IndieCade 2016: Part 2 Table Games with Ghost Court and Pitch Fight!

Out there on the grass and on tables under columns people played games. Games without electricity, without social status updates, without sprites and without pixels. They played them in the maximum HD, real life.

It was the backbone of IndieCade, the table games.

Card games, board games, role-playing games and more were out on the campus quad in all their glory.

TTDILA went out of its way to play two that caught our attention since they appeared on the IndieCade guide online. First of which was Ghost Court. How could we pass up a game that came from the history of Poland where a ghost sued a woman and won. Oh, Poland. That paranormal case inspired a man, Jason Morningstar, to invent a game now up on Kickstarter, look it up here. It already reached its goal with 18 days to go.

Ghost Court plays like a sitcom of which it was based on, it was based on dumb 80's and 90's sitcoms and you'll be able to tell. We got to play out the game thanks to David Hertz, a gaming enthusiast and designer of his own accord helping the makers of Ghost Court share their game. He wrangled up some games and soon we were playing utterly nonsensical trials.

My trial was #19. When given the game you'll be given the option to choose your part from audience to judge, plaintiff or defendant and even bailiff. I was the lawyer of the defendant and I was an ol' country boy, if  I do say. I tried to butter up the judge with my Southern hospitality and style and it worked. I got my ghostly client to get to his eternal resting place by having an iron fence taken down by some no good living people.

The trials last only a few minutes making it a great party game and letting a slew of people take on different roles and characters either dead or alive.

It's like if "Judge Judy" involved ghosts and sometimes you're the ghost or suing the ghost is the best way to explain it. If you've ever been stuck home sick and watched the show like I have, it's almost the same thing, but now with ghosts.

You'll get your cases via the cards include telling you your roles, from there it's up to you to create your own sitcom. Our trials went the extra mile with ghostly rags, judge cosplay and our very own gavel to bang.

Forget getting it for Christmas, but it'll be the game you want to play in 2017.

Now let me pitch you something, he put his hands together with his fingers up toward his face. Then he titled his hands, still clasped together towards you. "It's called Pitch Fight!," he said, clip-on yellow tie on his chest.

Earlier in the day we got a chance to play Pitch Fight! And boy do I love Pitch Fight! As I was just writing the game has you pitching just like that, on every point your hand has to point out, technically you get to make three points while wearing a tie. Green or yellow. Don't worry it's a clip on. You pass them around to whose pitching each other. Either green or yellow always goes first. Another part of the game is what your pitches have to be about. It comes from two randomly drawn cards with words on them.

Now the rest of the players, those who aren't pitching at the time, vote on who had the best pitch. The one with the most votes wins. The winner gets two pitch bucks and everyone who voted for the winner wins a pitch buck. So in the end, it's not only who pitches the best, but can guess who has the best pitches.

TTDILA team member Andrew tried his game at the last pitch! Andrew's topic: robust, social media.
His pitch, "You take a circle, of friends, and add another circle." To which we all laughed. Someone pointed out he just made a Venn diagram of friends, but what took the cake was what he said next, "It's an infinite loop of friends." He won that pitch. The game already won my heart.

The game comes from Cow&Duck Studios composed of Katie Khau and Jess Chu who I got to talk to after the game. Katie tole me of her inspiration of for the game by talking to a group of game makers from two IndieCades ago. " They told of a game about pitching video games, you get three bullet points to pitch the next big video game. Whatever it is.  Jess continued, "And so from that we wanted to pitch more things and a lot of times we were just talking with friends and getting ideas. We would do it in pitch form."

I asked about their favorite pitch so far at IndieCade. Their answer, "It's a sitcom, with a laugh track, no actors." Yes, someone pitched Garfield Minus Garfield as a series essentially.

As of right now Pitch Fight! just has a explanation page online, no details on if it'll come out to be played, but more than likely a future Kickstarter. Right now Katie and Jess have another game for Kickstarter, Windup War: the Cutest Combat Card Game.

We'll wait for Pitch Fight!

These games would never have come up on our radar if not for IndieCade, that's what IndieCade does, shows you games you want to play and the fun of playing them.