Yes, the sky is full of Indie Fund announcements lately! But that doesn’t mean we are any less excited about finally announcing our funding of Kachina by Ben Esposito’s (aka Little Flag Software). You may have seen him showing it at IndieCade 2012, or, most recently, at the Game Developer’s Conference Experimental Gameplay Workshop (where another IF project, Mushroom 11, was also shown!).

Kachina is a whimsical physics toy that explores negative space by allowing players to manipulate a hole in the ground, swallowing up animals and spitting them back out elsewhere. For each object players swallow, the hole grows a little bit larger – evoking a sense of childlike wonder through order & scale. The action takes place on the stage of the American Southwest, exploring the relationship between modern American and indigenous Pueblo cultures through themes of erasure & discovery.

Ben Esposito most recently worked as a game designer with Giant Sparrow on the PlayStation Network game, The Unfinished Swan. Kachina actually came out of a “Molyjam” – a game jam themed around the Twitter account Peter Molydeux. Afterwards, Ben continued to tinker around with this toy-like experience, and as he fell deeper into the holes of Kachina, our interest in the project grew. We’re happy we can support Ben to go exploring his own first commercial indie game – we think his voice will be a unique addition!

We are super excited to announce our support of Panoramical, a collaborative project by Fernando Ramallo, a game developer from Argentina, and David Kanaga, best known for his work on Proteus and DYAD.  Panoramical is something really different from what we’ve funded in the past, and its difficult to describe it in words. It uses an input device like an iPad or MIDI controller to explore hand-crafted musical landscapes, allowing the player to alter the visuals and music to their touch. Its being presented as an album of collaborations between different guest musicians/artists, and you can learn more at www.feelpanoramical.com

Panoramical is a game we are funding for a variety of reasons.  We want the games we fund to push the boundaries of what is done in the medium, and Panoramical does just that.  We are happy to see the projects we fund be accessible; with Panoramical you only need to see it for a couple seconds and you’ll want to grab the controls, but you can also enjoy it by just sitting back and watching someone else explore.  Panoramical, with its collaboration with different artists and musicians, has the ability to cross-over into other active communities who don’t generally define themselves as gamers (even though they play with interactive experiences all the time).  Panoramical is also an experiment in discovering how to sell this kind of game, and we hope Fernando and David can help discover new ways that artists can distribute and become financially successful in this genre.  We are very excited to be funding our first game from Latin America, and hope that Panoramical can help spread interest in indie games throughout other parts of the world.

It looks stunning on a big screen, and if you haven’t been lucky enough to see it shown at IndieCade, GameCity (or a variety of other events and festivals) it will be showing at GDC 2013 at the Wild Rumpus + Venus Patrol party on Wednesday March 27th .

Congratulations to Fernando and David, and we can’t wait for the world to experience the game on their own systems when it launches later this year.

The Splatters is a good example of one of the reasons we created Indie Fund. The team’s talent is evident. They created polished and vibrant artwork, charming characters, and have demonstrated exceptional technical skill with the game’s intuitive and realistic feeling simulation.

Despite this, the game’s launch did not generate enough revenue for the team to be self sustaining. It is our hope that by backing Spiky Snail in bringing the game to Windows, Mac, and Linux we will get them on a self-sustaining track.

In general, we shy away from funding ports and adaptations of games because if the initial release didn’t generate enough income to fund a port, then backing a port may not be a wise investment. In this case, however, there is a good reason to break our pattern.

SpikySnail aren’t just making a port. They’ve learned from their design and believe they can improve it. They want to release a better game on a different platform. This is interesting to us for two reasons:

1. This is exactly the kind of development we want to encourage: promising teams with low overhead who are focused on design.
2. If a release with an improved design leads to significantly higher revenue, this would provide support for something we already believe: that a focus on design isn’t just an aesthetic preference, but an important factor in creating a financially successful game. It would suggest that shipping a game early because it is over budget or over schedule may not be an effective way to protect one’s profit margin.

We applaud Niv and Sagi for their hard work and determination and wish them (and us) success in this endeavor

For more information, check out the Spiky Snail blog.

Antichamber is the 7th project to receive Indie Fund support.  Those with an eye on the indie scene probably know it’s been years in development, and we’re happy to provide its talented developer, Alexander Bruce, with finishing funds to help the game across the finish line.

This game has been honored with so many awards it’s hard to keep track, from its initial selections for Sense of Wonder Night and as a Make Something Unreal Grand Prize winner, through to its more recent PAX10 selection and IGF Technical Excellence award. The full list of honors this game has received throughout its development is impressive.

Truly mind bending and surprising puzzle design aside, what makes Antichamber feel very special to us is that its development chronicles Alex’s development as a game designer.  We’ve played the game multiple times over the last few years, at various states of completion, and each time the design and feel of the game shifts, and feels more refined.  Kudos to Alex for iterating on his work and incubating it until it’s really ready.

You can check out Antichamber at PAX East this week, booth 770. Alex will be there with the latest build, stop by and say hello!