IndieCade is proud to have an amazing community of designers, artists, programmers and creators.

Far from the stereotype, these individuals and teams from around the world represent a diverse cross-section of creative minds from all over the world. In 2011 alone, we have developers from Ireland, Korea, the US, Australia and beyond.

For great independent games it is more than just the games themselves, IndieCade is about the people behind the games, their voices, their creative vision, and their passion.

Take a look below for a taste of the personalities and passions of these developers. We wanted to share the following developer videos and personal statements with the rest of the world. Come to IndieCade to share it in person.

Explore the overall festival schedule to plan your full experience. And don't forget to register.

Once a regular boy, Alexander Bruce's life changed when he found an abandoned pink suit discarded in the middle of a dark alleyway in Melbourne, Australia. Thinking the suit would be fashionable, he carelessly tried it on for size, unaware of the magical powers that it concealed. The symbiotic nature of the suit latched onto Alex, giving him the ability to design a game like no other, at the expense of his own sanity. He's been wearing it ever since. Meanwhile in Texas, Robin Arnott spends most of his time jumping around in puddles and recording the water going splash splish splash, whilst in the Netherlands, Siddhartha Barnhoorn plays musical instruments from within his home, an echo chamber. Check out their, uh, informative video for more!

Collegeology Games is a group of game developers working out of the USC Game Innovation Lab, in association with CHEPA at the Rossier School of Education and the media production company Psychic Bunny. The Game Innovation Lab is the primary research space and think tank for experimental game design within the Interactive Media Division of the School of Cinematic Arts, where new concepts in game design, play, and usability are being developed, prototyped and play tested. The goal of the lab is to nurture concepts that push games beyond their currently defined genres, markets and play patterns and to make breakthroughs in these areas that will be valuable to our research partners and the industry on the whole. Check out their video for more:

The maker of PlayKalei, LoadComplete is a 2-year-old game dev studio in South Korea focusing on mobile social games on iOS and Android. Started with 3 people, now LoadComplete has 17 awesome people working on 3 different titles.
With a continuos passion and love for indie, LoadComplete keeps some portion of its resources to create games with original mechanics. PlayKalei was first prototyped by one guy(will) in 2 days, then production of 6 month with one full time programmer/designer (Woondal), and 2 part time programmers(Michael and Deok Hwan) and 2 art+sound designer(Soo and Minkook) working time to time.

The Team:

Director Jeonghyun "Junction" Bae

Programming and Design by Woondal Jeong

Programming by Michael Kyowook Lee and Deok Hwan Jeong

Prototyped by Will Jeon

2D Art by Soo Jeong Bae

3D Art by Minkook Han

Sound and Music Soo Jeong Bae and Minkook Han

Photography by irebirth

Play Kalei is now changing its name on iTunes Store to Kaleidoplay.

Ed Key is a former games industry developer, living in Wiltshire, England. He spends half of his coding time with his laptop aligned to a neolithic tomb 11 miles away in the direction of the sunset on November 11th.
The other half of the time he is distracted by the appearance of a handful of unidentified leaves and seeds in his pocket. Proteus is his first independent project to be almost-released.
David Kanaga is a composer and improviser of linear and interactive music, interested in game systems as musical play spaces. He lives in San Francisco.

CoCo & Co (Constructive Communication & Collaboration) is a team of game developers, entertainment designers, and artists from around the world. Together we've made "Way", a non-profit game where two strangers a world apart can become the dearest of friends. We are Chris Bell, Walt Destler, Katherine Rubenstein, Hugo Shih, Cynthia Jiang, and Paulwei Wang.

Terry Cavanagh is an Irish game developer currently living in Cambridge, England. His best known games include VVVVVV, Self Destruct, Judith, Pathways, and Don't Look Back.

Michael Molinari, nickname Bean, is an indie game developer from San Jose, CA. He has been making games for over 10 years, mostly focusing on browser-based Flash games, working on various iOS titles as well. A common focus of his games is on story, narrative, visuals tied with music, experimental gameplay, and gratuitous use of visual metaphors. His goal as a developer is to explore the world of interactive gameplay, utilizing his background in animation, storytelling, and of course having played videogames all his life. Success or failure, there will always be something to learn and apply to his works as he continues to push personal limits.

