Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:50:00 GMT
A record number of entries were submitted to next year’s IGF Main Competition – 306, to be exact! This year there were 224 entries. In 2008 there were 173. In 2007 there were 143… you get the picture! Soon, the 2010 entries will be checked and distributed to 150 judges (the most ever), and the finalists will be announced in January. In March we’ll find out which of those finalists will win prizes at the illustrious IGF award show.
Man, I love seeing the new entries each year. As much as we enjoy stereotyping independent games as being one type of game or another, the IGF entries are always a really diverse bunch. I think it’s awesome (and I eagerly await whatever controversies come up in 2010!).
Congratulations to all the entrants!
Posted in Community, Developers, Competitions, IGF / GDC | 30 comments
Posted by Paul Eres
Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:46:00 GMT
Unity is a middle-range game engine (cheaper than the million-dollar ones but more expensive than things like Game Maker) which has been used for indie games like Dock’s Tumbledrop, Derek Yu’s Diabolika for iPhone, Tale of Tales’ Fatale, and many more.
Unity Indie, previously around $200, has been renamed to just “Unity” and is now free. You can read more information on the whys on Gamasutra. Apparently Xbox 360 support is also in the works. To quote David Helgason from the Gamasutra interview:
“The thinking was that Unity Indie isn’t generating a significant portion of our revenue, and we’ve always had this vision of democratizing our tools. We have over 13,000 customers using our product, so we figured, let’s take Indie and just give it to everyone. Whether that becomes a cash flow positive or a cash flow negative – and some people will upgrade – is not really important. What’s important is to get this in the hands of as many people as possible.”
Posted in Community, Developers, Technology | 78 comments
Posted by Paul Eres
Tue, 27 Oct 2009 22:22:00 GMT
TIGcast is a podcast, on TIGSource. They talk about Bob’s Game, Love, Flash on mobile phones, and other things. Speakers are Dock, YagerX, godsavant, and C418. You can download the MP3 or listen to it online on zShare.
There was also a TIGcast #0, which I don’t actually recommend anyone listen to due to how hard it is to understand anything. That one had Dragonmaw (who also edited TIGcast #1 and is the driving force behind these), malec2b, Dock, Cthulhu32, godsavant, and myself, and we talk about RunMan, Canabalt, “achievements”, and finishing games. It’s a pity the sound quality is so bad for #0 though.
Posted in Podcasts / Audio, Community | 25 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:25:00 GMT
Calling all artists, musicians, and programmers! A two-part TIGSource Competition is beginning! In Assemblee, artists, musicians, and coders will work separately to create games together.
The first part is a month-long art and music competition, where entrants submit as many cool art and music assets as possible. Anything your febrile creative mind can come up with – characters, backgrounds, user interfaces, random icons, crazy tunes, sound effects, and who knows what else. We’ll cheer you on as you dump your brain onto the internet for us to look at.
In the second part is for you design monkeys and code wizards. You guys will have one month to make games using only the assets created for part 1. Could that sprite be used as a character for my game, or maybe as something else entirely? What kind of game does this song make me think of? You guys and gals better cheer the loudest for the artists and musicians, because whatever they make, you’ll have to use!
This is a competition about interpreting game artwork (both 2d and 3d) and music and finding interesting uses for them. It’s also about sharing – all the art and music will be made freely available to the public for non-commercial usage. Part 1 is beginning RIGHT NOW! Join the fun!
Posted in Features, Community, Developers, Competitions | 52 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:34:00 GMT
I haven’t been able to access the 2dBoy blog for some reason, but I trust that Rock, Paper, Shotgun has reported this accurately: Kyle and Ron have released sales stats for their birthday sale experiment. During the week-long sale you could pay whatever you wanted for World of Goo.
Not surprisingly, the vast majority of people paid $2 and under. But I think things worked out well for 2dBoy in the end – they made 57,000+ sales and generated $100,000+ in one week. Not a bad present for the young game (and its proud papas)!
A survey that players could take after purchasing the game reveals more interesting information.
Posted in Business, Community, Developers | Tags 2DBoy | 19 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 16 Oct 2009 23:18:00 GMT
The first ever IGF China wrapped up last week in Shanghai, and our friend Farbs took the top honors with Captain Forever! Congrats, man.
According to Simon Carless, the finalists “came from multiple different Chinese provinces, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia, and over 15 countries were represented in the over 100 entries in the first-ever year of Independent Games Festival China.” You can see all the finalists here. The winners were:
Best Game: Captain Forever, by Farbs (Australia)
Excellence In Art Direction: Donovo, by Magic Day Studio (China)
Technical Excellence: HurricaneX2, by You Yun Tech (China)
Excellence In Audio: Armor Valley by Protege Production (Singapore)
IGF Best Student Game: Autumn Dynasty: Paper Generals, by students from National University of Singapore (Singapore)
IGF Excellent Student Winner: INK, by students from Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore)
IGF Excellent Student Winner: Bumper Halloween, by students from Beijing University (China)
A lot of the other winners look pretty cool, but unfortunately, there’s not a lot of information about many of them. I could only find videos for HurricaneX2, Armor Valley, and Autumn Dynasty. They’re after the jump:
Read more...
