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Five games to fall in love with in the Fantastic Arcade bundle

Five games from Fantastic Fest’s Fantastic Arcade are available as part of a fantastic bundle on itch.io: Nium, Alphabet, Inspector Woof, F2oggy, and Lassos. All proceeds from the Fantastic Arcade bundle will go to the next Fantastic Arcade, in efforts to bring more independent game makers to the show floor. If you’re in Austin, Texas, you can play these games—and others, like Everything, Islands, and Sacramento—at Fantastic Fest’s Fantastic Arcade, which opened Monday. It’s free and open to the public, too, but only running until Thursday, September 29. The games there are playable on beautiful custom arcade cabinets. Here’s a rundown of the games:…

Dog Opera
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Please give a round of apaws for David Kanaga’s dog opera videogame

Have you ever been to the dog opera before? Well, you simply must go! If you haven’t, David Kanaga has you covered. Co-creator of Proteus (2013) and Panoramical (2015), Kanaga will be showing off the Oik OS Book during the Fantastic Arcade from September 26-29th in Austin TX. According to the information provided by the Fantastic Arcade website, Kanaga’s game “is a dog opera computer game for Mac OS and Windows. It is the first book of a planned series about getting the household in order.” an interesting display of four-legged friends The Fantastic Arcade curates a selection of independent games from…

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You’ll be laughing all the way to hell in this Arcane Kids racing game

Arcane Kids, most recently known for Sonic Dreams Collection, already have some practice at turning your childhood memories into nightmare fuel. After tackling everything from Pokémon to the beloved hedgehog, they’ve now moved on to destroy/infinitely enhance classic racing games in their Fantastic Arcade entry entitled CRAP! No On Loves Me. a glitch and and a nostalgic guilt trip  Described by its creators as “a daily affirmation,” the game continues the Arcane Kids’ unique brand. Which is to say it delivers an experience somewhere between a glitch and and a nostalgic guilt trip. Presumably named after that realization you had at the…

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Ride through a snapshot of Italy in the wake of its 1970s social revolution

More than just an escape, the quintessential road trip both captures and distills a moment in time. The car’s make, model, and condition—all of it tells the story of not only an era, but its owner and the life that brought them to this long stretch of pavement. Maybe you’re riding a VW Camper full of ash stains and pilling carpets. Or, it could be a Ford Sierra, still carrying the faint scent of your mom’s perfume. Perhaps your road trip vehicle is actually more like a getaway car: a beautiful, vintage Mercedes that’s one rich girl’s ticket out of…

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You can play this psychedelic forest game with a moss controller

If nature was able to make a videogame I think it would be Alea. And it’s not just because it’s a twee, musical hike through a “psychedelic forest.” Nor is it due to its two graphics options: “Shrub” and “Tree.” I say that because you can play it with a moss controller. Like, actual moss, those green clumps of shrub that grow in the cracks of pavements or atop roofs. You’ve seen it. Yeah, that stuff. This is really happening. Right now, at Fantastic Arcade, Alea is being played on an arcade cabinet. You have to poke all four fingers…

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Here are the six awesome sounding games debuting at this year’s Fantastic Arcade

Six new games will get their own original arcade cabinets and premiere for play at this year’s Fantastic Arcade, an annual exhibition of videogames set during the final four days of Fantastic Fest in Austin, Texas. The curated line-up this time around is a motley collection of weird and wonderful sounding experiments ranging from hiking sims to co-op cooking games to interactive fiction/racing mash-ups. Alea, created by Gardenarium artist Paloma Dawkins, along with Cale Bradbury and Calia Thompson-Hannant, is described as a “hiking simulator & experience of infinity” meant to remind us of the ever-present light and dark surrounding us. “Just…