The second cohort of the NYU Game Center Incubator ran from June 1st to August 29th of 2015 with a showcase event on September 4th as well as a second public exhibition at NYC’s Brooklyn Brewery on September 11th. The showcases drew several hundred people to play and celebrate the eight projects that would go on to launch, funding, awards, and more.
BADBLOOD
Winnie Song
BADBLOOD is a local split-screen hide & seek between two players, with a deadly consequence. Find your unique style of murder in this intimate and visceral local multiplayer, and outwit your neighbor. Same bloody field, different bloody perspective. Hide, seek, kill.
Post Incubator: BADBLOOD was released on Windows & Mac in November 2015, and Winnie continues to release new characters for the game as well as develop it for additional platforms.
Awards and Recognition: 2015 IndieCade Audience Choice Award Winner, 2015 Evo Indie Game Showcase Official Selection, 2015 XOXO Official Selection, 2015 Fantastic Arcade Official Selection, 2016 Student IGF Honorable Mention
Press Highlights: Kill Screen, Rock Paper Shotgun, Offworld
SITE | STEAM | ITCH.IO
Beglitched
Hexecutable: AP Thomson and Jenny Jiao Hsia
Beglitched is a game about insecurity, in our computers and ourselves. In a pastel world of networks where nobody truly knows what they’re doing, hacking is a magical art and the notorious Glitch Witch is the most premium archmagi of the net. By random circumstance, YOU are her new apprentice. You must use your wits and cunning to unravel the mechanisms of an alien computer and survive amongst a veritable web of clowns, leftclickers, and filedraggers.
Post Incubator: AP and Jenny have officially released Belglitched for Windows, Mac, and iOS. Alec and Jenny continue to work as independent developers and collaborate on various projects.
Awards and Recognition: 2016 IGF Best Student Game Winner, 2015 Fantastic Arcade Official Selection, 2016 Indiecade Finalist, 2016 Bit Bash Official Selection
Press Highlights: Gamastutra, Kill Screen, Rock Paper Shotgun
SITE | iOS APP STORE | STEAM | ITCH.IO | THE HUMBLE STORE
Circa Infinity
Kenny Sun
Circa Infinity is a mind-bending platformer that blends twitch gameplay with puzzle elements.
Post Incubator: Circa Infinity was released on Steam, the App Store, and Google Play at the end of the Incubator. Kenny now works as a programmer for Harmonix, and has continued to develop critical acclaimed indie games, such as Yankai’s Triangle.
Awards and Recognition: 2016 IGF Best Student Game Finalist, 2015 XOXO Official Selection, 2015 PAX Indie Mega Booth Official Selection
Press Highlights: PewDiePie, Pocket Gamer, Indie Game Magazine, Destructoid
SITE | STEAM | APP STORE
Ape Out
Gabe Cuzzillo
You gotta have freedom. Ape Out is a wildly intense and colorfully stylized smash ‘em up about primal escape, rhythmic violence, and frenetic jazz. Build up nearly unstoppable momentum and use your captors as both weapons and shields to crush everyone on your procedurally generated path to freedom.
Post Incubator: Through the Incubator, Gabe received additional funding from IndieFund and secured a publishing deal with Devolver Digital. Gabe has continued development on the game and recently released a playable trailer.
Awards and Recognition: 2016 IGF Student Finalist
Press Highlights: IGN, Rock Paper Shotgun, Gamasutra
SITE | STEAM
Ninja Tag
Leandro Ribeiro
Ninja Tag is a murderous fast-paced local multiplayer stealth brawler for Mac and PC. Up to 4 players take the role of ninjas and have to rely on trickery and deceit to ambush and backstab their opponents. Matches take place in a dark top-down perspective arena where players compete in a variety of different combat modes to bring glory to their clan and prove once and for all which one has the ninjaest ninjas. Expect very fast, bloody and chaotic rounds of pure ninja combat!
Inspired by local multiplayer games with hidden information such as Luigi’s Ghost Mansion and Hidden In Plain Sight, Ninja Tag blends stealth elements with lightning fast mechanics to give players the exhilarating feeling of bringing a knife to a gunfight and, with enough skill, survive the ordeal.
Post Incubator: After showing Ninja Tag, Leandro was offered a Game Designer position at Riot. Ninja Tag was Steam Greenlit, and Leandro continues to work on the game alongside working at Riot.
Awards and Recognition: 2015 PAX 10 Official Selection, 2015 GameFest Excellent in Gameplay Award
Peter Panic
James Marion
Peter Panic is WarioWare-style gameplay wrapped up in mobile’s first MicroMusical! The game is the story of Peter, an aspiring young director who wants to bring theater back to his hometown. As he goes around town, trying his best to convince as many people as he can to help him, he will discover the dark secret behind the disappearance of theater in his home.
The game is a musical! And it’s great. The game is fully scored by award-winning composer Benjamin Bonnema, and features unbelievably catchy tunes. To date, nobody has played the game and not left with a huge smile on their face.
Post Incubator: Peter Panic received a publishing deal from Adult Swim games, and Act I of the game was released on the app store in March of 2016, and Act II was released in October 2016.
Awards and Recognition: Top Featured App on the App Store
Press Highlights: Variety, Wired, Touch Arcade, Theater Mania
Sumer
Studio Wumpus: Misha Favorov, Sig Gunnarsson, Josh Raab, Geoffrey Suthers
Four Sumerian nobles scramble up and down a ziggurat, racing to assign workers valuable tasks each day. As they vie to become the next ruler of their city, players compete for the favor of ancient Mesopotamian gods by gathering, sacrificing, and bidding. Sumer is a competitive strategy platformer set in the cradle of civilization. The game is divided into harvest and auction phases. During the harvest phase, players use their workers to generate resources like barley and clay which can be sacrificed to gain victory points. Players also collect goats that are used during the auction to bid on valuable items like extra workers, resource production buildings, or statues that grant victory points. Success in Sumer requires a combination of strategic planning, platforming skill, and situational adaptation.
Post Incubator: Studio Wumpus ran a successful Kickstarter for Sumer, followed by a successful Steam Greenlight campaign. Sumer is currently available for early access on Steam.
Awards and Recognition: 2016 IGF Student Finalist Honorable Mention, 2016 Indie MEGABooth GDC Official Selection, Playcrafting Awards Best Gameplay Award Winner
SITE | STEAM
Awkward Date
Abraham Gellis and Fernando De Mesentier Silva
Awkward Date is a fully cooperative 2-player platform game. During the game each player controls one of the two characters going on a date with each other. The characters are too uncomfortable to come close together, but are also too lonely to stay far away. Players have to cooperate to reach the goal on every stage, each of which represents a different moment of their date. This requires interaction and communication since staying too close or too far from one another for too long causes the players to fail the level.