IndieCade 2025

Doors Open, Check-in, Coffee & Games !!

Registration.
Coffee, Refreshments, and Games.

Moderated by Mark Marino.

IndieCade / NEM Initiatives Roundtables

Contribute to the conversations as we look at the future of the IndieCade Festival, play games from the Climate Jam and Anthology, Playable Theater, Horizons activities, contribute to the city-wide Santa Monica community game jam and learn more about NEM.

Led by a broad group of IndieCade organizers of IndieCade Festival Awards, Climate Jam, Playable Theatre Symposium, Santa Monica Community Jam, Horizons, and NEM participants.

Play Interlude

Time to talk, play, and socialize.

Moderated by Michael John (MJ) and Jesse Vigil.

Honorary Awards Luncheon

Join us for a lovely lunch and a short celebration of IndieCade’s Honorary Award winners for 2025 – Game Changer, Trailblazer, Bernie deKoven Big Fun, and Vanguard Studio Awardees. (Lunch is provided)

Hosted by Sarah Elmaleh, Isla Hinck, and Elyse Willems.

Awardees – Trailblazer: Sara Thacher, Vanguard Studio: Triband, Game Changer: Sue Bohle and Bernie de Koven Big Fun: Alistair Aichenson
Awards presented by – Amir Rao, Diana Williams, Robert Brown, Myles Nye

The Endless Conversations and Infinite Insights (“unconference”)

A signature component to IndieCade’s Annual Creators Retreat is the opportunity to connect with others over topics that are important to you front and center. The format allows everyone to bring up their own interests and come together in groups for discussions, explorations, and broad opportunities to share. This is an extremely meaningful and vibrant session.

Moderated by Robert Farid Karimi & MJ Johns.

Play Interlude / Break

Time to talk, play, and socialize.

Moderated by Michael John (MJ) and Jesse Vigil.

What is your playground?

In this interactive session, Rona and Drew invite attendees to look at play through the lens of how we see/move/perceive the world as a proving ground, a battleground, or a playground; outlooks rooted in our earliest relationships.

We believe it’s safe to assume that everyone attending works on making playful experiences for people and want to explore how play weaves in and out of our work, interests and lives. Our playgrounds can range from games, mixed reality, theatre, sports, music, art, design, and much more. And the concept of play is rather broad and diverse; from social studies, to health and enjoyment, to education and learning, to games and technology, and even more. As such, we hope this session will spark diverse perspectives on how play is a part of what we all do, sharing our playful stories with each other.

Moderated by Rona Lewis and Drew Davidson.

Interactive Workshop: Serious Games with and For Communities

MJ Johns will lead a workshop on “Facilitated” Serious Games. For instance when you have a game for a serious topic (like climate change) where the most benefit comes from people playing the game in a hosted setting so there can be discussion outside the game.

Games with a serious component (such as climate resilience) often need to consider the intended impact on a target audience (such as a community being disrupted by climate change). In this workshop we will discuss practical solutions for:

• Engaging with communities through the design process
• Leveraging community support for distribution
• Measuring impact at the community level
• Providing resources for your games to be facilitated in a community context

By the end of the workshop, you’ll be able to identify a target community for your game (or game idea) and have a plan of action for productive engagement with that community through the phases of design/development, launch, and post-launch maintenance

Facilitated by MJ Johns.

Cocktail Reception

Time to talk, play, drink, and socialize!

Doors Open, Check-in, Coffee & Games !!

Registration.
Coffee, Refreshments, and Games.

Moderated by Mark Marino.

Moving parts, multiple paths – opportunities and resources impacting indie business and driving growth

Friday morning fireside chat with John O’Connell and Alyssa Kollgaard, Founder of Publisher Pathfinder and COO of Akupara Games. John will discuss with Alyssa her experiences bringing games to players and how an independent spirit and her expertise across development, discovery and distribution impact day-to-day decision making, deal terms, and building long term relationships.

With John O’Connell featuring Alyssa Kollgaard.

