Google is hosting its first-ever Indie Games Festival in San Francisco next month, giving mobile gaming fanatics a chance to check out a slate of 30 upcoming Android games prior to their public release.
The Google Play Indie Games Festival will conclude with a voting session conducted by a panel of gaming industry judges, and participating developers are eligible for prizes including Google Cloud credits, Nvidia Shield K1 tablets, and Razer Forge TV bundles.
Google’s inaugural indie gaming event will spotlight a collection of 30 exhibiting games, including many that are not yet publicly available. Google narrowed down its curated collection from more than 200 submissions, focusing on “games that promise the most fun and engaging experiences to attendees.”
Featured games for the event include Double Coconut’s cross-dimensional platformer Paralyzed, Necrosoft’s hybrid tower defense puzzler Gunhouse, and the VR mobile racer HOVR, among other standout apps representing multiple categories.
Attendees will be able to vote for their five favorite games, and winning apps will receive audience choice awards. Google has also assembled a team of industry experts for the event’s final round of judging, including Kongregate CEO Emily Greer, World of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel, and LucasArts veteran Noah Falstein.
“We are committed to helping indie game developers thrive and highlighting the best available games for you to play,” Google announced this week. “We recently launched the Indie Corner, a new collection on Google Play, that highlights amazing games built by indie developers. It is an opportunity to discover the latest and most innovative releases, the current favorites and must-have Indie masterpieces all in one place.”
The Google Play Indie Games Festival is free and open to the public, but requires pre-registration. The event kicks off on Saturday, September 24, in downtown San Francisco.
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Google Play is borrowing one of the Nintendo Switch’s most useful little tricks. A new Sidekick tool called Playbacks captures a short clip after something interesting has already happened, sparing players from running a screen recorder throughout an entire game.
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