PARIS, Oct 22 — IndieCade Europe has announced winners in nine categories following a two-day video game festival in Paris, France, with social connector Kind Words winning the Grand Prix and Biped scooping Audience Choice.
Held at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France — the Paris-based national library of France — IndieCade Europe pronounced Kind Words” a game where players send anonymous, encouraging comments to one another over the internet, winner of its Grand Prix during an October 19 closing ceremony.
Available to purchase for Mac, Linux, and Windows PCs, it was one of two dozen titles squeezed into a lively, welcoming wood-panelled exhibition room at the BnF, with a nearby board game space and rotating spread of of airy Show & Tell demo tables, and exhibitors coming from not only France and its surrounds but as far away as India, China, Japan, and the USA.
Along with fighting game Metal Revolution, Biped was one of two guests from China’s NEXT Studios, and a huddle of onlookers frequently massed around its demonstration area.
The two-person puzzle adventure has a pair of robotic characters waddle, slide and roll their way through a veritable obstacle course, whose challenges straddle reaction speed tests, communication and coordination, and good ol’ fashioned cognitive analysis, and the jolly jaunt was eventually named winner of the Audience Choice award; it’s been announced for PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and PC.
Several exhibitors were making repeat appearances after showcasing at Santa Monica’s original IndieCade the previous week: White Paper Games’ British time-loop thriller The Occupation (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) had won the Performance award, while accessible, colourful, and tactical triangular light box board game Kroma (2020 release) was crowned with the US edition’s Audience Award.
In Paris, it was fellow Kroma tabletoppers Dialect and Shasn that popped up among the laureates, after beautifully illustrated shared story-telling experience Dialect (available now) won the discrete Tabletop category, and Shasn, a board game about political manipulation and practical optimism, won the festival-wide Social Impact award.
IndieCade Europe’s remaining 2019 accolades went to 2020 Mac and PC alien ocean explorer In Other Waters (Jury Prix), six-person live theatre and web browser adventure The Aluminium Cat (Innovation in Experience Design), current Mac and PC digipet resurrection Cyberpet Graveyard (Innovation in Interaction Design), and upcoming world-shaping VR nature game ElemenTerra (Environmental Design).
Interactive artists’ group Blast Theory, whose museum work include flu pandemic historical walking tour Spit Spreads Death, SARS outbreak reconstruction A Cluster of 17 Cases, and exhibition piece giveaway app Gift, were recipients of the Trailblazer award. — AFP-Relaxnews
