(June 24, 2024) Spike Trotman and her award-winning company Iron Circus Comics have emerged as a first-in-class graphic novel publisher, with numerous industry awards and nearly five million dollars raised over the course of 40 crowdfunding campaigns. Now Iron Circus is expanding again — with another high profile, multimedia campaign and the launch of Iron Circus Games. In partnership with game creators Indiepocalypse, Iron Circus Games is pairing up Iron Circus Comics cartoonists with programmers and game creators to debut their very first collection of collaborative game projects.
Indiepocalypse is a curated anthology of games dedicated to help carve out a stronger space for small press and alternative projects, especially shorter and more experimental work that may struggle to compete with the massive marketing machines more traditional, commercial games deploy. Founded by PIZZAPRANKS, AKA Andrew Baillie, Indiepocalypse has released over 50 bundles to date with games that are weird, artsy, and designed to be accessible to both creators and players.
“Since 2020 I’ve been releasing a monthly alternative indie game anthology called Indiepocalypse,” said Andrew Baillie. “Indiepocalypse features games from 10 developers each month, 9 from open submissions and one that is newly commissioned. There is also a companion zine that is primarily designed for “demoing” the anthologies, featuring pages for each game, post-mortems, and a cover from an artist working outside of games. I started Indiepocalypse with the goal of supporting and highlighting developers making games in the independent, self-published, no-budget space and can’t imagine a better partner for this project than Iron Circus.”
“Making video games is an ambition I’ve harbored for years, even though I was totally clueless as to how to go about it,” said Iron Circus Publisher Spike Trotman. “Anyone who followed me on Twitter or Bluesky can attest to my experiments with Twine, Godot, RPGMaker, my false starts on at least three different projects. I was really groping around in the dark, making slow progress, trying to figure everything out by myself and garnering the expected results for my efforts. I’m ETERNALLY grateful Andrew sent that first email, proposing this team-up! Not just for selfish reasons, access to Andrew’s know-how and Rolodex, but because I knew so many other cartoonists who harbored video game ambitions identical to mine. And, now they get to come true!”
This is the 7th overall BackerKit campaign and 41st crowdfunding campaign for Iron Circus. Founded in 2007, Iron Circus Comics has grown into the premiere publisher of award-winning, critically-acclaimed graphic novels in the American Midwest—a small-mid house pushing out about 10 or 15 books a year, including Eisner nominees and winners, Amazon bestsellers, and the famous Smut Peddler line of erotica.
The campaign will feature multiple tiers for backers. For $30, backers will get all the games from the Iron Circus Games x Indiepocalypse collaboration, including:
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Clown Angel Dragon, by Emily Koonce and Paloma Dawkins
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Interactive History of Coumpuvations and Interactive Software, by PIZZAPRANKS and John-Charles Holmes, a curated, retrospective collection for Coumpuvations and Interactive Software, a famous, defunct game company that enjoys a dedicated following of diehard fans to this very day… and never existed. It features a series of short games throughout the company’s fictional history
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Spellbound: A Magical Mystery, by Robin and Elefluff, a magical organization and puzzle game with a hidden mystery
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Taleteller, by Jess M. and Farbs, in which a young apprentice must save his cursed, tale-telling teacher in this narrative-driven, exploratory 3D adventure that blurs the lines between picture book and videogame
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Teething, by Kel McDonald and Ren, where you’re the parent of a young werewolf. Puppy-proof your home before the next full moon, or face the consequences!
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Voluntary Commitment, by Evan Dahm and exodrifter: You’ve been involuntarily committed to a strange facility against your will, and under dubious circumstances. Meet and befriend other interesting characters as you try to stay under the radar of the wardens, and escape the facility for good!
The kid-friendly selection of included Iron Circus Comics e-books are:
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Stars Hide Your Fire, by Kel McDonald and Jose Pimienta
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Last Dance, by Hanna Schroy
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The Woman in the Woods, and other North American Stories, an anthology
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The Girl Who Married A Skull, and other African Stories, an anthology
And the adult audience selection of e-books is:
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The Crossroads at Midnight, by Abby Howard
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Crossplay, by Niki Smith (erotica)
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Banned Book Club, by Kim Hyun Sook, Ryan Estrada, and Ko Hyung-Ju
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The Last Delivery, by Evan Dahm!
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The Harrowing of Hell, by Evan Dahm
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Rice Boy, by Evan Dahm
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Poorcraft, by C. Spike Trotman and Diana Nock
“I’ve had a lot of conversations with people outside of the publishing world who say that they’re interested in doing something different and it turns out to be just a lot of talk,” said Iron Circus Publisher Spike Trotman. “Iron Circus Animation’s success with Tracy Butler and director Fable Siegel for the LACKADAISY animation was largely due to our shared insistence that we do it ourselves, on our own terms. And that’s the same spirit as the Indiepocalypse project. These are not corporate games. We’re not chasing a four quadrant audience. We’re creating weird and beautiful games that we would want to play, and inviting the Iron Circus family to join us on this journey.”
To support the campaign on BackerKit, visit this link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/iron-circus-comics/iron-circus-x-indiepocalypse-say-hello-to-iron-circus-games?ref=pr
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