The Rochester Game Festival is moving to the Rochester Institute of Technology’s Gene Polisseni Center this Fall, and our new home will provide us with plenty of room to showcase games from more than 35 developers.
Would you like a preview of the exhibitors you’ll get to meet on September 15th? Check out the full list right here…
ROC Game Dev
ROC Game Dev is a group dedicated to bringing together game development enthusiasts, hobbyists, and anyone interested in making video games. Whether you’re a developer, artist, musician, programmer, streamer, or totally new to game development, you’re more than welcome to join the group, partake in discussion, and attend the meetups. No prior experience or projects to show needed. Come hang!
Organizers from ROC Game Dev will show Rob “bclikesyou” Mostyn’s A Small Robot Story, a side-scrolling platformer starring a very small robot, and submissions from this Summer’s RGD Game Jam. (ROCGameDev.com)
Tech Valley Game Space
Tech Valley Game Space is one of the largest gamemaking communities in New York’s Capital Region. Organizers from TVGS will showcase a few games created by developers from the area. (TechValleyGameSpace.com)
Aesthetician Labs
Aesthetician Labs is working on Crazy Platez, a game where you play as a driver dashing haphazardly across the city to deliver as many plates as possible. Your responsibility as a Crazy Platez delivery driver is to keep the people of Rochester satisfied and full. Race against the clock to deliver plates and refill your tank before you run out of gas!
Crazy Platez won 1st Place in the “Student” category at this year’s NYS Game Dev Challenge. (Aesthetic.games)
Alex Hazen
Alex Hazen is developing Mansion Mayhem, a top-down arcade horror shooter game where players take control of Castor, an inventor who travels to different haunted and supernatural locations. In each level, the player can collect materials to upgrade Castor’s health, build new weapons, and further his abilities.
Amorhpous Games
Amorhpous Games is a hard at work on Gabriella, a roguelike that might remind you of Hollow Knight, The Binding of Isaac, or Hyper Light Drifter.
Bread Machine Games
Bread Machine Games recently launched Slam Land for the PC, PS4, and Switch. Up to four players can play this party game that combines basketball and brawling. (BreadMachineGames.com)
Bull Horn Games
Aurum Kings recently launched on Steam courtesy of Bull Horn Games. Aurum Kings is a is a two-to-four player couch competitive arena game where the goal is to become the richest player in all the land. (BullHornGames.com)
Collectorvision Games
You play as Sydney Hunter, an explorer who gets trapped inside a Mayan pyramid, in Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan. In this 2D action platformer, you whip, bomb, and spear your way through Mayan ruins including six temples to stop time itself from freezing. Kukulkan has broken up the Mayan Haab calendar into seven separate pieces, and hid them through the area. Can you restore the Mayan Calendar and unlock Kululkan’s dark secret before it’s too late?
Sydney Hunter and the Curse of the Mayan will launch in Early 2019 for the PC, PS4, and Nintendo Switch. (Collectorvision.com)
Dante Nardo
Dante Nardo is developing Lock, Stock, & Barrel: A Dime Western Tabletop RPG. It combines real life stories and locations with the ridiculousness of dime novels to create a thigh slappin’ good time! Inspired by “Spaghetti Westerns,” Lock, Stock, & Barrel will recreate legendary duels with outlaws, daring train robberies (or rescues), and more than one chance to show your true grit.
David Kilmer
David Kilmer was inspired by Sokoban to begin developing Sokobrokobot, a game about a little warehouse robot who uses magnets to push and pull the crates. Unfortunately, your magnets are broken and they won’t turn off! See if you can still get the job done in this brain-bending puzzle game.
Dennis McCorry
Dennis McCorry will have three games on display this time at the ROC Game Fest. In The Sword and the Slime, players will control a magical floating sword that must protect and guide various characters through a dangerous dungeon full of nasty monsters and cruel traps.
Flower City was his submission to last year’s RGD Game Jam, and it’s a simple and absurd little platformer where you complete various mini quests around Rochester.
