In the west hall of E3, a small group of tables houses the little-known but well-loved IndieCade, a yearly gathering of video games created by independent companies!
Give these games a chance, and you almost certainly won’t be disappointed! While huge developers can put out flashy games that completely lack soul (take Anthem for example…), most of these creations are labors of love, which means they’re loaded with niche appeal, innovative storytelling, experimental game mechanics, and more! As Undertale has proved, big things can be found in small packages.
Triple-A creators, we love you, but step aside! It’s time for the…
Best IndieCade Games of E3 2019
Sloppy Forgeries
Congratulations: you have 90 seconds to develop a good forgery of a priceless painting. Don’t worry, it doesn’t have to be perfect! It just has to be better than the job done by your competitor…
Sloppy Forgeries simplifies classical pieces of artwork down to a snapshot made from about five colors, which the forgery masters must replicate with simple paint tools. At the end, they’re each given a percentage score based on how many pixels correlate with the original.
Frankly, this is a work pure genius: the premise is simple, the execution is perfect, and the result is great fun!
Manifold Garden
Yeah, we like the look of it, too!
When you get into Manifold Garden, it actually plays like Portal: you run through this beautifully crafted, visually engrossing world and must get through gates, rooms, and doors by manipulating gravity in six directions: north, south, east, west, up, and down.
Still confused? No worries, check out some gameplay!
The demo didn’t give us a sense of story, and there may be little-to-none. Frankly, a plot line would just be a cherry on top of a refreshing world filled with challenging puzzles.
Lemnis Gate
We promised experimental game mechanics, and Lemnis Gate delivers: prepare yourself for a first-person shooter in four dimensions. Yes, you’re going to be playing with Time itself!
Previously called “Convergence”, this game takes turn-based combat to the next level: back and forth, each player adds another soldier to a battle that loops every 30 seconds. The more rounds finished, the more complexity added. Soon enough, you’ll have to sort through chaos to find victory!
Ascend
After the initial release of Super Hot, indie VR games hit a stale period. Ascend aims to breathe life back into the market!
Strap on a VR helmet and prepare for battle as one of two angelic warriors: a gun-toting shooter or blade-wielding knight. Once you’ve chosen your character, launch right into the aerial combat and defeat your opponents!
Admittedly, while we’re amazed at what the game is today, we’re looking forward to seeing where it goes! Aerial VR battles with shooting and sword fights could lead to some intensely powerful games in the future, with wide-ranging applications. If more diverse characters are offered, the number of players per battle increases, map packs are added, and a community starts to develop, we could see this becoming another VR classic.
Boyfriend Dungeon
We smile literally every time we think about this game.
You’ve seen isometric dungeon crawlers. You’ve seen the silly anime dating sims. Get ready for a hilarious trope inversion that meshes aspects of both!
In Boyfriend Dungeon, you fight through dungeons to find weapons that you then go on dates with. Who wants boring old dating sims when you chill with a guy that’s a sword, or a cat that moonlights as a set of spiked brass knuckles?!
Neo Cab
We promised innovative storytelling, and Neo Cab delivers the goods!
Step into a future where Automated Vehicles (AV’s) almost completely abolished the need for cab drivers. But guess what? You’re a cab driver working for Neo Cab, one of the few remaining taxi companies!
In a world where automation is the last word in transportation efficiency, your end goal is to prove that the human element still matters in the highly competitive service industry. Be careful: a simple conversation with a passenger carries more weight than you might expect!
Have personality. Be discreet. Stay human.
KillSquad
We’re not fans of top-down action RPGs, but dang…
This game looks amazing.
In fact, the phrase “too good” applies! Killsquad’s graphics look SO good, the monsters look SO cool, the weapons and abilities are SO exciting, it almost doesn’t feel like an indie game. If we didn’t physically see in the middle of IndieCade, we might have assumed it was a AAA title.
Then again…they are doing early access, which means Killsquad still has more work until completion. If they maintain the current quality, we look forward to seeing the result!
Thanks for Playing
Indie games are a great source of life, invention, and quality content for the gaming community. We hope you enjoyed the article, if any of these games sounded like your kind of thing, please give them a try!
The 
Starting off right, here’s the original Doom!
Not gonna lie: you get a little star-struck in the face of greatness such as this. We personally love Mario Kart, but began playing in the Gamecube era with 
Look at how cute this thing is! Sorry, we forgot a banana for scale, just trust us: it’s adorably small.
Ah, “tele-gaming”. Remember that? Because we sure don’t!
If you think board games = bored games, you’re missing out!
When dinosaurs roamed the earth, sometimes you had to play video games in your head. From Blaster Master to Mega Man 2, there were novels that allowed you play games without a console, using imagination!
Perfection.
Atari is one of those systems that even modern kids should be able to understand. Even if they didn’t play on the console seen above, they’ve likely enjoyed titles like Centipede, Pac Man, or Asteroids in updated versions. They’re the games that keep on giving! Or, at least, the ones that keep being ported to new devices with fresh graphics.
Miscellaneous Merch
Ready for a little game of “I-Spy”? Good, because here we go:
Yeah, they had the full Pong console as well! Please note, for hilarity’s sake, that each player of this iconic game must use a single knob to move their “paddle” up and down to block the ball. Those were simpler times!
This console plays 
There we go: a millennial title!
Remember how some games give off the star-struck feeling? Well, here’s one: Donkey Kong!
Crystal Castle asks an important question: what would it be like to play a bear searching for gems, being hunted by monsters, on an eclectic grid system where movement is controlled by the player rolling a ball?
Second to last, we have a classic. It may not have extensive remakes, but Dig Dug still holds a special place in our heart as the arcade game that our parents would always gladly talk about when the subject of video games came up. Family times!
SUPER MARIO BROS! 
Who are these people? No idea. Admittedly, we forgot to ask. To the best of our knowledge, they were a well-dressed promotional troupe, seeing as their group looks like the unlikely combination of a pompadour-wearing 
We just happened to catch Dante from Devil May Cry 5 and these two characters from…something. When directed to their booth, we discovered there were very few English translations to be found, but we grabbed a snapshot of their sign! Check it out (and please help translate in the comments if possible):
Cuddle Team Leader signing in!
Wait…never mind, that’s just a bush.
Yep, just Wario. Holding a Game and Watch. Because really, do you need anything else?
Yes, folks, it’s Lady Apex!
What gaming expo would be complete without the Hero of Time?
There’s the article thumbnail! These impressively dressed folks were promoting the upcoming isometric dungeon crawler, Darksiders: Genesis.
Another staple of gaming conventions: 
In summary: the exposition itself is mainly an area for gamers to demo titles and technology that haven’t been released yet. Be prepared for a hot summer day and a slight wait in line. But trust us, it’ll be worth it!
Surprising news: you don’t need that much.
The first new mon was Yamper, the adorable little corgi. According to Serebii, 
CODE BLUE! BANJO-KAZOOIE IS IN SMASH! REPEAT, CODE BLUE!
Heroes from Dragon Quest 11 will be playable in Smash Ultimate as well. The trailer doesn’t quite specify if each hero will be their own character or just a skin under the name “The Hero.” However, given that Smash already has so many swordfighters, we can’t see them adding four more.
Today, the new Xbox codenamed “Project Scarlett” is merely built on promises. Project Scarlett has the same promises you see from other new consoles. It’s going to have more memory, better graphics, and higher resolution. 
