The game started as an experiment. One way to observe emergent behavior: the coordinated and fascinating flight of a flock of birds, for example.
For artist and researcher Hillary Leone, the concern was that the world was becoming more divisive. I wanted to create a new language, one that showed the power of cooperation. Teaming up with a host of researchers, I wanted to study human communication to investigate how individual actions contributed to collective problem solving.
What, essentially, makes a group successful?
This is “Sync.Live,” and while you don't need to know the science behind it to play it, doing so adds meaning to the experience of wearing a top hat with flashing LED lights and taking silly, exaggerated strides toward strangers. . The goal: synchronize the lights on the hats. No talking or touching is allowed. And the challenge? You can't see the lights in your own hat, which means you have to rely on non-verbal cues from others.
“I really want people to feel the emotion of direct human connection,” Leone says.
A group of young adults playing “Sync.Live,” which will be showcased at this year's IndieCade and focuses on non-verbal communication.
(Visions2030 / “Sync.Live”)
“Sync.Live” is part of IndieCade's free Night Games programming, which returns for a second year to the downtown Music Center on Friday and Saturday nights. IndieCade has been dedicated to championing independent games for over 15 years, often focusing on the experimental and accessible. Think of an IndieCade as a showcase for what's underground, what's next, and what's important in interactive storytelling, a gathering that takes a broad view of all things gaming.
Because playing at an IndieCade event is not just a medium but a language. “'Sync.Live' is a cooperative game,” says Music Center's Kamal Sinclair, who leads the company's Digital Innovation Initiative and brought Night Games to the space, adding that works like “Sync.Live” bridge the gap between games and theater. . “It's a simple game mechanism: people just try to find patterns together, but the images, with things in their heads and lights that change color, do it all. Create a connection. Create laughter. You can think about math and patterns. This, for me, is improvisational choreography.”
Night Games will host academic experiments, “Sync.Live,” as well as games that ask us to chat and work together via a see-saw, like the pirate-themed “Back Off Me Booty.” It also leaves room for immersive theater (see the extravagant investigative adventure that is “The Apple Avenue Detective Agency”) and even games that turn barcode readers into controllers, like “Wizard's Warehouse: The Magick of Retail.” The latter is group mayhem, as we take on the role of merchants in a fairytale kingdom desperately trying to fulfill orders. There are also screen-based offerings, but the emphasis is usually on the communal, as evidenced by the “anyone can be an artist” craze in “Sloppy Forgeries.”
Last year's Night Games attracted about 2,000 participants over its two days, Sinclair says. IndieCade makes sense for the theater-focused Music Center, Sinclair says, since the games not only create a dialogue but turn players into active artists.
Guests at IndieCade in 2023 will play the light-up puzzle game “Kroma.”
(Scott Chamberlin/IndieCade)
“I don't want to get too academic or philosophical, but in many cultures there is a participatory relationship with performance,” Sinclair says. “It's not just about watching and sitting in a chair and looking at the stage. With a sense of play, everyone participates in the story and the aesthetics and all those good things that the arts do to create meaningful experiences and build community.”
IndieCade has changed over the years. In its pre-pandemic incarnation, IndieCade was often a multi-day festival at venues in Santa Monica or Culver City, with game showcases and panel discussions. The online nature of the world after 2020, along with the difficulty of raising sponsorship funds for a discovery-focused gaming event, has placed most of IndieCade's offerings, including its annual awards, on the web, but the celebration centered on the party that is The Night Games have endured.
IndieCade co-founder Stephanie Barish says Night Games typically had the broadest appeal of IndieCade's in-person offerings. “You can really be with other people in a real way,” Barish says. “You can be a lot more tolerant of people because you're around people you wouldn't normally even talk to, but you had a great experience playing with them. It's simply a way of connecting with people that transcends the normal way we connect. “I think it’s transformative.”
IndieCade often features participatory community games, like “Secret Shuffle” at last year's event.
(Scott Chamberlin/IndieCade)
The event comes at a difficult time for the gaming industry. In 2023, at least 6,500 video game workers worldwide were laid off, according to a Times analysis, including hundreds from California-based companies such as Unity and Riot Games. The cuts continued through 2024. The state of the industry is sure to be a topic at IndieCade's two-day developer-focused Creators Retreat at the ASU California Center downtown. The architects of IndieCade, however, present the festivities as a kind of creative rejuvenation.
“When the big studios go down, the people who still make games, if they want to keep doing it, want to be part of this community,” Barish says. “When the industry feels like it is being shaken, this is the heart: creativity, connection and new ideas. These are the things that will likely drive the industry forward. They will be innovations that will come from unexpected places. That is our mission. Bringing people together to keep the creative spark burning.”
Guests at last year's Night Games at the downtown Music Center experienced an experimental game, “Wobble Sphere.”
(Scott Chamberlin/IndieCade)
And few places in the gaming world are as unpredictable as an IndieCade event. Nowhere else, for example, can you try out a “Ninja Turtles” game and participate in the live-action role-playing game “Apple Avenue Detective Agency.” The latter, from husband-and-wife duo Mister & Mischief, draws inspiration from works like “Encyclopedia Brown” and “Nancy Drew,” in which adults play the role of child detectives. It's inspired by the real-life childhood games of co-creator Andy Crocker, who made it his mission to get adults to reconnect with their younger selves.
“While the show is about childhood, it's not really designed for children,” Crocker writes via email. She designed the experience with her husband, Jeff. “The further we get from childhood, the more support we need to access our imagination and wonder.”
Crocker adds that the power of being a child detective comes not from where you are, but from how you see the world: “A child detective can notice details and cultivate curiosity anywhere; all you need are some friends. And snacks. A notebook is useful. Also a magnifying glass and some walkie talkies. But above all friends.”
Probably at IndieCade, friends you just met.
