Welcome to October, a month that means we can probably expect to see more previews of new arcade games before IAAPA lands in November. Since big stuff tends to get a lot of the attention, I wanted to shine a light on more of the indie arcade games that are out there. To do so, I began working on an “indie sizzle reel” to showcase games that are currently available from indie sources, as well as some that should be coming soon. It’s not quite ready yet as I curate footage (let this be a call to any indie arcade creators out there – I’d be happy to have some direct capture footage of your game to include, if you have it!), but I did get something that was long enough that I figured that it would be 
good to showcase it all instead of 20 seconds or so.
That would be BumbleBear Games‘ Black Emperor, which was released earlier this year. The game is available directly through BumbleBear; I am not sure if any distributor currently offers it, but you can always ask your preferred company in case you’re interested.
I got some hands-on time with Black Emperor at Amusement Expo 2019, which had a bigger than expected presence from indie developers. That ended up being the highlight of the show, and helped set it apart from the dazzle you tend to get with an event like IAAPA. For BE itself, I found it to be surprisingly addictive – I kept coming back to it to see if I could best my previous score. Granted, it was on free play, but I could definitely see where it drives replay value. This is further enhanced by the tracks resetting every week with a procedurally generated course.
Without further adieu, here’s the direct capture look; my thanks again to the crew at BumbleBear for sending this my way!
Again, I will be posting an indie sizzle reel this month, but the better footage I can get, the better the showcase will be. If you are an indie arcade developer (i.e., your game exists for sale in a bona-fide, coin-op arcade cabinet…not something on Apple Arcade or whatever), and have some footage to pass along that best represents your game, then drop me a line!
