MAGFest Indie Arcade

Department Handbook

Last Revised 2022-11-02

1. All Staff

Section A - The Basics

Introduction

The MAGFest Indie Arcade works to curate and support a diverse group of creators to exhibit independently-made arcade cabinets, alt.ctrl games, and games centered around in-person physical experiences. The Indie Arcade brings thousands of attendees together face-to-face to have new social and gaming experiences, and provides a unique platform for developers of physical installations and interactive art.

Welcome to the MAGFest Indie Arcade, the department with so much DIY energy we built our own department! In our corner of the expo hall, we assemble an arcade full of homemade cabinets and alt.ctrl games of all shapes and sizes to create the most unique arcade experience possible for attendees.

During the year, our curation team works to solicit game submissions from developers all over the country and the world that match our mission statement criteria - alt.ctrl games, interactive installations, and independently-made games centered around in-person physical experiences. We also partner with several indie-arcade collectives, who act as contractors for the department and bring a collection of their games to the event every year. The team works to make sure that we can showcase as many high-quality games as possible from a diverse group of creators, and we coordinate with the larger MAGFest organization to make the event as accessible as possible for our creators.

The Indie Arcade staff is responsible for the layout and maintenance of the Indie Arcade. At the event, we manage the Indie Arcade show floor, and assist our game devs and contractors during load-in and load-out. We also liaise between our devs and MAGFest to assist with any registration issues, and help with troubleshooting and maintenance of any Indie Arcade game that needs attention during the event.

Communication

In MAGFest Slack, the Indie Arcade uses #super-indie-arcade for all department discussions before and during the event. Department heads can be reached in Slack, via DM, or collectively at [email protected].

At the event, the Indie Arcade has a separate Slack instance, magfestindiearcade.slack.com. This is for all communications between the Indie Arcade staff and our game creators, who are invited to this Slack for the duration of the event and a feedback period immediately following.

Leadership

Reporting / Escalation

Please refer to the official MAGFest reporting guidelines found here:

MAGFest Reporting Guidelines

If viewing this handbook as a hardcopy at-event, there should be a copy of those guidelines attached.

Escalation chain for non-emergency questions and issues: