Games I Played at Indiecade: Killer Queen

Indiecade seems to have happened ages ago now, but alas, I can only ever write about my experiences when I'm not buried up to my nose in my other obligations and projects. In any case, just as I did with GDC earlier this year, I want to write about the games that impacted me the most or that I enjoyed the most at Indiecade. Normally I would group some games together into a single post with a category that connected the two, but this first game is just so big (both figuratively and literally) I think it deserves an entry all on it's own.

Killer Queen

Killer Queen is a coop-competitive arcade game designed by Joshua DeBonis and Nikita Mikros. It requires two teams of five to play, for a grand whopping total of 10 necessary players. When I first discovered the game booth tucked away behind the much more lively, sprawling walkway of Indiecade, I was first astonished to note just how large the arcade machine was. This poses obvious disadvantages, most heartbreakingly the fact that it would be nigh impossible to get this game ported to more easily available consoles, and that building an arcade of your own to play the game would be a very expensive endeavor; I did overhear one of the developers explaining to another interested party that building a booth like the one on display cost upwards of 7000 pops. Yikes! Additionally, even if you did manage to get a booth installed in your area, good luck trying to get nine other people to invest an hour or two playing with you. At a bustling event like Indiecade, this was not an issue at all, but I imagine in other situations it would be a trying task.

But man, was that game fun. Now, as someone who has been learning about developing and designing games, fun has begun to have a much more gravid kind of meaning for me. There's lots of games that have been amusing,charming, thought provoking, intense, sometimes even diverting, which are all different facets of fun. But in this case, fun is used as the purest form of itself, for the games that can bring on the sort of engagement, excitement, and delirious enjoyment that makes you scream like you're a magical rock star star unicorn in space. Fun is hard to describe sometimes, and it's even harder to capture in a game, but I know for certain everyone who got the chance to play Killer Queen felt it--it's kind of a magical thing. These are undoubtedly my favorite kinds of games to play, and I hope someday it will be the kind of games I make.

I payed attention to everything I could as I played, trying to make note of how the game worked and why it was so successful. With any luck, I can use some of these elements in the game I'm currently working on; Project PEW. The two most important ones I noticed was how the game was able to create an excited emotion and how it inspired camaraderie amongst players.

1. Frenzied atmosphere.

The game is played on a single screen level made up of two hives on the top, various platforms scattered throughout, some with piles of berries and some with unusual bee-shaped pods, and a single snail peacefully grazing at the bottom. On each team, each player takes on the role of one of four anthropomorphic little bee creatures (which I call the workers), and the fifth player plays as the queen. There are three ways to win the game; the first being to collect little berries scattered around the level and take them back to your own team's hive, the second being to kill the Queen of your opposing team four times, and the third is to ride the little snail into a goal at the bottom of the screen. The pods on the level can be used to transform your regular worker, which has to jump and walk and can only collect berries and ride the snail, into a sword wielding warrior, who is able to attack the opposite team's workers and their queen, and who can fly, but who can't carry berries or ride the snail. The Queen is the only team member who is  born as a warrior, while the other workers have to transform themselves every time they respawn.
 There's so many different competing strategies to play with, and so many things happening on the screen, the game really feels like a buzzing hive of bees working together, but it wasn't crucial that an individual player keep tabs on everything; in fact, it was expected and sometimes used as a strategy. While the other team was putting all their effort into attacking our queen, one player from our team was riding the snail to victory. I think this helped the game give off a lively attitude without overwhelming the player with information.

2. Working with a Team

I played with a group of total strangers, and within minutes we were screaming orders, yelling encouragement, and expressing our undying anger at the opposing team together. When we won a round, we would scream and high five and hug like we had waited years for this moment to happen. It was so easy to get engaged with the game and your teammates, which might have been why it was so hard to put the game down. I think the strange physical closeness provided by the arcade booth actually contributed to this, but design-wise the game allowed for agency while at the same time creating a need for other players. It wasn't necessary for you to coordinate perfectly with your team; you could choose individually as a player how you wanted to play. At the same time, you were working with a group to achieve a common goal, so it was easy to come to another player's aid when they needed you. "Let's collect berries. BERRIES!" someone would scream. The workers would get the berries, and the warriors would slash away at anyone who would try to interrupt your work. It felt good and natural.


I really, really loved playing Killer Queen. I remember after every round, looking up at the crowd of people who had gathered around the booth to watch the game being played, seeing faces of interest; people who wanted to play the game themselves. Should I let them have a turn? I would look to my other team-mates, who anxiously waited for a new game to load. They smashed the buttons enthusiastically, their eyes glued to the screen as they shouted curses and challenges to the team playing opposite them; nobody moved a muscle--we had played nearly ten games in a row.

I smiled to myself. Fuck 'em, I would whisper under my breath, ONE MORE!