It’s that time of the year again folks! Later this month we’ll be heading down to the city of San Francisco, California to attend Casual Connect USA 2016 from July 18th – 20th to catch a glimpse of what’s happening in the world of indie developers as well as the mobile industry as a whole. For the first time of all the USA events, the conference will be held at the downtown Marriott Marquis on Mission Street and for those of you traveling internationally, VISA applications are available.

I will be partaking in a panel consisting of a small handful of Indie Prize judges on the third day, Wednesday July 20th, from 2:00 PM PST to 2:50 PM PST, so be sure to not miss out on that. In other Indie Prize news as well, I’ve been informed that it has been maxed out again this year and there will be over 100 games represented on the showroom floor, which is pretty exciting news.

Keeping par with previous conferences, there will definitely be plenty of networking events going on both during the event and at the end of each day. If you’re interested in attending and looking to get a discount hotel rate, you can book a room at the Marriott Marquis at a special price. Indie developers on the other hand should email the head of Indie Prize, Yuliya, to get a discounted rate as well. If you’re not able to attend but still want updates and pictures, tune into Casual Connect’s Facebook Page and Twitter as photos will be posted throughout the day. Continue reading this post ->

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Casual Connect USA day two is now under way and so far it’s been pretty awesome. Taking a break from the meetings today, I’ve been hanging around the Indie Prize area talking to the developers and playing their games. So far we’ve got a fairly good start on taking photos of the Indie Prize games and definitely have found a few that are really exceptional. Be sure to give the photo album above a quick browse and we’ll have more photos added later today. Continue reading this post ->

Rohith Bhat, CEO of the indie studio 99Games based in India with 15 games, and Filippo De Rose sat down earlier today with me at Casual Connect to have a quick chat. For about 30 solid minutes, we discussed the mobile industry, freemium vs. paid games, and tips for indie developers. Overall it was a pretty good conversation and some very good points were brought up about the mobile industry. Anyhow, be sure to check out the interview below via our Soundcloud channel.

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With the first day of Casual Connect USA 2015 in progress, we’ve had a great time meeting with developers, playing games, and meeting with various other companies. That being said, we’ve been able to take some photos of the event and will hopefully have more available throughout the day. Be sure to check out the album above and leave us feedback in the comments below or via Twitter.

With the first day of Casual Connect USA 2015 in progress, we’ve had a great time meeting with developers, playing games, and meeting with various other companies. That being said, we’ve been able to take some photos of the event and will hopefully have more available throughout the day. Be sure to check out the album above and leave us feedback in the comments below or via Twitter. Continue reading this post ->

Casual Connect, one of the largest conferences dedicated for mobile gaming, is about to start later this week and there’s plenty in store. Taking place at the Hilton San Francisco Union Square Hotel, Casual Connect USA will run from August 11th (tomorrow) to August 13th with the awards ceremony taking place on the 13th.

Judging from what we’ve seen so far with the list of participating games, the line up for Indie Prize looks pretty stellar this year. Being apart of the judging committee, I got to preview a good potion of the games and it’ll be interesting to see who wins this year as there was some close competition amongst some games.

As for PocketFullOfApps’ coverage, I’ll be walking around taking pictures of the event along with meeting with developers. If anything spectacular comes up, we’ll be sure to let you know. Speaking of that, if you’re attending the conference, be sure to drop us a line via email or Twitter. Continue reading this post ->

After many hours of playing games, deliberation amongst the judges, and a couple hours of anticipation, the final results for the Indie Prize awards are finally in. Starting at 8PM PST yesterday, the Indie Prize Awards Ceremony kicked off and the room was full of energy and excitement. Out of nearly 100 games this year at Casual Connect, only a mere 12 walked away with an award. The awards were broken down into 10 different categories each with two nominees and one winner, the Critic’s Choice Award, and the Audience Choice Award. So without any further to do, be sure to check out the full list below of the winners, categories and nominees by clicking the following link. Continue reading this post ->

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 Indie Prize 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, if you click the following link, there’s a full list a long with information on the lectures for day one. Continue reading this post ->