Book Microtalks

Join the authors of four recently published books for four 15-minute microtalks, as they share their work, their creative process, and an overview of their new books. It is a wonderful opportunity to connect with these authors and learn about their work in bite sized pieces! Featured books: “The Well Read Game: On Playing Thoughtfully,” by Tracy Fullerton and Michael Farber. “Playframes; How do we know we are playing?” by Celia Pearce; and “Intellivision: How a Videogame System Battled Atari and Almost Bankrupted Barbie,” by Tom Boellstorff and Braxton Soderman.

Moderated by Tracy Fullerton, Celia Pearce, Tom Boellstorff, and Braxton Soderman.

Play Interlude / Break

Time to talk, play, and socialize.

Moderated by Michael John (MJ) and Jesse Vigil.

What Indie Devs are actually doing with AI – The Future of Narrative Systems

The Future of Narrative Systems – There is a lot of hype, money and chatter about AI across every aspect of our lives, and certainly among many in the game industry. So what are indies actually doing with AI? This interactive session is about the tension between hand-crafted systems (GOFAI) and infinite generation (LLMs) entitled Gardening vs. Hallucinating: The Future of Narrative Systems.

Most “AI” discourse in games is about generating assets (art/code). This session is a conversation with you about generating moments, drama, story via hand-crafted systems or infinite generation (LLMs).

“Gardening” (Deep Systems/GOFAI): Simulating deep, robust rules where stories emerge naturally (e.g., Dwarf Fortress, Wildermyth, Civ). It is authored, structurally sound yet emergent.

“Hallucinating” (GenAI/LLMs): Using LLMs to invent text and reactions on the fly. It offers infinite freedom but struggles with memory, hallucinations, and breaking the game loop.

Here are some initial dubious questions

• Is it better to have a highly authored system that feels alive because of robust rules, or an LLM that talks like it’s alive?
• Can an LLM understand “pacing” or “narrative consequence” the way a systemic design does?
• At what point does “infinite freedom” ruin the player’s experience?

Moderated by Ben Vance, Matthew Lee and Matt Radford.

OG’s of VR Look to the Future  (Lunch)

A moderated conversation over lunch with some of the OG of the VR landscape, as they look to the future and share their wise thoughts.

Moderated by Nonny de la Peña.
Speakers: Jaqueline Ford Morie, Jon Snoddy, and Celia Pearce.

 Play Interlude / Break

Time to talk, play, and socialize.

Moderated by Michael John (MJ) and Jesse Vigil.

The Next Stage Salon @ IndieCade Creators Retreat

Join us for a special IndieCade Creators Retreat edition of The Next Stage Immersive Summit’s signature Salon sessions as we explore Immersive@Play with special guests from The 20-Sided Tavern, White Wolf’s LA By Night series, and Room Escape Artist.

The Next Stage Salon starts as a panel, then evolves into a peer-to-peer discussion with both audience members and panelists. For this IndieCade edition we’ll be focusing on different ways that immersive experiences — from theatrical to fully immersive games — leverage the power of play, how audiences are reacting to having more agency in unexpected places, and the blurring lines between audience, players, and creators.

With Alex Stompoly and Jasmin Malave (The 20-Sided Tavern), Peih-Gee Law (Room Escape Artist, Neotropolis), Jason Carl (LA By Night), with additional guests TBA. Hosted by Noah Nelson (The Immersive Experience Institute) & Sam Roberts.

Open Playtesting and Show-and-Tell

An open opportunity to pop up to play and discuss and share one another’s work. To ensure space in sign up in advance online, or onsite during the retreat. This was so popular last year we added time for more games and feedback! Plus, this year will also include a show-and-tell of local XR work.

Moderated by Kelly Devine, Juan Gril, and Aimee Reynolds.

Closing Conversation

Join us for our closing conversion all about looking forward as we wrap up our experience, connections, and of course play a related game before we head off to drink cocktails and continue chatting!

Moderated by Stephanie Barish, Celia Pearce, Sam Roberts, Aimee Reynolds, and Nonny de la Peña.

Live Music Performance

Join Laura Perrudin, harpist, singer, songwriter, and electronic music producer for a very special live performance.

Performed by Laura Perrudin.

Closing Cocktail Reception

Time to talk, play, drink, and socialize!