Posted in Community, Videos, Developers, Competitions, IGF / GDC | 23 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:21:00 GMT
World of Goo has turned one year old and is having a big sale this week to celebrate. Until October 19th, you can pay whatever you feel the game is worth! Yowza!
Posted in Macintosh, Community, Linux, Windows | Tags 2DBoy | 31 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 06 Oct 2009 02:31:00 GMT
Hey, all. Edmund McMillen just had gall bladder surgery a few hours ago and is recovering right now. He fell ill yesterday and went to the hospital early last morning. Thankfully, he is okay and will hopefully be able to go home soon.
Please send him your love and if you’ve ever wanted to give Ed a donation for all the fun and hijinks he’s given us, now would be the time! Unfortunately, a trip to the hospital means a bill, and Ed doesn’t have health insurance. You can donate via PayPal here. Also, here’s his Facebook if you want to write something to him on his Wall.
Get well soon, Edmund! We’re looking forward to Super Meat Boy and whatever games the surgery will inspire in you.
Posted in Nerd Love, Unicorns, Community | Tags EdmundMcMillen
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 22:39:00 GMT
This caught my eye. It’s an old workshop (2007) led by Steph Thirion, who created the iPhone game Eliss. In the workshop, Steph gave students the source code for a simple Breakout game (made with Processing) and had them modify the code to create something new. Most of the students were graphic design majors and not game developers, but they managed to make some cool mods during the workshop.
Now, when you edit animated shapes into a music video, of course they look great, especially if Steph Thirion is the editor. Also, this isn’t really a new concept, considering mods, hacks, and open source have been around since the dawn of games. Still, it’s an interesting idea to create a game that’s made made specifically to be deconstructed and reconstructed like so…
The source is Marie Foulston, via Tigers Hungry.
Posted in Games and Art?, Community, Videos, Developers | Tags StephThirion | 12 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 21 Sep 2009 18:51:00 GMT
Alec Holowka, Ron Carmel, and Simon Carless in attendance (photo by Dan Tabar)
The Austin GDC just finished up. It sounded like a lot of fun, with many indies in attendance for the first IGS in Austin. Here are write-ups of the various talks that were given by independent creators last week:
Day One
How Fantastic Contraption Became A Fantastic Hit (Gamasutra) – “Fantastic Contraption creator Colin Northway explained how he created his Flash-based physics game with no pro game experience, and “made a boatload of money” along the way.”
NinjaBee’s Fox Gets Practically Indie (Gamasutra) – “NinjaBee’s Brent Fox discussed the history of the company, which was set up as a brand for original IP in 2001, and has made Xbox Live Arcade games such as Clonin’ Clyde, A Band Of Bugs and A Kingdom For Keflings, talking in human terms about creating a stable indie game company.”
Gaijin’s Roush on Bit.Trip’s Indie Construction (Gamasutra) – “The original concept of the first Bit.Trip title was ‘Pong with music,’ said Gaijin Games’ Mike Roush Roush—but ‘we all know a great game needs more than a concept.’”
Certain Affinity’s Bullard On Bootstrapping Your Indie Business (Gamasutra) – “In an intensely practical Indie Games Summit talk at GDC Austin, Certain Affinity (Age Of Booty) production manager Jennifer Bullard talked about the realities of game business for a mid-sized independent developer, spanning business to relationships and beyond.”
Wolfire On Making Indie Marketing Buzz (Gamasutra) – “Wolfire’s John Graham discussed how to get the word out about your independent game, based around successful tactics for upcoming PC action game Overgrowth.” Slides available here.
Day Two
2D Boy’s Carmel On ‘Beyond The Finish Line’ (Gamasutra) – “World Of Goo co-creator Ron Carmel from indie studio 2D Boy examined the world ‘beyond the finish line’, discussing what happens after your indie game is released and how to deal with it.”
Swink, Wegner On Blurst’s Rapid Prototyping Madness (Gamasutra) – “Flashbang Studios’ Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink explained how their rapid prototyping of web-based games like Off-Road Velociraptor Safari gave them larger life lessons.”
Lost Garden’s Cook On Why Premium Flash Games Rock (Gamasutra) – “Bunni co-creator and Lost Garden blogger Daniel Cook explained why he believes charging users for more complex Flash games is the wave of the future.”
Twisted Pixel Talks ‘Splosion Man Postmortem (Gamasutra) – “Mike Henry and Sean Riley from Austin-based indie Twisted Pixel used their Independent Games Summit talk to postmortem the six-month XBLA project ‘Splosion Man, a significant indie success in the ‘Summer Of Arcade’ for Microsoft’s Xbox 360.”
Storytelling Through Independent Games (Destructoid) – “Alec Holowka, formerly one half of Bit Blot (Aquaria) and currently the head of Infinite Ammo (Paper Moon), was the last speaker to go on at the Independent Games Summit of GDC Austin.”
Posted in Business, Community, Developers, IGF / GDC | 6 comments
