2016’s No Quarter Exhibition featured four new games by veteran and rising independent and experimental game developers. Exploring topics from break-ups to constellations, the games debuted in Brooklyn’s , Starr Gallery enlightening and entertaining everyone in attendance. An inherently social gathering, No Quarter 2016 had many of the best New York independent game developers rubbing elbows with the public, press, and academics alike.

The 2016 No Quarter Games

Holly Gramzio

Drawing Games

A series of self-documenting games on paper. Each ruleset creates an artwork that reflects the choices made by players. Includes five games: Constellation (collaborative drop-in); Nodes, Circles, and Lines (three related games, each for two slightly mean players); and
Art Deck (almost-cooperative art-making for any number).

Holly is one half of Matheson Marcault, which makes games (and other things) for events, parks, museums and public spaces. Since opening in June 2015 they’ve made work ranging from the Scientific Village Fete, a set of games for New Scientist Live, to One Easy Step, an installation and research project into public play. Holly was previously lead game designer at Hide&Seek, and she directs Now Play This, a festival of games and play at Somerset House in London. http://mathesonmarcault.com/

Brendon Chung

SpaceChat

A multiplayer party game about secret saboteurs. Your phone is your controller, allowing the game to support an excessive amount of players.

Brendon is a designer, artist, and programmer based in Culver City. After years of working at Pandemic Studios, he founded Blendo Games, a one-person independent game studio. Blendo Games has since become known for creating rich worlds in works such as Thirty Flights of Loving, Gravity Bone, Atom Zombie Smasher, and Flotilla. His most recent release is Quadrilateral Cowboy, a 20th century cyberpunk heist game. http://blendogames.com/

Stephen Lawrence Clark

Witchball

A post-reality racing game played by children in the year 2601. Massive environmental change has made much of the world inaccessible, and long-distance travel impossible. Communities are isolated, but communication has advanced to the point where short distances between people barely exist at all.

Stephen is an artist, curator, and educator living in New York City. He is a co-owner of Babycastles Gallery, the first gallery dedicated to contemporary independent videogames, and holds an MFA in Game Design from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. His completed master’s thesis, a collection of five climate-fiction vignette games titled ‘Rooftop Cop’, went on to garner two IGF Nominations (Best Student Game, and the NUOVO Award). http://twentycapitalletters.com/

Catt Small

Breakup Squad

A fast and asymmetrical team-based game for five players. Will two former lovers be reunited at a party after their toxic breakup, or can three friends who suffer from the lovers’ collateral damage keep them apart until the party is over? Find out in the cutest breakup game ever!

Catt is a product designer, game maker, and front-end web developer. She currently makes awesome things at Etsy. She has done design work for companies of all sizes including SoundCloud, Bedrocket, and Nasdaq. She started coding at the age of 10, designing at the age of 15, graduated from SVA with a BFA in Graphic Design in 2011, and graduated from NYU with an MS in Integrated Digital Media in 2016. Catt also makes video games with Brooklyn Gamery and teaches game development with Code Liberation. http://cattsmall.com/