Well folks, the first day of Casual Connect is officially in the bag and so far the conference has gotten off to the great start. In addition to Coin Congress which starts tomorrow, Indie Prize and Casual Connect have teamed for indie developers to show off their latest and greatest game for iOS, Mac, PC, Android, or Linux. For a good portion of the first day we spent our time browsing around the Indie Prize area, getting demos from different developers, and chatting with attendees. While we don’t have the exact numbers, according to the official website there are over 90 game development teams from 20+ different countries from around the world. Due to the limited time that was available and the judging process we weren’t able to play every singe game there, however, we were able to still play a good amount of the games. Kicking things off we met up with the folks from The Tap Lab who were demoing Big Foot Hunter which is set to land on iOS sometime here soon. From there, a Canada based development studio by the name of Phantom Compass gave us a a quick demo of Rollers of the Realm. At the core of the game it combines classic arcade pinball with the character-driven adventure aspect of fantasy role-playing games to give a really unique gameplay experience.

Moving forward, Rocket 5 Studios, another Canadian game development studio, brought their upcoming iOS title dubbed The Phantom P.I. Mission Apparition. If all goes according as planned, we are told that The Phantom P.I. Mission Apparition will be live on the App Store as soon as this Thursday for $3.99. While mingling just outside of the Indie Prize area and checking out all the different vendors, we just so happened to stumble upon Pig Eat Ball from a local Indiana resident, Nathan Fouts. Simply put, Pig Eat Ball is a game about flying space pigs that eat tennis balls. Players are tasked with having to eat a certain amount of tennis balls to complete a level while avoiding asteroids. You’ll have to be careful though — bumping into the player’s or AI’s pigs will cause your pig to slow down. Whoever is the first one to reach the required number of tennis balls wins the game.

Even though we’d like to take the time to talk about each individual game that we saw today, it would take too long. So with that said, we have a list below for you to check out.

First place winners:

• Big Foot Hunter (4 stars)
• Rollers of the Realm (5 stars)
• Pig Eat Ball (5 stars)
• The Phantom P.I. Mission Apparition (5 stars)
• MEG: RVO (4 stars)

Second place winners:

• Pop A Wheelie (3.5 stars)
• Galactic Skater (3.5 stars)
• Tumblestone (3.5 stars)

Third place winners:

• Monstermatic (2.5 stars)
• Paper Ace (2.5 stars)
• Brian (2.5 stars)

Honorable mentions:

• Watch The Slots
• Mr. Runner 2

Transitioning away from games and Indie Prize, the first day of Casual Connect offered a lot of interesting and informational lectures on a wide range of topics. At a glance, here’s some of our favorites:

• Mobile Gaming Everywhere: Taking Your Mobile Game to Every Screen and Device
• AMA Interview: Fireside Chat with Tommy Palm
• Beyond the App Store: Where’s the Casual Games Market in a Post-Zynga World?
• Ethics of F2P and Balance Between Quality Content and Staying in Business
• Indie Development and the Economy of Favors
• Free-to-Play the Indie Way
• Game Jam Junkies: How Indies Innovate
• From Game Jam to Crunch Time

For those interested, the full list can be seen here. As of now this is all that we have, however, be on the look out tomorrow for additional news, another roundup and more!