Fugazo usually works in small teams on multiple projects, and Bistro Boulevard is no exception. It was the work of four people: two artists, one programmer and one designer/producer. Ryan Touchon created and animated the characters. Peter Thurwachter drew the backgrounds, furniture and UI elements. Brian Cooley-Gilliom wrote the code that made everything run. Jeff Alexander handled all elements of design, from general concept to level layouts.

BIT.TRIP FLUX was made by a team of five amazing dudes. Towards the end of the BIT.TRIP series, we knew that we had to have everything be epic in the final game. We pulled out all the stops, and although we went back to basics thematically and gameplay-wise, FLUX became much more than we had ever hoped. The team members, Alex Neuse, Mike Roush, Chris Osborn, Danny Johnson, and Matt Harwood all banded together to create a beautiful work of art and filled the game chock-full of surprises.

Gaijin Games is based out of San Francisco, CA where they continue to make games in the indie spirit--the way they want to make them.

Black Bottom Parade was designed and developed by a team of 6 students from the Savannah College of Art and Design.  The game was built for the lobby of the SCAD-Hong Kong campus.  We designed and built BBP and the interactive table over 3 weeks on site in Hong Kong.  The team came from an interdisciplinary background including animation, game design, interaction design, visual effects, and motion media design.  

Tom Sennett has been making games that are better than everyone else's for ten years, but this is the first time anyone has noticed. He came up on the mean streets of suburban Philadelphia, then earned some battle scars at Penn State University, and now fights the good fight in Scranton, Pennsylvania, where no one plays video games. He recently got a day job making mobile apps, and in his spare time he enjoys music, walks in the park, and starting revolutions.  

Danny Day, Rodain Joubert and Marc Luck form the core of QCF Design, an indie game studio based in Cape Town, South Africa. After years of actively building up the local game development community, working on contract games and generally seeing what it's like to make a living out of destroying other people's productivity, they got to work on their first self-funded commercial gaming project: Desktop Dungeons. Rumours that they are secretly a trio of goats in disguise are entirely unfounded, though that would admittedly be quite cool. 

Gamestar Mechanic was developed by a team of game design-obsessed fans of comics, anime, and indie games with the goal of empowering youth through game design. The game is currently published by E-Line Media in partnership with the Institute of Play and with design help from about 30,000 young game makers. It was originally developed by Gamelab in partnership with the AADL at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with generous funding from the MacArthur Foundation. 

Chaim Gingold is a computer scientist and interactive designer by training. By trade, he is a computer game designer & digital toymaker. He studied with Janet Murray at Georgia Tech, where he earned an MS in Digital Media. A long term associate of and collaborator with Will Wright, Gingold was a key member of Spore’s prototyping & concept team, and designed the game’s award winning creative tool suite. He has published articles and spoken around the world on game design, prototyping, and play. Currently, he is an independent game developer and design consultant, and is pursuing a PhD on play & design at UCSC.. 

Zach and Kurt are dinosaur hunters. While not making camp, foraging food, or running for their lives, they make minimalist artistic games that they hope the rest of the survivors will enjoy. Kurt thinks brontosaurus meat is too dry. Zach thinks Kurt should be grateful for what he has and try to be a little more appreciative. Both would accept food, shiny thing, and/or bone weapon/tool donations. 

Scott Brodie is the sole game designer and developer behind Hero Generations, a unique casual strategy game about legacy, family, and personal achievement. Last year Scott founded Heart Shaped Games, an independent game studio dedicated to building innovative and meaningful casual games. In a previous life Scott supported other indie game developers as a Producer for Xbox LIVE Arcade at Microsoft Game Studios. 

Hohokum was originally conceived as a collaboration between artist and illustrator Richard Hogg, and game developer Ricky Haggett - a co-founder of London-based independent developer Honeyslug. They've been working on it for over three years, but in short bursts, and have worked on a number of other games in the meantime.

Additional design and support has been provided along the way by the other Honeyslug founders Mark Inman and Nat Marco.

Kwok Fung Lam and Nan Chirayukool animated things.

Rob Haggett and David Trehearn wrote the music. 

Improviso is a role playing game that focuses on improvisation and role-playing between two players as they interact with each other and the objects in the world to create a personalized experience that is unique to them. Players will be placed on a stage and they will assume the role of actors. A scenario will be given to them at the start of the game and both players will have to work together to act out the scene. Several tools have been provided to aid them in their role-playing: numerous props for them to use, the ability to swap between different characters in-game, and the ability to change the soundtrack to bring out the mood of the game. 

