Chicago’s biggest-ever indie game festival hits MSI

Festgoers try The Quantum Garden, an “interactive artistic exhibition” created by London-based game artist Robin Baumgartner. | Ryan Smith/For the Sun-Times

Amy Isaac rapidly tapped and tilted a 16-button device that resembled an oversized piece of birthday cake. Each movement made high-definition kernels pop on a virtual popcorn maker named Nour.

There was no high score to beat, no enemies to shoot, and it’s almost a stretch to call it a video game at all. T.J. Hughes — the 22-year-old St. Louis-based game developer behind Nour — labels it “an interactive exploration of the aesthetics of food.”

Whatever it is, Isaac was happy to play it at Bit Bash, Chicago’s alternative video game festival held Saturday and Sunday at the Museum of Science and Industry.

“This is proof that video games don’t have to be violent or competitive and can stimulate different parts of the brain,” said Isaac, 24, of Lakeview, one of the fest’s approximately 2,000 attendees.

There was no sign of Fortnite, Mortal Kombat or any of the popular big-budget Xbox or PlayStation shoot-or-beat-’em-ups that have made headlines in the wake of mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. Some politicians such as President Donald Trump have cited them as a motivating factor behind the violence while others say games are a too-convenient scapegoat.

Amy Isaac makes virtual popcorn while playing Nour — “an interactive exploration of the aesthetics of food.”

It’s a conversation that seemed irrelevant at the five-year-old nonprofit’s biggest-ever festival, gaming’s answer to Pitchfork Music Festival. The 84 games featured at Bit Bash are artsy, independent games, especially ones that can’t be enjoyed by yourself in the living room.

“Bit Bash has always operated with an idea of being able to show games as culturally relevant pieces of art,” said Brice Puls, the festival’s logistics director. “We chose games that feature an interesting art style or unique controller, or ones with an experience you can’t have anywhere else because it requires 20 people or 100 people.”

Kentucky-based gamemaker Amanda Hudgins’ One Night Only managed to pack all of these elements in at once. Hudgins dreamed up the ultimate version of Guitar Hero with real guitars instead of plastic versions. Last month, she crowdfunded $1,100 to purchase 15 guitars on Amazon, and had them shipped to Bit Bash. Then on Saturday night, hundreds of festvialgoers crowded into one of MSI’s auditoriums to see the spectacle of a handful of participants strumming along to Hudgins’ music game. Then on cue, the faux guitarists smashed their acoustic instruments to pieces like The Who’s Pete Townsend as the audience cheered.

A father and son play the Yeehaw Agenda, a Bit Bash game that’s like a laser tag Wild West duel.

Many of Bit Bash’s games removed the “video” part of the equation out completely. In Hellcouch, a beige sofa retrofitted with LED lights serves as the game’s controller. Johann Sebastian Joust is a screen-free game of tag played by a circle of players holding motion controllers.

Even more conventional video games featured some kind of unexpected twist. One of the few sports titles at Bit Bash was Capy Hoky — a two-on-two ice hockey game that replaced NHL players with cartoonish capybaras (as in the South American rodents). Dream Hard reimagines the retro fighting games of the ‘90s by casting LGBTQ people as the hard-hitting heroes and instead of saving the girl, you protect a queer performance space from hordes of fascists.

The brawler was one of many creations at Bit Bash authored by women, LGBTQ members or people of color. Bomb Dolls, created by two Chicago women, is a three-player game described as “an endless gay road trip through a mysterious apocalyptic wasteland.” It’s an intentional choice by the festival’s curators to show that games aren’t just meant for straight white men.

“We want to have a diverse and inclusive group here,” said Puls. “It’s very important to us.”

That also describes many of the attendees, said Jonathan Kinkley, one of the co-founders of VGA Gallery in Logan Square — Chicago’s first art gallery devoted to video games.

“These are the most gentle, inclusive and friendly people you’ll find,” said Kinkley. “You come here and you can feel the positive energy that’s nothing like the negative stereotypes (about gamers) that exist in popular culture.”

Kinkley and VGA Gallery co-founder Chaz Evans used their booth at Bit Bash to sell prints of video game art and show off a preview version of Frame Switch, a virtual reality game that lets players inhabit the role of citizen journalists in overseas war zones.

Frame Switch isn’t exactly kids stuff, but it’s a natural fit for a festival that treats video games as serious art just as much as mindless entertainment.

“Many of the games here could live in a gallery space or a museum,” he said.

A woman plays Overtime, an anime basketball video game produced by a group of DePaul graduates.