This year's Cleveland Gaming Classic, a three-day convention, highlighted new guests, events, and indie developers at the I-X Center from Sept.19-21.
One of those highlights was an indie video game titled “The Violets of Amicus,” created by a six-member development team named Creation Mode Studios.
Presenting the free demo at CGC were lead developer Dan Jewett and story writer Kennedy Jewett.
“We started in 2018, mostly nights and weekends, and hired an artist to help, in 2021 with a composer around the same time and I've now started working on it mostly full time, around March of this year,” Jewett said. “The idea of this game came from when I found out on the internet that Nintendo’s game Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was first presented as an idea from a 2D prototype of the game.”
On the last day of the convention, CGC hosted the Indie Game Awards, an award ceremony where indie game developers from Northeast Ohio have their work highlighted and celebrated. CGC partnered with the Cleveland Institute of Arts and Kent State University to award thousands of dollars in scholarships.
Among the several indie games presented, Dan Jewett and Creation Mode Studios received the CGC Independent Game Developer Award for Best in Show.
“I was in shock that our game won. It was quite the honor to have received this. I’m still shaking from it!" Jewett said in a blog post on the game’s website. "Thank you to everyone who voted for our game”
The current version of The Violets of Amicus is available on steam for free allowing anyone to enjoy this 2D action adventure game.
The convention also featured several new arcades, vendors, food, and guest artists.
This year's guests included video game artist Kevin Bayliss, video game composer Grant Kirkhope, and animator Steve Mayles who all previously worked for Rare on games such as the Donkey Kong or Banjo Kazooie series.
“I like the fact that people still talk about some of these games we did back then and 30 years later it is amazing to us as it probably is to you guys,” said Grant Kirkhope, composer of video game soundtracks. “You have no idea at the time, anything that we did would mean anything in ten minutes, let alone 20 years from now.”
The convention also held a cosplay contest, giving attendees the chance to earn different tiers of awards based on the amount of effort put into their costumes.
After the winners took a group photo, attendees were allowed to play video games from 8 p.m. to 10 p.m., a two-hour extension highlighting the popularity of the event.
The next Cleveland Gaming Classic convention will be held Sept.19-22, 2026.
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