Douglas Wilson is a game developer and researcher based in Copenhagen, Denmark. He is a co-founder of the Copenhagen Game Collective, and a PhD candidate at IT University of Copenhagen’s Center for Computer Games Research. In addition, Doug is now working together with illustrator Nils Deneken as an official member of Nils' games studio, Die Gute Fabrik. Between the two of them, Doug and Nils have previously received IndieCade awards for three of their earlier games, Rückblende, Dark Room Sex Game, and B.U.T.T.O.N. On Johann Sebastian Joust, Doug and Nils are also joined by sound designer Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren.. 

Previously Sam worked in the game industry and Hye Yeon created artwork. Sam and Hye Yeon are collaborating as programmer and designer on the Kiss Controller Project. We hope to show that it is possible to create games that are played with your emotions!

This work is supported by the Next Generation Design Leaders Program, which is funded by the Korean Ministry of Knowledge and Economy (MKE) and administered by the Korea Institute of Design Promotion (KIDP).

Nicolai Troshinsky has been working as an childrenŽs books illustrator for five years and is trained in animation filmmaking. His graduation short film "Jeux Pluriels" was a portrait of the outsider artist Luigi Finisera, an isolated man who builds unusual board games with confusing and contradictory rules which makes them unplayable. This unusual encounter inspires Troshinsky to expand his audiovisual skills to the game field. Loop Raccord is his second game and itŽs directly related to the "Jeux Pluriels" short film. It is the first in a series of experiments to bring cinematograpgic language rules to gameplay mechanics.

After being nominated for the Nuovo award in the Independent Games Festival, Nicolai Troshinsky joins David Fernández Vara from "Staring Goat Games", who is taking care of porting the game to the iPad system.

Marek Plichta is a graduated interface designer who works as an independent game designer and illustrator in Berlin. He co-designed the award winning game "Spirits" which was showcased on several festivals and exhibitions around the globe. He currently also teaches a course on game design at the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany and courses in interface design at the Game Design School in Schwerin and Leipzig. Marek organizes the Global Game Jam Berlin and loves experimental games, media installations, and bananas from continents far away. www.spacesofplay.com

Till Wittwer holds a BA in Theater Studies. He is enrolled in the Fine Arts program at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany but currently studies at School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois. In his installations and performative works he explores moments of physical interaction, relational webs and directly connected issues of crisis, failure and power structures which shape discourses..

Somethin' Else and Team Papa Sangre. Headquartered on London's Silicon Roundabout, sustained by kebabs and pho, really uninterested in doing what's been done before. We're a content design company — we crack playful projects and ideas from the ground up, keeping players in mind. We wrote Ubisoft's "Driver" this year, made a game to teach teenagers to be resilient, made modern art playable for Tate and have just created a groundbreaking project for TV with EA and the UK's Channel 4. This game was a result of all our rainy day ideas, suspicions and prejudices, and the belief we may just be the people to pull off something that's been an itch on audio-friendly game designers for years ...

Incredible Ape is an independent game studio located in Portland, Oregon. Consisting of Josh Schonstal (developer) and Ian Brock (artist), Incredible Ape aims to make games that focus on fun. For more information on Incredible Ape, or to learn about our current games, visit http://incredibleape.com, and remember to keep up to date on our newest announcements by following @IAOfficial on twitter..

Untold Entertainment is where Creativity goes to get its ideas. From Sissy's Magical Ponycorn adventure, the international hit that was co-developed by a five-year-old little girl, to Putty Crime, a game modeled entirely in clay, to Spellirium, a post-apocalyptic word puzzle adventure game, this scrappy little Toronto-based studio is one to watch. Untold Entertainment develops good-looking games for intelligent people. .

A tight-knit group of 3 game industry veterans have united to create exciting, iconoclastic, genre-bending games. Clocking in with over 30 years of collective industry experience, the team met while working on various projects at Electronic Arts Los Angeles. Their first project together is Skulls of the Shogun, a invigorating cocktail of 1960's flavored sorcery, strategy, and arcade action.

