Regional Indie Games Spring Showcase this Saturday, April 1!
Participating studios and vendors are listed in this post
This weekend, the Game Design and Interactive Media program (GDIM) at West Virginia University (WVU), MonRiverGames, and X-Reality Club are collaborating to host the Spring Regional Indie Games Showcase on April 1st, 2023 from 12-3 p.m. in the Media Innovation Center at Evansdale Crossing (4th floor). Attendees are invited to playtest games from over a dozen local studios, meet industry professionals, win prizes and celebrate game creators in the local community.
Travel from booth to booth to check out a variety of different independently created video games from professional game studios, student developers, and other game-related professionals. Interacting with the exhibitors will earn raffle tickets for a chance to win prizes such as Steam and Fortnite giftcards, among many others. Raffle tickets can also be purchased. Winning tickets will be pulled at 2:45 pm and individuals must be present to receive their prize. This event is free and open to the public.
You don't have to register to attend, but it is helpful for our headcount. You can register here on the site:
https://www.monrivergames.com/events/spring-indie-showcase-attendees
You may also register on the Facebook event page:
https://fb.me/e/2DJRnXuiH?mibextid=N4tvPT
The Game Design and Interactive Media program is an undergraduate major offered through the Reed College of Media and College of Creative Arts. MonRiverGames is a local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and a game development studio dedicated to providing enriching experiences within game design and the arts for the community. Partner and co-host, X-Reality, is a WVU student organization dedicated to the pursuit of advancing industry-essential skills and new media development, including virtual reality, augmented reality, game development and more. Sponsors that helped make this event possible are Schell Games as well as Vertex Herder.
This map details our exhibitors that will be attending. A brief description of each will also be provided below.
The following exhibitors will be hosting a table at our event:
Starlight King Press is a book publisher and podcast run by Terry Bartley. He will be hosting a special live podcast at our event from 1 pm to 2 pm.
MonRiverGames Studio: That's us! We'll be showing original Spy Cats, along with a remastered one level copy only shown at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco prior. We'll also show a few others that are in progress.
Schell Games will have several staff members at their table to talk to students attending the showcase about the company. Based out of Pittsburgh, PA they are one of the biggest game companies of our area and offer internships regularly. From their website, "Schell Games is one of the largest full-service game design and development companies in the United States, working with and creating
games for some of the most beloved companies across the globe." Their latest titles include: Among us VR, I expect you to Die 3: Cog in the Machine, and Cosmic Chase. Their founder, Jesse Schell, literally wrote the book on game design. You can find it here: https://schellgames.com/art-of-game-design. They've also published both a free web based and app version you can try out based on this book.
Bit Bridge is "a group for indie game developers in the Pittsburgh area. Whether you’re a full-time game dev, a moonlighter, a student, or just want to know what developing video games is all about, drop by one of our events or join us on our Discord Channel."
Four Horseman Comics and Gaming is as their title suggests- a comics and gaming store. They host game related events as well as sell comics and games. They will be at our event, but if you miss them, you can visit them at their store in the Morgantown Mall.
Decrepit Games, a digital games studio, will be demonstrating their new game Dispossessed- "A young woman named Duna is the latest in generations of pilgrims, seeking to reclaim their ancient home, around which a treacherous forest has grown. Duna must journey through the forest and into the abandoned city, where she will discover strange artifacts and characters lost to time."
FYRE Games, a digital games studio, will be showing their game that is part of the Dread X Collection 5 called, We Never Left.
Richie Ray will be showing his card game Oh Crap.
Blue Falcon Board Gaming's Corey Clark will be showing "The Foxes In The Hen House" and "A Baker's Dozen". Pics and descriptions available on his Facebook page.
Tongue Surgery, a digital games studio, will be demonstrating their new game Tempest Inc- "A shoot 'em up about best friends taking on an evil force using their unique abilities."
Vertex Herder, a digital games and software studio, will be showing Arms in Tartarus- "an endless world survival/exploration game set between ages where warriors from different times must work together to survive in hell."
Game Programs at WVU (Game Design and Interactive Media Undergraduate major, ESports minor, Masters of Art Game Design program) will be showing various student projects from 2022 and 2023. This table will also be where you can buy raffle tickets.
Pittsburgh Community for Unreal Engine will be present to talk about this community's regular meetings, which anyone that wants to learn the Unreal Engine can participate in.
Lonely Hero Games, a bard game publisher, will show Hungry for Humans. This is a WV themed board game that features 19 WV restaurants as well as cryprids such as The Mothman and Flatwoods Monster.
X-Reality/Game Development Clubs at WVU have been working together to help put together this event, as well as a VR shooting gallery demo.
Play Higher at WVU uses virtual reality and gaming for higher purposes. They will be demonstrating their "behavioral health social worker" VR app.
In addition to these studios, a couple members of Garrison Corellia will be in attendance at our event. Feel free to take pictures with them!
We appreciate the support of our sponsors as well as studios as we work to make our first Regional Indie Games Showcase a fun and interesting event celebrating our regional game makers and game-related enterprises. We look forward to seeing you all at the Media Innovation Center (Evansdale Crossing, 4th floor) this Saturday, April 1 from 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM.