GDC 2013 organizers highlight titles to watch next week at GDC Play

GDC 2013 organizers are reminding attendees of the return of its onsite independent and emerging developer area GDC Play, featuring over 70 playable exhibits and the first hand-picked Best in Play showcase. This will be the second GDC Play expo, after a successful 2012 debut, and will take place Tuesday, March 26 - Thursday, March 28 at San Francisco's Moscone Center during the 2013 Game Developers Conference. In a new, expanded onsite location this year, GDC Play 2013 will be in the South Hall's Gateway Ballroom, in a prominent position directly opposite the main GDC Expo floor (which is open from Wednesday to Friday) - providing enhanced opportunities to target the more than 20,000 attendees at the show. All Access pass holders and GDC Play exhibitors can easily arrange meetings with each other now using GDC's Business Matchmaking tool, too. Earlier this month, organizers announced the eight Best in Play winners and eight strong runner-ups that will showcase next week. Winners will receive specially designated kiosks at GDC Play and two All Access Passes for the 2014 Game Developers Conference. Some of the inaugural Best in Play winners include mech-based first-person shooter Hawken (Play Kiosks 18 & 47) by Meteor Entertainment for PC and the extremely physical and collaborative micro challenge game Spin the Bottle by KnapNok Games (Play Kiosk 39) for Wii U. Other winners include IGF 2012 finalist Mirage creator Mario von Rickenbach with his multiplayer, procedurally generated racer for PC Krautscape (Play Kiosk 56), developed with Michael Burgdorfer and Phil McCammon. Also, Former God of War lead artist Louis Lu and former AMD engineer Owen Wu teamed up to create SpaceQube for iOS (Play Kiosk 26), a voxel-based retro style shooting game with a LEGO-like model editor. Among the eight Best in Play honorable mentions are IGN Next Game Boss winners Team2Bit with beat 'em up Fist Puncher (Play Kiosk 24), Endgame Studios' 3DS and soon-to-be PC dual-screen platformer Fractured Soul (Play Kiosk 73), and Jigxor's turn-based dungeon crawler for PC Dungeon Dashers (Play Kiosk 77). Elsewhere on the GDC Play floor, online company Puzzl will share its new OUYA puzzler called Yummy Circus (Play Kiosk 15), Snowed In Studios will show its 2D action building block RPG for PC Windforge (Play Kiosk 16), and MekTek Studios will demo its 3D action/simulation game Heavy Gear Assault for next-gen hardware (Play Kiosk 27). These are just 10 of over 70 exhibits at GDC Play, open to all GDC 2013 pass holders, and joining a host of other games showing for developers, distributors, funders and press onsite, including all 36 Independent Games Festival finalists on the main Expo floor, open Wednesday to Friday, and scores of other titles in common areas and Expo pavilions. Those interested in purchasing passes to GDC 2013 may still do so onsite throughout the week of March 25-29. For more information on GDC 2013, visit the show's official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS. Gamasutra and GDC are sibling organizations under parent UBM Tech.