Analogue: A Hate Story Christine Love, Canada

Analogue: A Hate Story is a dark visual novel about investigating a long-derelict generation ship by reading through its dead crew’s logs. The story unfolds in the form of a court drama in a society based on Korea’s historical Joseon dynasty, and is an exploration of the ways in which misogyny manifests, ways in which women resist it, and the cruel crippling effects of silencing.

Christine Love, Canada

(Platform: Windows Macintosh)

Binding of Isaac Edmund McMillen, USA

When Isaac’s mother starts hearing the voice of God, demanding a sacrifice be made to prove her faith, Isaac escapes into the basement facing droves of deranged enemies, lost brothers and sisters, his fears, and eventually his mother. The Binding of Isaac is a randomly generated action RPG shooter with heavy Rogue-like elements. The legend of zelda but reconstructed with the focus on how religious dogma might effect a troubled child’s mind.

Coalesce Jeremy Gibson, USA

Coalesce is a game for the iPad in which the player draws flowing, curving lines to connect atoms of similar colors. Players engage in a meditative experience with building tension that leads to an eventual return to calm and catharsis. The field begins in chaos, and over time, the player brings order to the world, coalescing all the various atoms into one molecule per color.

Jeremy Gibson, United States

(Platform: iOS)

Dark Dot MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, Singapore

Dark Dot is a cutesy action shooter game where players command a fleet of small minions known as Darklets. Dark Dot was initially conceived to showcase Flocking Animation and Modelling Environment (FAME). Players control their minions using touch controls to manipulate the flock to shoot and dodge enemies, and to charge up their powers.

Dawn of Cimmeria Cimmerian Entertainment, Canada

Dawn of Cimmeria is a Tower Defense game where players utilize a drawing mechanic to create a web of living trees that smash, shoot, and crush enemies to defend the player’s base. The art in Dawn of Cimmeria was influenced by traditional paint styles and the idea of light conquering darkness, immersing the player in a painted world.

Cimmerian Entertainment, Canada

(Platform: Windows)

The Fourth Wall DigiPen Institute of Technology, USA

The Fourth Wall is a 2D puzzle platformer about screen wrap. You are a wizard that has the ability to control the boundaries of his world, creating inventive and maddening puzzles in the physical space of the game. The Fourth Wall explores the screen wrap mechanic to its fullest potential.

Hokra Ramiro Corbetta, USA

Hokra is an elegant, minimalist, digital sports game for four players. Developed with the gallery space in mind, Hokra has simple controls and few rules, allowing depth to arise from player skill and the interaction of simple rules in multiplayer experiences. Hokra’s watchability and hidden complexity attempt to make local multiplayer games important again.

Ramiro Corbetta, United States

(Platform: Windows)

Johann Sebastian Joust! Die Gute Fabrik, Denmark

Johann Sebastian Joust is a music-based physical jousting game for two to six players, designed for motion controllers. The goal is to keep your accelerometer sufficiently still, while jostling your opponents’ controllers. When the music slows, your accelerometer becomes extra sensitive, and you must move in slow-motion. Johann Sebastian Joust is all about enjoying physical play and public performance.

Languish Erik Loyer, USA

A flight sim with words and ideas instead of ships and planes. In Languish, you pilot a “tripleship” through remote corners of your mind populated with giant spheres, each one representing a single idea. These spheres fire fragments of themselves at you in the form of words. By picking up these words and recombining them, you can create new concepts to either amplify or disable the ideas already in play.

Erik Loyer, United States

(Platform: 3D LG Phone)

The Moonlighters Rad Dragon, USA

The Moonlighters is a heist action RPG featuring an original Narrative Listening system that adapts the story to the way you play. In a fusion of glamorous 1950s Hollywood and 1990s RPG high fantasy, you take control of a group of hipcat entertainers who resort to pulling heists when their fame and success fade under the shadow of Rock & Roll.

A Mother’s Inferno The National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU), Denmark

A Mother’s Inferno is set on a train entering a hellish world of fire and neon abstraction. Based on the five stages of loss, the carts depict the different stages that the player is going through in her struggle to save her son. Starting in a seemingly normal train cart, A Mother’s Inferno will take the player through a variety of gradually more unexpected and disturbing scenarios.

The National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment (DADIU), Denmark

(Platform: Unity/Web)

Pickpocket Junction Wise Guys Events, USA

Pickpocket Junction is the game where players loot and commute. The Players are sticky-fingered thieves riding home after a successful day of stealing from suckers, and take turns stealing treasures from each other, but each treasure’s value is hidden until picked from an opponent’s pocket. Part memory, part math, part role-play, Pickpocket Junction is so much fun it ought to be criminal.

Prom Week Expressive Intelligence Studio, USA

Prom Week is a Flash game that makes social relationships playable. Powered by a novel AI system, Prom Week enables players to shape the lives of high schoolers in the tumultuous week leading up to their prom. Prom Week aims to encourage in players a higher level of responsibility for the events of a game fiction, while permitting a sense of play and cascading effects in the social sphere.

Expressive Intelligence Studio, United States

(Platform: Flash/Web)

Scale Steve Swink, USA

Scale is an experimental first person game that explores freely changing the scale of objects as a game mechanic. Scale was created to investigate a question: what happens when the normally inflexible scale of objects in a world becomes malleable? What concepts emerge? Which concepts fall away?

Songlines Samantha Vick, USA

Songlines is a gesture-based musical experience, where the player deforms and retextures terrain through gesture. The player flies freely through an unformed landscape, shaping the world, while a dynamic recombinant music engine combines short loops in response to the player’s actions. Thus, during the course of the experience, the player crafts a personalized musical landscape to go along with the physical one.

Samantha Vick, United States

(Platform: Kinect, Windows)

Spelltower stfj, USA

Find and eliminate words on a massive grid, but be sure to pick your words wisely! As you work, letters rise from the bottom of the screen, and it’ll take all of your lexicological wits and tactical know-how to keep them down. If any make it to the top row, it’s game over. SpellTower’s elegant design and unique blend of word finding and strategy is sure to hook you.

Tickleplane Messhof games, USA

This is a war learning game that teaches basic principles of typing. Emphasizes good posture and collaborative social engagement. Tickle the keyboard to fly your plane and hit space to shoot your friends.

Messhof games, United States

(Platform: Windows)

A Valley Without Wind Arcen Games, USA

A Valley Without Wind defies genre stereotypes, a procedurally-generated action adventure game with logical difficulty progression and detailed character customization. A Valley Without Wind hearkens back to the 16-bit 2D sidescrolling era, while fusing modern fantasy tropes and game design innovations to craft a highly entertaining experience.

Who Took The Apple KnapNok Games, Denmark

Who Took the Apple? is a 4 player card game played backwards in time that requires focused team communication and clever strategic thinking. Players compete to take the apple, using a bucket, four beers and a set of large cards. Who Took the Apple? inverts board games such as Space Alert and Robo Rally, where each player plansz a set of actions and then executes them, often with disastrous results.

KnapNok Games, Denmark

(Platform: Card Game)

ZOMBIEPOX Tiltfactor Laboratory, USA

ZOMBIEPOX is a 1-4 player game in which players fight the spread of zombies that threatens to take over their town. Players must help the humans escape the wrath of flesh-eating zombies by either vaccinating or curing townspeople. Originally conceived as a game of disease control to stop the spread of misinformation concerning the effects of vaccination.