This year's Indiecade was much bigger than than last year. Because of the crowd, I did not get to play all the games or get to to talk to all the developers. Several games I got to play were more like mini games or innovative concepts that can be applied to bigger games. So the reviews of finalist game that we will be doing will be rather short.
Two things stand out. This is the first year that a boardgame, Application Crunch, was a finalist. Second is that one team had two finalist games. Elizabeth Swensen and Sean Bouchard was on the design team of both Application Crunch and the Witch.
I also ran a workshop with Karen McMullan and Martin Hagvall, game design instructors from my work, The Los Angeles Film School. At the Board Game Modding Festival Workshop, I offered the challenge of making a racing board game that uses dice but must not be overly random. Around thirty people participated and made a boardgame in 45 minutes. The workshop was popular and Indiecade organizers came by and thanked me for a job well done.