Finally, A Shot in the Dark is A 2D platformer set in the old west with an occult twist. Monsters are lurking in the shadows and are difficult to spot thanks to the game’s with limited color pallet (just black, white, and red). Do your best to avoid being devoured and fill those baddies full of lead.
Greg W. Lyons
Greg W. Lyons will show Chambers, a multiplayer game that traps four players in a chamber. Each player has a bomb strapped to them, and only one can make it out alive. Can you grab enough power-ups to outwit and out-slap your opponents?
Hypostatic Studios
Hypostatic Studios is currently working on 8128: A Perfect Year, a psychological sci-fi RPG that takes place in the year 8128, which is also the last “Perfect Number” discovered by the Ancient Greeks. (HypostaticStudios.com)
Imaginary Monsters
Peter Lazarski makes comics and games under the name Imaginary Monsters.
In Abyxsis (which is coming soon and won 3rd Place in the “Indie” category at the NYS Game Dev Challenge), you play as a penitent demon intent on escaping the abyss to rescue an innocent human child from peril in the mortal world. You are the least likely hero in a world where prayers otherwise go unanswered. And something mysterious is happening in the pumpkin patch in Halloween Forever (which is now available for the PC). You control Pumpkin Man, a humanoid pumpkin thing animated by occult forces on a quest to discover why things are so creepy. (ImaginaryMonsters.com)
Inverted Productions
Zachary Yaro uses the name Inverted Productions as a designer and developer of various games and pieces of software, including Banana Split, a twist of third-person shooter and real-time strategy ingredients for a sweet new flavor of multiplayer action… and heaps of dessert puns. (InProd.co)
J2B Games
J2B Games is developing MetroGnome, a voxel-based rhythm defense game that teaches players the essential components of music. Players are encouraged to explore different areas throughout the game to discover new environments and original songs.
Jacob Yaple
Cold Quest: Tundra Tactics is an Arctic-themed race game using domino tiles as ice floes, which players manipulate to be the first to cross the board. (Facebook.com/coldquestboardgame)
The Janus Project
The Janus Project is a team of RIT students, and they’re bringing an early prototype of their first game, codenamed JHC, to the ROC Game Fest. Development began earlier this May, and the team is eagerly seeking playtest feedback and suggestions on the core combat system. (Twitter.com/nordicjanitor)
Latinforimagination
Latinforimagination is developing Reset Hard, an old-school, competitive arena-shooter about exploiting time-travel to lay traps, outsmart friends, and do impossible things. (Reset-Hard.com)
Letiman Games
Letiman Games makes tabletop games for the whole family. Their three most recent releases will be available to try at the ROC Game Fest…
The Neverland Rescue, an asymmetrical twp-player game in which opponents take on the role of either our hero Peter Pan, or the treacherous Captain Hook. Groves, a strategy game that combines worker placement with bag building as players must restore Idyllon to its former glory. And in Dino Dude Ranch, players roll custom dice each turn in order to collect resources (leaves, fish, and meat) used to capture dinosaurs from the Jurassic Hunting Grounds. (LetimanGames.com)
MAGIC Spell Studios at RIT
MAGIC Spell Studios’s current student project is Fragile Equilibrium, a side-scrolling shooter about the imperfection and impermanence of life. Fragile Equilibrium is a reflection on transience, a balancing act between progress and regrowth, and a reminder to find beauty in decay and inevitable destruction. Using old-school “SHMUP” mechanics and forms, the game invites the player to explore a world of quick actions, forced decisions, and subtle strategy. But with each decision, the player falls ever out of balance. (magic.RIT.edu)
Alexis Lipina
Alexis Lipina is currently working on Awake(), a 3D action RPG with an 8-bit artistic style heavily inspired by Hyper Light Drifter. In Awake(), you explore a variety of alien environments, fight challenging monsters, and piece together what your purpose is on a strange planet.
