Even the most humble of dabbling fighting game players has heard of Evo, the worlds largest fighting game tournament, and sponsored by countless corporate entities. Many bad dudes enter, a scant few bad dudes leave with fabulous cash prizes and immense bragging rights. There’s a new aspect to it this year, though – a range of indie games (some fighting, some less so, as listed in this Shoryuken forum thread) are going to be showcased at the event. I’m already jealous of those who get to play them, as it’s a rather exciting bunch of competitive and arcadey concepts.

Continuing its long tour of places where I can’t play it yet, Messhof’s Nidhogg makes another appearance. By all accounts, it’s a very finely tuned piece of low-fi arcade swordfighting, with the battle swashbuckling it’s way across several arenas, and culminating in the victor being devoured by a giant flying worm-monster. As you do. This’ll be it’s toughest workout yet – fighting game fans are a notoriously critical lot, and if there’s even the slightest hint of lag to the controls or imbalance to the gameplay, they’ll tear it apart.

For laughs, they’re also going to be letting people play Divekick, a brutal parody of fighting games in general. There is diving, and kicking and even dive-kicking! It’s thrilling stuff, worthy of the most challenging of all challenges at the tournament of tourneys. Either this’ll help players decompress after losing to a continually dive-kicking opponent in the main tourneys, or it’ll send them into full PTSD shock. Either way, somebody wins!

Capy’s time-looping Contra-esque Super Time Force will also be playable. Not exactly competitive, but it looks like a ridiculous amount of fun. The gimmick being that each time you die, you go back in time and play alongside your previous life. If you manage to save yourself from whatever killed you last time, your now-rescued self becomes a checkpoint, allowing you to push further in. Simple and low-fi, but a great idea.

Aztez is also going to be on show. An interestingly minimalist-looking open-plan brawler/fighting game with a cool Mesoamerican theme and a cool tri-color (black, white & red) palette. The developer – as heard in the slightly profane gameplay video below – seems quite enthusiastic about testing the game to death and picking apart his own mistakes, so it might well be a good fit for the toughened Evo crowds. Perhaps this outing could be considered extreme playtesting?

The deliciously retro Barabariball will be there, too. Looking like a bizarre lovechild of Super Smash Bros, Volleyball and something from the Atari 2600, it really does look like a fun competitive party game, and there’s something strangely charming about the mix of modern ‘casual’ brawler mechanics and super-retro aesthetics. Can’t wait to try a more public build of the game.

A bit more of a solo brawler, Super Comboman looks like it has some talented artists behind it, if nothing else. It’ll be nice to hear how the game is shaping up – the last time we saw anything really concrete of it was the gameplay trailer below, which was released over a year ago now. Everything could have changed since then, or nothing. Either way, punching stuff + collapsing physics-driven worlds is a winning combination in my book, so it has my interest if nothing else.

And lastly, the everpresent SpyParty – a game always lurking in the shadows of indie news lately. It’s definitely a competitive game, but not as we know it. One player controls an almost Sims-esque character, tasked with infiltrating a party for the rich and famous and completing various objectives. The other player controls a sniper, watching in through the window for the slightest hint as to who is the spy. It’s a game of psychology and learning, as one player is trying to act as much like an NPC as possible, and the other one is searching for human-like actions that don’t match the AI code. For a game set in a single room, there’s a lot of potential depth here.

It’s a strange lineup, but I’m already incredibly jealous of those folks travelling to Vegas to take part in the festivities. The tournament of tournaments and the indie showcase will be happening from July 6th to July 8th, and only the strong will survive.

SpyParty‘s psychologically intense espionage gameplay has finally reached a point that developer Chris Hecker is comfortable to share with the general public. For those of you just joining the wonderful world of indie games, please check out DIY’s in-depth coverage of this new genre-defining destined hit.

To that effect,  SpyParty now has a sign up for early access to beta testing. The developer needs the game to be in people’s hands for longer than brief convention intervals to be able to “balance and tune the game to the intense player-skill depth I’m striving for.” Chris Hecker will do so by “using real data and feedback from a large number of players over a long period of time.”

The current plan is that beta access will cost $15.  The blog states that “this will let you play the beta as much as you want as I update it over SpyParty’s development, and also get you a copy of the finished game when it’s released on PC.” Given how successful SpyParty has been at seducing the general media and gamers, this beta price isn’t probably far off from what its actual price may be. If anything, $15 for SpyParty is probably a deal!

The sign up page is here

PVP. Versus. Competitive. All of these are words that I don’t particularly look for when looking to pick up a new game. As somebody who was raised on NES RPGs and games like Contra, I’ve always been more inclined to pick up a cooperative game as opposed to a competitive multiplayer title like Call of Duty, just as an example. SpyParty, by indie developer Chris Hecker, may have just changed my entire perspective on competitive gaming.

At this stage in development you’ve probably at least heard of SpyParty. It was a huge hit at last year’s PAX Prime and was nominated for the Seumas McNally grand prize at last night’s IGF award ceremony. Still, if you’re not clear on what the game is allow me to explain it a little bit:

SpyParty is a two player, competitive game where one player plays as a spy and another as a sniper. The objectives vary depending on the level, but essentially the spy must complete a series of tasks without being too obvious and the sniper must stop the spy from completing said objectives.

To create a better sense of “cloak and dagger” type gameplay, the game doesn’t tell the sniper when a certain task is completed. Instead the game will send out hints that the object was recently completed. For example, one of the objectives in the game I played was to converse with a double agent. The keyword for the conversation was “Banana Bread.” So at some point during the game, should the spy attempt to complete this part of the mission, you’ll hear out loud a voice say “Banana Bread.” From there the sniper knows that one of the people in the conversation is attempting to complete that mission. Of course, there’s usually a couple of conversations going on with multiple people in each so it’s not a direct giveaway, but it helps cull the prospective targets.

It’s an interesting system that really speaks to me. Most multiplayer games these days are so focused on the simple mechanic of: shoot him, get points, die, respawn, repeat. Nothing about it really requires you to use your brain, to think about what you’re doing, or to assess the consequences of making an incorrect kill (you lose in SpyParty if you shoot the wrong person). SpyParty requires all these things and is a better, more methodical pvp experience because of it.

The game is still heavy in development so we probably won’t be seeing the game get a release anytime in the near future. Still, with a game this unique and of this quality I’m willing to wait for Chris Hecker to perfect this masterpiece and give me a competitive game that I can really enjoy.

By the way, don’t get too attached to the current art work. If Chris Hecker is to be believed, it’s all temporary. He’s working on the core mechanics and plans to create better art in the future prior to release.

[SpyParty]