Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 21 Jan 2008 15:45:00 GMT
Simon Carless wanted me to let you guys know that online voting for the IGF Audience Award is now open, and will continue through ‘til the day of the award show. The winner of this award will receive a $2,500 prize.
The games you can vote for are:
- Audiosurf
- Battleships Forever
- Clean Asia!
- Fret Nice
- Globulos.com
- Goo!
- Gumboy Tournament
- Iron Dukes
- Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
- Synaesthete
- Tri-Achnid
Good luck, guys!
Posted in Developers, Competitions, IGF / GDC | 27 comments
Posted by Terry
Fri, 04 Jan 2008 09:54:00 GMT
And it’s all over! The winner is Pacian, with the excellent Snowblind Aces – which also finished first with a unanimous Miss Congeniality vote! Congratulations also to Akhel, who managed a very close second place with The Snowman in both the main vote and the MC vote. Finishing third is TIGSaga in the main event (keep an eye out for TIGStory!), and My Magic Tire Hoax in the MC vote (probably the most imaginative entry to the contest).
You can find the rest of the results in this thread.
Despite the low voter turnout, I think it’s safe to call this contest a success! The overall standard was amazing, especially for a contest where many were writing their first piece of interactive fiction. Everything, all the way down to tenth place is worth playing, and if you haven’t played them yet, you really should.
We definitely need to have another one of these text adventure contests!
Edit: IF blogger Jason Dyer has reviews up of the top three, Snowblind Aces, The Snowman, and TIGSaga. Definitely worth checking out. I’ll try to keep an eye out for more reviews if they crop up.
Posted in Interactive Fiction, Community, Competitions | Tags Akhel, Pacian | 33 comments
Posted by Terry
Thu, 03 Jan 2008 14:25:00 GMT
Looks like PC Gamer have given TIGSource’s B-Games contest a mention in the latest issue, along with Petri’s Gamma256 exhibit Bloody Zombies. On top of that, a couple of games from the contest (Toadzilla, Cottage of Doom, Save the President and Space Barnacle) were featured on the coverdisk! Well done, lads!
Haowan has scans of the relevant pages in this forum thread.
Posted in Community, Competitions | 6 comments
Posted by Terry
Wed, 26 Dec 2007 18:17:00 GMT
Text the Halls is finished! A huge congratulations to everyone who took part, and to everyone who tried to take part!
We’ve had a total of ten entries, titled:
- Breathe
- Capture Santa!
- The Christmas Party
- Midwinter Rites
- My Magic Tire Hoax
- Panorama
- Snowblind Aces
- The Snowman
- TIGSaga
- X-Maton 2010
You can find more information (and download links) on the forums, as well as information on where you can find interpretors to play the games. Voting will run for a week, starting now [Edit: Due to a mess up on my part, we have to restart voting. If you’ve already voted, please take a moment to vote in the new thread (linked above).]. A lot of the entries are quite short, so that should be plenty of time to play them all and make your mind up!
Oh, and authors – we’re also holding a Miss Congeniality contest, IFComp style. Send me a PM on the forums with your votes if you want to take part!
Posted in Nerd Love, Interactive Fiction, Competitions | 5 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 21 Dec 2007 14:52:00 GMT
Winter’s Heart is a new game from darthlupi, the developer behind Mage Craft, Legend of Shadow, and other prominent Game Maker games. In this game, made for YoYo Games’s wintry game contest, you play a spellcaster who must save the world from freezing over. It’s a simple story that mostly serves the gameplay, but hey, it works!
The game’s mechanics are simple, but quite interesting. To get to the next level, you have to open the portal. To open the portal, you have to defeat all the enemies in the level, by first bashing them with a snowball and then bashing them with your club. Along the way, you will have opportunities to extend your freezing bar (which acts as both a health/magic bar), and gain new spells that let you do a variety of things, like summon snowballs from the sky.
As you progress further, the scarcity of snow patches (on which snowballs can be rolled), and the appearance of new monsters and “monster portals” that must be closed off, make life much more difficult for our intrepid hero. I swear, I curse out every single one of those “ghosts” that can walk through the walls! But the unique game design works so well that you can’t help but keep playing (and dying)! I definitely recommend it.
Unfortunately, the game is hosted on YoYo Games, which is such a piece of crap that I refuse to link them. (More like “NoMo Games,” amirite?) In the meantime, just download it here (4 Mb), from TIGSource.
(Source: Paul Eres, via Indygamer)
Posted in Highly Recommended, Competitions, Action / Arcade, Freeware | Tags darthlupi | 10 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 12 Dec 2007 13:59:00 GMT
I know it’s been awhile since Gamma 256 ended, but I just got around to playing the entries. (Some of them at least!) I was expecting good things, but managed to be blown away regardless. There are some really interesting ideas in here!
Each of the 10 games mentioned below are are compatible with both the keyboard and the Xbox 360 gamepad. Enjoy!
Bloody Zombies is the brainchild of none other than Petri Purho, who seems never to run out of interesting game ideas. I don’t know if I really need to say more about this one other than “blood surfing on a lawnmower.”
The arthouse kids are ostensibly peeing their pants with delight over Mondrian Provoked, Jim McGinley’s kaleidoscopic feast for your optic nerves. I really like the way you slide around against the sides of the various obstacles in this game, and the ending blitz of special effects is inspiring!
