Preview of 3rd Annual Regional Spring Indies Showcase

Theodore Eicher
Apr 23
8 min read

Updated: Apr 24

On Saturday April 26th, we will be hosting our third annual Regional Indie Games Spring Showcase! Today’s update is an overview of what attendees can expect this year. As usual, the showcase is free to all attendees. The event is from 2:00 pm to 5:00 pm and is located at the 4th Floor Media Innovation Center, Evansdale Crossing (62 Morrill Way), Morgantown, West Virginia. This is part of the West Virginia University’s Evansdale campus. At the showcase, you will be able to meet game designers and vendors from West Virginia and Southwest Pennsylvania to play and purchase their games. Our amazing studios and sponsors have also donated some great prizes for this year’s raffle. Check out a few highlights at the end of this post. After the showcase, if you are free for dinner, stop by Chipotle on 461 High Street! Your order, from 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. will help support WVU's game developers club. Use the code GVGWNAB for mobile orders to download/print this flier for in person orders.

How to Get Tickets:

Earn free tickets by completing quests at each studio’s table (like playtesting games, making a purchase, or wishlisting a game on Steam).
Free tickets are limited, but you can also buy more at the registration table (cash only).
Prefer to pay by card? Use the Donate button on our website and select Raffle Tickets. Enter the amount you'd like to spend then show your receipt to the registration table!

Ticket Prices:

1 ticket for $2
3 tickets for $5
7 tickets for $10
15 tickets for $20

Raffle Drawing: The raffle will be drawn at 4:40 PM on the day of the event. You must be present to win. If your name is called and you’re not there, we’ll draw again!

If you haven't had the chance yet to RSVP for the showcase as an attendee you can do so here: https://www.monrivergames.com/events/attendee-rsvp-3rd-annual-regional-spring-indies-showcase

Vote!

After playing the projects that interested you the most at our showcase, head to our home page to vote for the games you thought had the most interesting play experiences, story, or art. This is just a friendly competition with no prizes, but we'd still like to hear your voice! We'll make an announcement after the showcase in an update post.

Vendors and Studios

Here are the studios and vendors attending the Showcase this year:

Schell Games: Gold Tier Sponsor

Schell Games is a professional full-service game development studio based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania known for their virtual reality and educational games. You may know them best for their titles Among Us VR as well as I Expect You to Die! They have been sponsoring this showcase since its first year and we appreciate their willingness to assist us in bringing developers together. They are able to make it down in person this year to demo their new mixed-reality party game Party Versus. They also have an open house on May 22 that there is still time to sign up for! Go to their website for more information.
You can learn more about Party Versus here:
https://schellgames.com/portfolio/party-versus
You can learn more about Schell Games as a studio here:
https://schellgames.com/

Bit Bridge: Bronze Tier Sponsor

We are glad to have Bit Bridge back to the Showcase! Bit Bridge is a community comprised of independent game designers based out of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. They host events and meet ups throughout the year to support and lift up designers in their community. They will be demoing Diacombs by Dan Lin and a Survivors-like game by Ludoko Studios. They will be providing a $20 Nintendo Gift Card for our raffle.
You can join their discord here: https://discord.gg/Mj4fQuV

Design Thinking Games (Tim Broadwater): Bronze Tier Sponsor

Attending the showcase for the first time is Tim Broadwater of the Design Thinking Games podcast. Design Thinking Games is a podcast about analyzing games what makes them work through mechanical analysis. The podcast also features independent game designers to give interviews about their games. Design Thinking Games are also hoping to manufacture and publish their action card game Thirst and will have copies at the Showcase to playthrough as well as sign ups for their Kickstarter. They are providing board games featured on their podcast for the raffle.
You can learn more about their podcast here:
https://www.designthinkinggames.com/
You can follow Thirst on Kickstarter here:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/wvtinytim/thirst-3

Lasso Games

We are welcoming back Lasso Games for a third time. Lasso Games is a co-op game development studio based out of Huntington, West Virginia. They have developed and published both board games and video games. At the showcase, they'll have Peng Wars to play. They’ll also show a video of Highway rampage, Leventera, and Minilaw on loop. Random Quest they’ll have to show as well, but do not currently have any copies available to sell. They will have codes for many of their games available for purchase at the event. For their raffle item, they are putting up copies of their games as well as a print and play version of their board game Random Quest.
You can learn more about them and their releases on their website here: https://lassogames.com/lasso/

Lonely Hero

Lonely Hero Games are back again for the third time this year. Lonely Hero Games are a Board Game Publisher based out of West Virginia. They will be selling copies of their games Bank Heist and Hungry for Humans. Bank Heist is a social deduction game where some players take up the roles in a gang attempting to successfully rob a bank while others are the police seeking to sabotage the heist and arrest their opponents, but neither party know who is who. Hungry for Humans is a press your luck card game featuring several famous cryptids as well as meals from local restaurants around West Virginia. It is a tour of the state in a box! They have also offered a copy of each game for the raffle.
You can learn more about them and their games here:
https://lonelyherogames.com/

FYRE Games (Conner Rush)