Megastorm Games
Megastorm Games won 3rd Place in 2017 in the NYS Game Dev Challenge’s “Indie” category for Shotgun Farmers. The game is the multiplayer shooter where your bullets grow the guns. Harvest “weapon plants” quickly for more ammo or let them grow for a larger clip. Aim carefully, as a missed shot means you’ve just gifted your enemy with the gun you’re using! (ShotgunFarmers.com)
Obsidian Valley Studios
Obsidian Valley Studios is working on Render, a third-person brawler/adventure game with the heart of a first person shooter. (ObsidianValleyStudios.com)
OM Games
Duck and the Land of Flightless Birds is a 2D platformer made in Rochester by OM Games. It’s got a charming art style, unique gameplay features, and great music.
Peter Lockhart
Peter Lockhart is working on Project Lighthouse, a narrative adventure/puzzle game that focuses on the life of a teenage boy who struggles with his sexuality and his newfound telekinesis powers.
Rasklz Publishing
Rasklz Publishing is currently working on Cheating Death, a tabletop game that follows the adage, “Life sucks, and then you die.” In Cheating Death, players will need to outlive their friends and family! Avoid stacking up awful Afflictions and use Cheat cards to evade death and sabotage your opponents. (Rasklz.co)
Snow Day Software
Snow Day Software won 2nd Place in the “Indie” category of this year’s NYS Game Dev Challenge for Hovership Havoc, a top-down shooter set within a futuristic robotic factory. Players will traverse through rooms destroying robot enemies and collecting XP. They’ll also find randomly dropped abilities that can strengthen their chances to survive the factory. (SnowDaySoftware.com)
The Strong Museum of Play, RIT, and Second Avenue Learning
The Strong Museum of Play, the Rochester Institute of Technology, and Second Avenue Learning recently collaborated to launch The Original Mobile Games for iOS and Android devices. The Original Mobile Games replicates handheld puzzle games that were first introduced anywhere from 50-100 years ago, allowing you to play them the same way you’d play the original games. It also provides historical information and photographs for each game. (MuseumOfPlay.org / RIT.edu / SecondAvenueLearning.com)
TBA Studios
TBA Studios’s Neighbor is a 2D-style narrative game that emphasizes the delicate nature of showing kindness to the people around you. The game’s story revolves around a main character who just wants to go home and rest. As he climbs up to his top floor apartment he encounters other residents in the building. You can choose to get to know them and help them when they seek assistance. Be careful though, trying to help too many people could have an adverse effect on your own well-being.
Team GeoDudes
Team GeoDudes is developing Project Lily Pad, a Serious GeoGame developed with the purpose of teaching spatial thinking in terms of disaster resilience. The game is set in the city of Dickinson, Texas, during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey on August 30, 2017. “Day 1” requires the player to think spatially in unfamiliar territory and navigate using instructions and a paper map to drop off supplies. In “Day 2,” the player plays as a Cajun Navy officer, rescuing people and dropping them off at “Lily Pads” (locations that have elevation, resources, and are recognizable as landmarks).
That Indie Studio
That Indie Studio is developing The Last Hex, an RPG deck builder with roguelike elements. The dead arise and only you can stand against them. Travel the lands to slay monsters, acquire new cards, survive dangerous encounters and claim powerful equipment to enhance your deck. A final showdown with The Lost awaits you at… The Last Hex! (ThatIndieStudio.com)
Tremorworks
Tremorworks creates tabletop games, including the Paragon Universal Role-Playing Game, which is an adaptable, expandable tabletop RPG system, with an ever-growing library of settings and add-ons, including the brand new fantasy setting “The Embers of Pyre.” And MythicArena is a battle royale-style card game, pitting teams of fantasy characters against one another in a contest to achieve the most glory. (Tremorworks.com)
Zucchini People Games
Zucchini People Games develops tabletop games, and their latest is Tower of Greylock: Fantasy Tactics, a tactics game inspired by Final Fantasy Tactics. (ZucchiniPeopleGames.com/)