The Haunted Temple consists of three core members, Jake Kazdal (project lead and artist), Borut Pfeifer (designer/programmer), Ben Vance (designer/programmer). Paul "Grampa" Schreiber is the band manager, then we collaborate with a handful of other artists as well: DJ Makyo (music composition), Dren McDonald (sound fx design), Griffin Macaulay (UI art intern), Sam Bird (music & sound fx), Ryan Lockhart (design), and a few others who shall remain mysteriously nameless. ARE THEY GHOSTS?.

Murudai consists soley of Jay Watts, an Australian based dude who sometimes makes video games between a busy schedule of yelling at people over the internet and punching keyboards. At university Jay studied genetic engineering, chemistry and biology; which have absolutely nothing to do with games. A common contractor who works with Murudai is JP Neufeld, a Canadian based composer who did all the audio work on Solar 2. .

About Beatshapers Known for publishing hit PlayStation®Minis games: BreakQuest, NormalTanks, Carnivores series, Jane's Hotel, Enigmo and Galcon Labs; Beatshapers is a new generation video games development and publishing company, located in the heart of East Europe, in Kiev, Ukraine. Our core team is made up of industry veterans, each having over 10 years of hands-on experience of making games. Our past experience are computer games, audio software and demo scene. We are focusing on innovative concepts, experiments with gameplay, music interactive action and outstanding sound design. Currently the studio is working on two PlayStation®Vita launch titles, including StarDrone Extreme and unannounced PlayStation®Minis and PSN games.

About TastyPlay/Orb Games TastyPlay is famous for development of some of the most popular flash games on the market, including Kamikaze Race, Naughty Starlets, Hero on the Hudson and others. Our focus is to create games that are easy to understand, but hard to stop playing! This is why many mainstream companies like MTV Networks, Mindjolt and Spil Games are eager to license our games for their online portals. In addition, to online games, we develop and publish games for mobile phones. We are working closely with developers, app stores and local carriers in Americas, Europe and Asia to bring fun, exciting games to people, regardless of where they live. Our latest game Kamikaze Race is now available to play online, on Facebook, on iOS and Android devices (coming to Windows Phone later this fall), providing the truly multiplatform competition across all of the above platforms for players from around the world. These days we've partnered with Beatshapers to explore PlayStation®3 and PlayStation®Vita in order to give our games and games by other developers that we publish the widest possible exposure, as we believe that great indie games should be enjoyed by as many people everywhere as possible! .

Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP is an unusually collaborative art + music + videogame project for iPad & iPhone. S:S&S EP was created in Toronto, Canada by the critically-acclaimed independent videogame studio known as Capy in partnership with the ambiguously pluralized art & design organization known as Superbrothers Inc., with noted rockstar Jim Guthrie as a co-creator & composer.

The Bridge was created by Ty Taylor and Mario Castaneda. It was started as a project requirement for Ty Taylor's Master of Science degree in Computer Science at Case Western Reserve University, and shortly after the game was started, Mario Castaneda took the role as the sole artist for his Art minor capstone project at Case. The production of The Bridge has continued even after Ty and Mario have graduated to turn the school project into a professional-quality indie game. Ty Taylor is currently a Software Development Engineer at Microsoft and Mario Castaneda is currently enrolled at the University of Advancing Technology where he is earning a dual degree in Game Art and Animation and Virtual Modeling.

one of us wears pants

he Dream Machine is begin made by Anders Gustafsson and Erik Zaring. They met while studying animation in Sweden. They’ve previously worked on stop-motion films and this is the first game they do together. The idea of building a game by hand came from Erik. Anders was reluctant at first, since he thought building a game world physically sounded insanely time-consuming. In order to prove him wrong, Erik knocked out four or five miniature sets literally overnight. When Anders saw what he had done, it was love at first sight, and there was no turning back after that. That was three years ago and the game is still not finished.

The Swapper is a game which Olli Harjola and Otto Hantula currently develop on their way too limited free time. Olli started prototyping the game at some point during 2009 and Otto joined the team when the guys met at university. Italian Carlo Castellano is involved with almost everything related to the game's audio..

Elizabeth Swensen is a game designer, writer, and paper-tearer. The Witch was her M.F.A thesis project at USC.

Sean Bouchard is a game designer and developer at the Game Innovation Lab at USC. His focus is on narrative design and motivating social interaction through gameplay.

Sarah Passemar is a musician, artist, and actor.  Fun fact:  She played 11 different instruments for the soundtrack of The Witch.