IndieCade Festival

Lore & Background

IndieCade was formed by Creative Media Collaborative, an alliance of industry producers and leaders founded in 2005. IndieCade's board of advisors have included (among others) Seamus Blackley, Tracy Fullerton, Megan Gaiser, Andy Gavin, Carl Goodman, John Hight, Robin Hunicke, Henry Jenkins, Richard Lemarchand, Frans Mayra, Jamil Moledina, Janet Murray, Robert Nashak, Carolyn Rauch, Kellee Santiago, Keita Takahashi, Will Wright, and Eric Zimmerman. IndieCade founder is Stephanie Barish, Festival Chair is Celia Pearce, and Festival Director is Sam Roberts. The festival started as part of E3 before being spun off as an independent event in Bellevue, Washington. In 2009, IndieCade moved its flagship stand-alone festival from Bellevue, Washington, to Culver City (Los Angeles), California, where a Twitter game and an "urban" scavenger hunt were part of the festivities. The Ottawa International Animation Festival (OIAF) partnered with the IndieCade organization in 2009. Each year, IndieCade created a "city-sized arcade" in downtown Culver City. The festival transformed a central blacktop parking lot on Main Street, leveraging the open space by building temporary structures that host parties, individual games, and planned and spontaneous Big Games. In 2016 IndieCade Europe was rebooted and took place in Paris, where it returned in 2017 and 2018. Since 2020, the annual IndieCade festival has taken place online under the name IndieCade Anywhere & Everywhere.

Reader's Guide

Approximately 40 games each year are selected to exhibit. The finalists are eligible to compete in IndieCade's Red Carpet Awards. Audience Choice and Developer Choice Awards are announced separately during the festival's closing party. Awards categories vary by year. Typical categories include: Best In Show, Best Story/World Design, Best Technology, Best Gameplay Design, Best Visuals, Best Sound, Best Interaction, Community Impact, Special Recognition. The IndieCade showcase is the heart of the IndieCade festival and consists of approximately 40 finalist games selected for their creativity, unique vision, and technological innovation. The showcase involves both digital and physical games. It is free and open to the public. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the main showcase was known as the "Game Walk" with several games exhibited in various locations across downtown Culver City: the fire station, NextSpace coworking offices, and the Gregg Fleishman Studio, all turned into temporary galleries for the festival. Night Games was an evening centered large-scale physical and hybrid games played outside after dark. The Big Games program served as an extension to IndieCade's mission to promote games of all kinds. Big Games are large, multi-player games played outside and involving physical activity, and range to include technology, tactics, and personal interaction. It was free and open to the public. The first IndieCade Mobile 3D Game Jam was hosted in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California's Interactive Media Division on August 6–7, 2011. The first annual IndieCade Holiday Party took place at Riot Games headquarters in Santa Monica on December 14, 2011.

Did You Know?

• Ben Fritz for the Los Angeles Times called IndieCade "the video game industry's Sundance."
• The IndieCade festival is the only stand-alone festival open to the public in the United States for exclusively independent games.
• Games are submitted for consideration to the IndieCade festival jury in the early spring and a selection of finalists for the culminating annual IndieCade festival is determined and announced by the fall.