October 15, 2015

Here Are the Must-See Unreal Engine Games Coming to IndieCade

By Dana Cowley

We've announced our plans for IndieCade Festival 2015, happening October 23-25 in Culver City, Calif. Three outstanding teams will give a taste of what they have in store for 2016 and beyond in the Unreal Engine booth:

  • Icon: Disc Jam by High Horse Entertainment, the newest kid on the block, is a competitive multiplayer mash-up of air hockey and tennis, with devastating abilities thrown in for good measure. Check out the announce trailer breakdown, and vote for it on Steam Greenlight. Behind the new Icon series are two developers who’ve spent a combined 17 years shipping games in the Call of Duty, Guitar Hero and Tony Hawk series. This will be the first chance for the public to play Icon: Disc Jam. Folks can sign up for the alpha and follow @HighHorseGames for updates.

  • Into the Stars by Fugitive Games, known for its highly successful Kickstarter and popularity on Steam Early Access, is coming to IndieCade with a brand new build featuring two major additions to the game! Lovingly crafted by four developers hailing from the likes of DICE, Capcom and SCEA, Into the Stars has been described as “Oregon Trail meets FTL in an open world.” Fun fact: The game has been made almost exclusively with UE4 Blueprint visual scripting (that’s right, no coding). Follow @FugitiveGames to see when they’re streaming and touring around.

  • Rising Thunder by Radiant Entertainment rounds out the menu with a punch (sorry). Hurtling into open alpha only a week after its reveal at Evo 2015, Rising Thunder’s momentum is unstoppable, and the influence of the online fighter’s creators is undeniable: Seth Killian, formerly of Capcom and SCEA, is well-known for his accomplishments on the Street Fighter series; Brock Feldman has been engineering fighting games for over a decade; Tom Cannon founded the Evo Championship Series, and Tony Cannon developed the GGPO tech found in the netcode of many popular fighting games. Follow @RisingThunder for news, and play the game for free now.

"It's great to see these small teams deliver highly polished games, all in different genres," said Joe Kreiner, Epic’s head of licensing for the Americas. “I'm looking forward to playing the games, and look forward to talking with lots of awesome developers."

In addition, Senior Epic Games Developer Relations Technical Artist Alan Noon will present two sessions on using Unreal Engine tools to build and ship great games: exploring Epic's new Match 3 mobile sample project, and building a game framework using Blueprint visual scripting.

Anyone interested in chatting with Epic, and playing the above-mentioned games and meeting the creators behind them, is invited to stop by and hang out.

Also not to be missed, Planet Alpha 31 by Adrian Lazar will be playable in the SideFX booth. Lazar was one of the first Unreal Dev Grant recipients due to his awesome work on the game, which snagged three Indie Prize awards at Casual Connect Singapore during its first public showing. 

Two final shout outs go to Unreal-powered Throw Trucks With Your Mind by Crooked Tree Studios (IndieCade 2015 Official Selection) and XING: The Land Beyond by White Lotus Interactive (IndieCade 2015 Official VR Select), another Unreal Dev Grant recipient.

Check ‘em out if you’ll be there.