Motherboard

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In New York City, there’s a new arcade in town. But don’t expect to find anything you could purchase at your local Gamestop here. Instead, the homemade titles that fill the ramshackle cabinets of this musty basement just off the L train’s Halsey stop are part of an underground movement that’s re-invigorating interest in grassroots game development by taking to heart a credo strikingly similar to that of the early punk rock scene.

The place is Silent Barn, an active DIY music venue in Ridgewood, Queens that has quickly become an unlikely hub of videogame counterculture through Babycastles, a curated gallery of independently developed games from developers around the world. Normally a faceless exchange operating through all manner of internet message boards, blogs and IRC channels, Babycastles co-founders Syed Salahuddin, Kunal Gupta and Arthur Ward aim to bring the indie games community back into meatspace. And they’re doing it the only way they know how to: By throwing raucous parties with live music and huge crowds of gaming enthusiasts button-mashing away on arcade cabinets lovingly crafted from planks of wood, painted styrofoam and whatever else was lying around that day.

Welcome To The CBGB’s of Videogames

Babycastles’ most recent event, co-curated by Matthew Hawkins of videogame zine Fort90, was just that, complete with blaring Game Boy jams from chiptune godfather Glomag and a special guest appearance by game designer Phil Fish of Toronto art collective Kokoromi. Seeing the hordes of sweat-slicked partygoers slamming cheap beer and hammering on game controllers, Fish remarked that the place felt like “the CBGB’s of videogames.” And while that may just seem like fodder for an extremely catchy tag line, anyone who was there can attest that Babycastles, or a another place like it, might one day live up that quote.

United Worlds

In fact, it seems that if indie videogames are ever going to gain a foothold in the realms outside of internet forums, people like Salahuddin, Gupta and Ward will be instrumental in the introduction of this obscured world of hobbyist game development to new audiences. Ever since Babycastles put together the first prototype of their underground arcade, unwitting indie music scenesters and local concert-going regulars of the Ridgewood venue have been exposed to indie game culture and impacted undeniably by its charm.

This time around the main attraction was Super Hypercube, an intense 3-D block-matching puzzle/action game designed by guest speaker Phil Fish. Holding a controller and adorned with custom 3-D glasses that track head movements, venue regulars and indie game veterans alike swerved and ducked as Hypercube’s stark grayscale graphics flashed on a large projection screen towards the rear of the space. In front of the screen, chiptune artist Glomag blasted out 8-bit dance tracks from a pair of Game Boys, compelling the already sweat-drenched crowd to keep moving despite the unbearable heat emanating from the jam-packed room.

Maybe it’s just the excessive amounts of booze and perspiration, but no one seems to be able to shake the feeling that this must be the videogame equivalent of being at a Minor Threat concert, circa 1981.

Give Me Convenience Or Give Me Games

Perhaps the reason why this merger has been so successful is due to the ideological common ground that exists between proponents of indie music and indie games. Patrons of both camps are, in one way or another, striving to experience something new; something that can’t be bought in a store, but is available for anyone to see and hear if they look in the right places. Just like indie music, the independent gaming scene is trading in convenience for quality.

But those ‘right places’ will become even more widespread when Babycastles breaks out of Silent Barn to open its first dedicated space in midtown Manhattan this Fall. From there, there’s no telling where else it will go. In an industry where violent male power fantasies like Gears of War and Call of Duty release with the same frequency as boy bands in the early 90’s, it’s no wonder that DIY music and DIY games have formed a spiritual bond in the heart of New York City’s cultural underground.