Fantastic Fest, the popular Austin, Texas independent film festival is returning for it’s seven year in action from the 22^nd of September to the 29^th. While this may seem unrelated to independent gaming, the festival also hosts a spin off videogames section, aptly titled Fantastic Arcade, which will run from the 22^nd to the 25^th. This year sponsored by Playstation Network, the event will give a wide showcase to twenty high profile independent games that has been drumming up support over the recent months. A variety of tournaments, discussions with creators and gameplay footage are planned to keep the gaming fraternity ecstatic if the movies aren’t to their liking.

Several of the games which will be demonstrated at Fantastic Arcade are:

• Bit Pilot (Zack Gage)
• Insanely Twisted Shadow (Shadow Planet Productions)
• Radical Fishing (Vlambeer)
• Skulls of the Shogun (Haunted Temple Studios)
• Fez (Polytron)
• Lost Mars (Tiger Style)
• FRACT (Phosfiend Systems)

A wide variety of game genres will be seen here, with the audio-only game Deep Sea being one of the more left-field examples. Developed by Robin Arnott and previously showcased at E3 in May, the title involves donning a mask and headphones, cutting off all visual and audio elements of the outside world, as the player tries to fight off creatures in a black undersea void, with only noises to guide their shooting. An excellent showcase video can be seen here for those who’d like a quick taste of what Deep Sea is all about.

Then there’s the incredibly endearing Octodad which is vaguely reminiscent of Earthworm Jim by Shiny Entertainment in it’s character, a lovable Octopus who has everything a man would want…except bones. Developed by Team Octodad, the gamer’s goal is to try and master the ordinary tasks of the day while making sure his blissfully ignorant family don’t find out! Set in a 3D world where even the simplest of tasks can be a nightmare of epic proportions, Octodad could well be the runaway hit of the festival. If you’re not convinced, check out this handy preview video of Octodad 2 which will tell (and show) you everything you’ll need to know.

Radical Fishing by Netherlands based developers Vlambeer is just your ordinary day’s fishing with Grandpa…if your grandfather happens to be a rocket launcher loving man who loved shooting fish after flinging them into the air with his rod! Simple crude graphics hide a Duck Hunt inspired affair that the creators hope will keep you playing for hours.

The Fantastic Arcade is split into two sections, the Showcase Games and the Spotlight Games. The eight Spotlight titles (including Octodad, Jesus vs. Dinosaurs and Rez-inspired Fez) are those which are part of the Arcade’s main competition, but the others (the Showcase titles) will be available throughout the four days the event runs. When asked for a comment, one of the FA curators, Mike Plante stated:

“Fantastic Arcade is a direct bridge between the worlds of independent gaming and genre filmmaking.”

The event is free to enter throughout the four days it’s active, although the film festival itself will cost $50 to access.

Fantastic Fest is not the only film festival to showcase games – in April, Rockstar Games hit title L.A. Noire was showcased at the Tribeca Film Festival in Manhattan. With games ever more commonly being compared to the medium of film, it could well be that we’ll be seeing more videogames at film festivals in the near future.

Fractal by the Philadelphia based Cipher Prime crew is a puzzle game. The player manipulates or “pushes” hexagon fractals to create combinations of 7 called “blooms.” When the 7 fractals come together, the bloom is complete and explodes. Various combinations can come together to produce huge clusters of blooms. In the main campaign mode of the game, the player only has a limited number of pushes to utilize, so every move counts. Under the surface, the game is complex and extremely intuitive with an organic feel.

Fractal offers the player three modes of play: Campaign, Puzzle and Arcade. Campaign is the traditional linear model with the player completing and progressing to the next level. The Puzzle and Arcade modes included hosts of irregular patterns as the name Fractal implies. The game isn’t as simple as pushing fractals to complete blooms, as you get deeper into the gameplay there are specialized fractals which allow for clearing multiple tiles, such as exploding fractals, lightening fractals and others I’m not too sure about. All the modes have scoreboards which rank the top players for each; it adds an element of competition so the player isn’t just playing themselves.

Looking at the Campaign Mode, things start off pretty basic, complete the bloom and move to the next level. Each level has a number of bloom points needed to progress and the game becomes increasing more complicated as the player moves along. There are only a few save points, so the player has to ration their pushes or risk starting over again. It can be both fun and frustrating.

Puzzle Mode offers different puzzles with objectives that need to be accomplished with limited fractal pushes. Sometimes this means clearing a whole board with one or two pushes causing a change reaction. There really are a lot of ways to play and the puzzle mode will exercise your skills for the campaign mode. It’s almost like a tutorial of different puzzle sets. The sets, once unlocked become progressively more complicated and require some strategy.

In the Arcade Mode, levels are timed and broken down by player style. Each style highlights different constraints based on Speed, Agility and Confidence. For example, Speed allows for maximum bloom explosions and one playable color, while Confidence has two colors and a higher difficulty when it comes to creating blooms. The objective is to keep the clock from timing down which will end your run. During the course of the gameplay, there are specialized fractals that pop up and add more time to the countdown. The player also doesn’t have to worry about running out of push fractals, which makes for a fast pace and sometimes chaotic time.

There is much to be said for simple clean looking graphics and the boys over at Cipher Prime really capitalize on that style. The graphics simultaneously give both the sense of elegance seen in the best mainstream games while maintaining the feel of an indie studio. The luminous color combinations bring a dramatic impact to the simplicity of the style and richly reward the player with a fan-freaking-tastic color orgy for the eyes.

The studio has cleverly included helpful little hand-drawn tips drawn into the level backgrounds. In the earlier levels these serve to as the tutorial. Some of these tips are as simple as “push here” or quirky like “good luck, sweetheart.” I’m a huge fan of the design of this game. The player can tell that Cipher Prime spent heaps of time paying attention to the details of the game. This detail goes right down to the “spiffy” comments that scroll across the game after particularly good combinations of blooms. I have to admit, my favorite still is: “Holy Hasselhoff.”

Like Cipher Prime’s Auditorium and forthcoming Pulse, music plays an important role. In Fractal the tempo of the music increases along with the tempo of gameplay. The music builds upon itself incrementally chord upon chord, which seems to incorporate fractal points which can be found in music theory. Ultimately the player is pushing fractals out to some serious beats.

In terms of lasting appeal, Fractal has hours of complex and satisfying puzzles. Fractals in mathematics include irregular patterns which often cannot be expressed by classical geometry; as such, Fractal the game lends itself to varying degrees of complexity and unique play each and every time. If you’re looking for a smart and sophisticated game, be sure to try Fractal.