Conner Rush of FYRE Games has attended all of our Showcases and we thank him for his continued attendance. This year Conner is demoing his newest project Project Songbird at the showcase. Project Songbird is a psychological horror game following independent songwriter Dakota and their ordeal of trying to finish their newest album alone in a cabin deep in the woods of West Virginia. It is stylistically reminiscent of an A24 horror film matched with the character drama of classic Silent Hill. FYRE Games has also provided shirts for our raffle.
Learn more about FYRE Games here: https://www.fyregames.com/
Wishlist Project Songbird Here: https://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/3180410/

PreXense

PreXense is bringing a demo for their VR game titled "Cabal's Quest" for players to try. You can follow them here: https://www.instagram.com/prexensestudios/

Ian Maupin

Ian Maupin is bringing "En Garde" 1v1 card-based fighting game with push your luck element. He is also planning to provide a board game for our raffle.

Jolly Bat Games

Jolly Bat Games is planning to bring "Tempest, Inc" back to demo.

Undergraduate, Graduate, and MonRiverGames Student Projects

As usual, capstone students as well as beginning and intermediate game design students will be demo'ing progress of their work this past semester. Not so usual: WVU's MA Game Design, which is fully online, has graduating students that will also be participating! Projects are not considered finished until the end of the semester on May 9, which means your feedback will be very valuable to them as they seek to improve their games. Here is a breakdown of the projects they will be showing:

MonRiverGames (Composed of Community members, Game Design and Computer Science Capstones, Adv Game 2, Independent Study Students, and Research Work Study students) Most of our games can now be wishlisted on Steam!

"A Day in the Life of a Social Worker" VR Experience: a revised version of a previous experience designed by Play Higher and Roundtable Learning. This version polishes up that version through a collaborative effort with MonRiverGames in an advisory role and integrates an interactable reward/prize system that Game Design and Interactive Media student Brodey Cook developed in the Unity Game Engine.
Light Rush: A 4 player competitive versus. This semester's updates has polish added to new maps, mechanics, and UI as we work to make it available on early access.
WV Quest: an educational mobile experience in collaboration with the WV State Museum that contains a selection of mini games and trivia questions to enhance the exploration of visiting the museum in person.
Purple House: Released last summer, this is a mobile fantasy plant game that is free to play on Apple and Android devices.
Derby: A high speed rogue-like movement shooter in which you are the energetic and adorable derby. Be the top dog as you skate past your enemies.
Chumps Chained: Two best friends scam a wizard and get cursed to work together in this two player co-operative puzzle platformer.
GDIM Arcade: A proof of concept/rough prototype of a new project we will be continuing in full swing next Fall---> Deep in the mountains of Appalachia you've finally started working towards your dream: "Fix up an old arcade and open it up in order to build a community focused on play in your hometown." This game is our first attempt at a compilation series and is being created to celebrate the anniversary/continuation of our program. Student projects/teams from the past 5 years of the program were nominated by committee at the studio and then invited to participate.

Other Undergraduate Course Projects

Glory for Goblins: Humanity sucks and has gone too far. They're hurting the forest! It is time for all Goblins to fight back. A fantasy tactical strategy game.

HotLap: a racing car game

Raccoon's Riddle: You are a detective investigating the computer of Randy Rubbish, a raccoon whose 10-year-old daughter has been recently declared missing. Randy is currently the prime suspect. However, there is no hard evidence, so you are looking for any clues you can find. A mystery game.

Wildcards: Each spring we reserve a couple tables on a first come, first serve basis that allows students that missed the registration deadline to still show their game. These spots are very limited and some may stay for only a short time. Roll your d20 because these projects could be practically anything!

Graduate Master Thesis Projects

Celestial Explorer Created by: Zachary Frye A 3D platformer about twins named Luna and Sol. The navigate different areas of the galaxy to collect elemental shards to earn their explorer certifications.

The Ithaca Protocol Created by: Jonathan Reburn A 3D tactical shooter where you play as a team tasked with clearing dangerous creatures from ships trying to enter Earth. You are teamed with a robot named RUCKUS that allows you to change your loadout instantly.

The Nomad's Curse Created by: Nick Bolyard Players craft their own gameplay experience with the decisions they make and using environmental storytelling to help progress the story and promote exploration.

We would like to thank everyone who has signed up this year for the Showcase whether new or returning. It is a pleasure to work with you all!

Raffle Highlights

While some raffle items were mentioned above, here are additional highlights of this year’s raffle to look forward to.

Our Gold tier sponsor MSI is providing 4 Forge GK310 combo keyboards for our raffle this year!

Bronze Tier Sponsor Tim Broadwater is providing a copy of Diatoms and Black Mold for our raffle. Diatoms creator Sabrina Culyba has featured on the Design Thinking Games podcast. Learn about Diatoms here: https://www.25thcenturygames.com/store/diatoms

Learn about Black Mold here: https://www.tokenterrors.com/black-mold

MorbidlyDapper fossils and rocks donated a gift bag. It contains: amethysts, black kyanite, flourite, desert rose, labradorite, aragonite, mookaite, polychrome jasper, Shiva ligam, garnet, sea urchin, ammonite, a fish fossil, and handcrafted artisan wooden spoon. See the pictures below.