The most exciting and creative work in contemporary game culture will be featured in EMP Museum’s upcoming exhibition, Indie Game Revolution. Opening November 8, this new exhibit will explore how the independent video game community is pushing past conventional boundaries and in the process expanding the definition and cultural impact of this fast growing medium.
“Independent developers have been releasing games for more than 60 years, but in the last decade the indie game space has exploded. This is primarily due to the proliferation of easy-to-use game making software, plentiful digital distribution outlets, and new avenues of funding, but also from a desire on the part of many game developers to create new and impactful experiences,” says Jacob McMurray, Senior Curator, EMP. “Games can be, and often are, as powerful an experience as the best of film, literature, or music. It’s a story that is constantly changing, and this exhibition will detail that evolution as it unfolds.”
Within a dynamic and immersive space, the exhibition will feature stories of more than 40 game developers, designers, coders, composers, critics, and others active in the indie game scene. 20 single and multiplayer playable games, several multimedia installations highlighting major gaming milestones, and additional experiences will also allow visitors to witness the present and future of gaming.
One of the games showcased in the exhibit is GALAK-Z: THE DIMENSIONAL, a sci-fi space shooter created by Seattle-based 17-BIT, an independent video game developer specializing in revitalizing classic genres with cutting-edge gaming experiences.
“Video games had been falling into the rut of limiting innovation and forcing products to adhere to a few popular genres,” says Raj Joshi, Studio Director, 17-BIT. “Now you are seeing a renaissance of new and amazing gameplay and sociological experiments that are shaping our understanding of what interactive entertainment could be. Anyone with a compelling idea can invest their own time to make it a reality and bring it to audiences worldwide.”
Throughout the gallery, visitors will be able to play games released within the last year as well as several highly anticipated, but currently unreleased titles. Developed in cities across the globe including Tokyo, London, Toronto, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle, the games represent myriad genres, cultures, and vary from casual puzzle games, interactive fiction experiences, and action role-playing games, to platformers, 3D exploration games, and shoot-‘em-ups (shmups). A dozen new titles will be added to the exhibit every two months.
Featured games include:
- Lovers In a Dangerous Spacetime is a colorful cooperative action game that takes place in a neon spaceship where players triumph over evil robots and rescue kidnapped space bunnies.
- Tenya Wanya Teens is a coming of age tale about love, hygiene, monsters and overcoming the awkwardness of being a teen. Co-created by Uvula (Keita Takahashi and Asuka Sakai), Venus Patrol, and Wild Rumpus, Tenya Wanya Teens uses a pair of 16 button controllers custom-made for the exhibit.
- GALAK-Z: THE DIMENSIONAL is a modern sci-fi action game inspired by 70s and 80s anime like Macross and Robotech. Created by Seattle-based developer 17-BIT, Galak-Z is a colorful 2D shooter where Newtonian physics take center stage.
- Never Alone is an atmospheric adventure that draws upon Alaskan indigenous folklore. The player’s character is Nuna, an Iñupiat girl who along with her fox companion embark on a quest throughout the Arctic and beyond. Created by Upper One Games, Never Alone is narrated in the Native Iñupiat tongue with English subtitles.
- Quadrilateral Cowboy is a 3D adventure puzzle game set in the 80s in which the player takes on the role of a cyberpunk computer hacker. Created by Blendo Games’ Brendon Chung, the high-tech espionage adventure/hacking simulator allows the player to oversee one or more agents that have missions to infiltrate buildings and steal documents.
- Papers, Please was created by Tokyo-based game developer Lucas Pope. A dystopian document thriller, Papers, Please simulates the mundane, stressful, and life-altering experiences of a border control officer in a fictional Cold War-era Eastern Bloc state, while managing to engender empathy within its complex and uncaring bureaucracy.
- Gone Home is a first person, 3D exploration game that urges the player to examine details of a seemingly normal house to learn about the people who live there. Players can uncover the events of one family’s lives by investigating what they’ve left behind. Developed by Portland, Oregon’s The Fullbright Company, Gone Home takes place in a Pacific Northwest home during the mid-90s Riot Grrrl era.
ABOUT EMP MUSEUM
EMP is a leading-edge, nonprofit museum, dedicated to the ideas and risk-taking that fuel popular culture. With its roots in rock ‘n’ roll, EMP serves as a gateway museum, reaching multigenerational audiences through collections, exhibitions and educational programs, using interactive technologies to engage and empower its visitors. At EMP, artists, audiences and ideas converge, bringing understanding, interpretation and scholarship to the popular culture of our time. EMP is housed in a 140,000 square foot Frank O. Gehry-designed building. This spectacular, prominently visible structure has the presence of a monumental sculpture set amid the backdrop of the Seattle Center.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS AT EMP
- Spectacle: The Music Video
- Block By Block: Inventing Amazing Architecture
- Fantasy: Worlds of Myth and Magic
- Hear My Train a Comin’: Hendrix Hits London
- Icons of Science Fiction
- Can’t Look Away: The Lure of Horror Film
- Nirvana: Taking Punk to the Masses
To learn more, visit the official EMP website.