Photo: Scott Chamberlin (Indiecade.com)

One of the most innovative independent gaming festivals in the industry, Indiecade, will be moving from a live event to a virtual event for 2020. The festival faces the same challenges as many expos in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic, balancing public safety alongside continuing to showcase art.

For 2020 the virtual show will happen October 16-24. Here’s the statement from the Indiecade website:

For IndieCade 2020, our core programming will take place online from October 16-24, across borders and timezones. As we speak, our dedicated all-volunteer program committee is in the midst of applying the same innovation and creativity they’ve poured into their own games to bring you a fully distributed event, IndieCade style. We are working on inventive new ways to exhibit games, host play sessions, facilitate conversations, support matchmaking, enhance learning opportunities, convene social events, and promote your work to a broader public. 

  • One unified event! Rather than two separate festivals in the US and Europe, our nine days of programming will unify our two signature events into one.
  • Now, with less travel! Attend IndieCade from your home, studio, school, or indie collective! We know that traveling to LA or Europe has been prohibitively expensive for many and we are pleased that this travel-free edition makes IndieCade more accessible to a broader, even more diverse audience.
  • IndieCade Any Time and All the Time! Our programming will take place across multiple time zones, which means pretty much any time of the day or night, you can pop in and participate!
  • New exhibition formats! We’re working on designing some new exhibition formats for games that are notoriously hard to show at festivals. This includes playthroughs of escape rooms, longplay formats, and others. In the coming weeks, we’ll be announcing more of these exciting approaches to showing your games.
  • Expand your fanbase! IndieCade is known for bringing indie games to the general public, but hosting the festival online means exposing your work to an even larger international audience since indie game fans everywhere will be able to attend.
  • Regionally hosted virtual events! We’re looking for regional communities around the world to host our round-the-clock events, such as play sessions, tea parties, and how-tos. If you’d like to host an online event as part of our global programming, let us know!
  • IndieCade Annex live event hubs! We want to support in-person gatherings where it’s safe to do so! Depending on health guidelines in your area, we’d love to coordinate live events at your studio, collective, or school in conjunction with our online programming. 

Developers looking to submit their game for festival consideration have until June 30, 2020. Find all the details at Indiecade.com