cabinets, featuring the games which are identified as "Juegos Originals," games which are debuting at Fantastic Arcade. There is also a row of PCs, which house all of the other games available to try out. Many of the games are abstract and provide little to no instructions on how to play. They can be difficult to get into, especially if the room starts getting crowded but there are definitely some gems to be found that are worth trying out. "Froggy (It's Hungry)," "A Good Snowman is Hard to Build" and "Flywrench" are all pretty accessible and fun, but really anything you try out will expand your ideas about video games in some way.

Event sponsor Sony also brought several PlayStation 4 systems featuring pre-release games for people to try out. All the games are in the spirit of the independent games which are actually featured in the Fantastic Arcade; they are mostly smaller games with retro themes and gameplay styles, so they mesh well with the rest of the games.

Theoretically, between the live stream linked above and the Humble Weekly Bundle where you can buy and download some of the games from the festival, much of the experience can be had at home. There is something to be said for the in-person experience, however, and at the price of free anyone who is interested in learning about game development, aspires to become a developer, or just loves indie games should check out the Fantastic Arcade.