1A90 is a glowy shoot ‘em up where the background is a cellular automaton. Whenever your ship’s bullet (which you can design and redesign at the beginning of each level) strikes an enemy, it pastes itself into the background and sets off a series of chain reactions based on the ruleset of each level!
Sunset Runner has you hopping across the top of a moving train in an attempt to save your “best friend” before he/she/it gets squished. A fun, fast-paced, and difficult game from the King of Grinds, Guert!
StdBits, named after “the low-level pixel blitter in classic Mac OS,” is an abstract exploration game, where every screen has its own unique look. Beautiful visuals and music make this entry a stand-out.
Célu, by Alec Holowka, is a dreamy platform game inspired by Le Petit Prince. In the game you leap from planet to planet and soar through the stars.
Namako Team’s Dive is a brilliantly-realized underwater game where you plumb the depths of the ocean and interact with good and bad creatures using sonar. The atmosphere in this one is top notch.
Mr. Heart Loves You Very Much is a nifty little puzzle game that has you pushing rooms and rotating the level to get to your beloved Mr. Heart. A fun and original idea made better by super-cute retro pixel art.
Nick Sheets’ Doomed Planet is a B-Movie throwback that puts you in control of a UFO looking for victims (for probing?). I really dig the “movie reel” backdrop for this fun little game.
Our final Gamma 256 game is Passage, a poignant exploration of life, love, and the passage of time. My suggestion is to play the game a few times before you read the developer’s statement about what the game means to him.
Posted in Macintosh, Windows, Competitions, Freeware | Tags JimMcGinley, PetriPurho | 11 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 10 Dec 2007 15:56:00 GMT
Sorry, guys. It’s time to learn how to read!
Posted in Features, Interactive Fiction, Competitions | 22 comments
Posted by Xander
Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:31:00 GMT
Apparently there’s a Game Maker Winter Contest on at the moment which I somehow had no idea about. Probably has something to do with the monumental news posts underneath me (which strike upon my love of things both mermaid and goo related). However, given the quality of Garden Gnome Carnage, it’s certainly something I shouldn’t be overlooking, which is partly why it’s highlighted here! The other reason is that it’s also the first game I’ve ever shouted ‘How the heck do I stop beating off this cat?!’ whilst playing, so if nothing else I need to clear my name with the neighbours and/or animal protection societies.
In Garden Gnome Carnage you play a building, which is attached to a gnome. Or you play a gnome attached to a building. In the ensuing insanity it’s easy to forget. The idea is to stop the elves from entering the roof of the chimney by smashing them in the face with your gnome, or by any of the other methods of attack you can find. For instance the gnome can pick up bricks from your building to throw into crowds of elves, who then launch into the sky to take down sleighs, which rain destruction back down on the elves you missed first time around.
This combo system is the key to scoring big in the game, and the overall carnage that ensues from taking advantage of it is fantastic. As an extra incentive for doing this, you’re awarded tips at the end of each game which clue you in on extra abilities and attacks you never thought a building and a gnome were capable of. It’s insane, and that’s what makes it so damnbokorin-tastic to play, with so many aspects of the gameplay hidden amongst the debris, death and ridiculous hat/footwear. Just wait until you hit 80,000 points!
Update:Version 2 – Download
Also Hit the extended for gameplay footage and some PROTIP usage also courtesy of Ultimortal himself!
(Source: Paul Eres via the ever awesome Indygamer )
Read more...
Posted in Competitions, Action / Arcade, Freeware | 24 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 12 Nov 2007 10:45:00 GMT
YoYo Games (the Game Maker community headed by GM creator Mark Overmars) is holding their first competition, and the theme is “winter.” Any Game Maker game with a wintery theme can be entered to vie for the $1750 in cash prizes ($1000 for first place).
The deadline is December 23rd, at midnight!
And I hear cactus might be throwing his hat into the ring for this one…
Edit: Turns out that only Game Maker 6.0 or above is allowed. Thanks, Trotim!
Posted in Developers, Competitions | 17 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 07 Nov 2007 14:36:00 GMT
Changemakers is an initiative set up by Ashoka, an international network of “social entrepreneurs,” and one of the projects they’re working on is an online community that holds competitions to “surface the best social solutions, and then collaborates to refine, enrich, and implement those solutions.”
Recently, they held a competition called “Why Games Matter: A Prescription for Improving Health and Health Care,” which, unfortunately, is practically over (just got wind of it recently). But you can still check out the 14 finalists and 74 total entries. The winners will be announced tomorrow.
All competition finalists will win the opportunity to go to Baltimore, Maryland, in May 2008, to present their work at the Changemakers Change Summit held in conjunction with the RWJF-sponsored Games for Health Conference. Competition winners will receive a cash prize.
The finalists are pretty various, and include the previously covered Ayiti: The Cost of Life, and Persuasive Games’s Fatworld (depicted above in all its childboob glory). There’s also a series of mobile games to bring AIDS/HIV awareness to cellphone users in India. (As well as a massively multiplayer online Bollywood-themed dancing game WTF?)
I’m always interested in hearing about the application of games to areas other than entertainment! These kinds of initiatives warm my jaded game-maker’s heart. It still seems like there’s a lot of growing to do, however, before we start seeing some truly compelling “social games.”
Posted in Social Impact, Community, Developers, Competitions | 8 comments
