TinderBox - An Arcade Cabinet for Indie Developers
The TinderBox Arcade was an idea hatched in my garage in Portland, OR. As a long-time member of PIGSquad (Portland’s massive indie game developer group), I had been making and playing games with a huge network of game designers from around the world. Often, we would develop multi-player games, since AI is difficult, and most of us weren’t getting paid for our work. Around the country, developers were struggling to get people to come play their games at festivals, with hundreds of makers trying to hand someone an old Super Nintendo controller in a crowded conference hall…
The TinderBox aimed to change that, bringing the crowds to the games.
“This idea would realize a thousand fantasies of millions of people...”
Getting love… internationally
The guys over at Rocket Beans Gaming got their Shitty Voltron on, to hilarious effect. Making this game for a Game Jam inspired us to build the TinderBox Arcade cabinet in the first place, though we made it available for free download to be played with controllers at home. Please enjoy their struggles to control this unwieldy robot:
Eurogamer Interview
Back at our first unveiling of the TinderBox, at Portland’s XOXO festival, I caught up with Jeffrey Matulef to discuss how and why we built the prototype.
Kotaku Interview
At SXSW, I got a chance to talk with Evan Narcisse about the v1.0 TinderBox, showing off a much more polished device, with a wicked fast game-selection UI, thanks to a new API from Oliver Smith.