Posted by Albert Lai
Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:20:00 GMT
The results from the latest Shmup-Dev competition have been announced!
The theme this year was "Options" a-la those from Gradius I keep losing
to the scorpion things.
Varia has popped in at first place, a abstract shmup which uses options to
clone enemy abilities and send back bullets at the opposing boss. A highly polished
game which has completely obscured its Game Maker roots, in the same way the
son of a farmer goes off into the city to become a high rolling urbanite, only
to discover that, yes, you can run from your past. A high quality game
by Kairos!
Akuchizoku is in second place, by cactus, who chugs out game at a rate that
would be more alarming if we didn’t know he was half machine. This game is so
retro that you can almost feel the pixels, which are, to quote, "the size
of hams". Even so, the game is exceptionally well made in the style of
most old-school shooters (ie, masochistically hard). Plus, there’s a talking
dog.
Clocking in at third place, Linley of Excellent
Bifurcation fame ("The reason I have two eyeballs in my head is for
stereoscopic vision, thank you" – DrDerekDoctors) has created Garden of
Colored Lights, a game I found interestingly evocative, from the small blurbs
that punctuate each sub-stage to the way that bullets correspond to music. Here
you kit your ship out with three different options from a large beginning selection and set out to blow shit
up and level up, your options and your options, respectively.
A very strong showing overall, and congratulations to the winners!
Posted in Shoot-em-ups, Competitions, Freeware | 6 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 30 Oct 2007 09:56:00 GMT
Jayisgames’s 4th Casual Design Competition is over, and as usual, the results are quite impressive! The winner of the competition is The Tall Stump, a puzzle platformer that has you searching a giant tree stump for a mad magician who’s turned your girlfriend into a square. (I hate it when that happens!)
Oh, and hats.
Overall, it’s a highly enjoyable game. Both the platforming and puzzle solving are fairly light, but well-designed, with plenty of humor sauce liberally applied (what?). If there’s one niggle I have with the game, it’s that the coin-activated save points seem superfluous and merely add to the frustration as opposed to making the game more challenging or fun. ‘Tis a small qualm, however.
If you want to see all the entries, Jay and his crew did full write-ups for each one. See them all right here (long load). Congratulations to JIG and all the entrants!
(Source: GameSetWatch)
Posted in Platformers, Highly Recommended, Puzzle, Casual, Developers, Competitions | 4 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 23 Oct 2007 23:01:00 GMT
And there are a whopping 125 of them this year! Holy crap.
You’ll note that there are a couple of familiar faces in the crowd: Petri Purho’s Crayon Physics Deluxe, and Matt Hammill’s Gesundheit!
EDIT: Oops, and how could I miss Space Barnacle, by our very own Golds! (Thanks, Xander!)
(The screenshot is taken from the aptly-titled The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.)
Posted in Community, Developers, Competitions, IGF / GDC | Tags Kloonigames, MattHammill | 13 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 16 Oct 2007 07:53:00 GMT
And the winner is… (dun dun dun) Cottage of Doom, by haowan! This zombie survival game interpreted the theme well on a number of levels, from the theme, to the presentation, to the game mechanics. To top it off, it’s an incredibly fun game. Congratulations, man!
It was a close competition, with the top four games all within a few votes of each other. The next three games were Gunlimb (Radnom), Mondo Medicals (cactus), and Space Barnacle (Golds).
To quote haowan:
I know it sounds cheesy but I really think that everyone was a winner here. So many great games were entered, I had an absolute blast playing through them.
Truer words have nary been spoken. For our first competition, it was a rollicking success. All 29 games had something unique about it that was worth playing to see. If you haven’t tried them out, please do!
We’ll definitely have more in the future!
And be sure to check out the Random Gnome’s 3-part write-up on the competition, as well as TIGSource and Indygamer editor Terry’s picks from awhile ago! Thanks, guys!
Posted in Features, Community, Developers, Competitions | 22 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 09 Oct 2007 07:05:00 GMT
You can stop speculating, because the list of entrants for the upcoming IGF has been unveiled! And whoo boy, the competition is going to be fierce this year, guys and gals. There are a whopping 173 games battling for the 5 main prizes, which is around 30 or so more than this year’s. A cursory glance tells me that the quality of the games is generally very high. It’s a diverse group, too.
Many of the titles I had expected to see, many of them I recognize but didn’t realize were being entered, and many of them are comin’ straight outta left field. A good portion of the games entered this year are from TIGSource regulars, too. That’s great! I can’t wait to get my happy little digits on them and start playing.
Being able to participate in IGF is an amazing experience. I wish you all the best of luck!
(Source: GameSetWatch)
Posted in Developers, Competitions, IGF / GDC | 29 comments
Posted by BMcC
Sun, 07 Oct 2007 15:11:00 GMT
Just a friendly reminder that the 13th Annual IF Competition is underway. As a recent convert to IF myself, I gotta say, I’m excited!
Now, if only I had enough time to play through all the games and vote before the November 15th deadline… Oh well—hopefully you loyal readers will pick up my slack!
Download all the games here.
View the complete list of entries (with individual downloads) here.
EDIT: Don’t know where to start?
IF author Emily Short is currently reviewing each entry on her blog. (Thanks Terry!)
Posted in Interactive Fiction, Competitions | Tags IFComp | 18 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 03 Oct 2007 20:23:00 GMT
Gad, I feel like so much good stuff has passed across my proverbial desk recently. It’s hard to believe there was a time when I had to play a bunch of, well, “terrible” games to fill the site’s front page. You can, of course, relive my pain through Ye Olde TIGSource, an archive of older posts painstakingly compiled by ithamore features page.
But anyhoo, Varia is the game of the moment: a shoot ‘em up created for the SHMUP-DEV 2007 competition (you may recall Prototype 2 from a few days ago). At its core, Varia is a straightforward vertical shooter that mixes mechanics from classic games of the genre. However, it does so with great aplomb, in this author’s opinion, and consequently, it’s a fun ride.
From Gradius V, Varia has taken options, which can be “frozen” in place. A unique addition to this is the ability to absorb enemy shot types into your options. You can have a maximum of four trailing.
From the classic indie shooter Cho Ren Sha 68k, developer Kairos lifted the spinning power-up wheel, which lets you pick between firepower, options, or shield. Just like in Cho Ren Sha, savvy players can snag all three by sitting in the middle of the wheel!
The most underdeveloped aspect of the game is perhaps the chain combo system, taken from Ikaruga, although from looking at Tim W.’s massive “high score” (testicles), there might be more to it than I’m giving credit for… in any case, it just adds a little more to this great little shooter.
(Thanks, Melly!)
Posted in Highly Recommended, Shoot-em-ups, Windows, Competitions, Freeware, Abstract | Tags Kairos | 11 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 01 Oct 2007 06:00:00 GMT
Prototype 2 is a gorgeous shoot ‘em up that takes its inspiration from Irem’s famous R-Type series of games. The game was created for the SHMUP-DEV 2007 competition, where the theme was “Options.” And yes, the pre-game options in P2 certainly are various, with the player being able to change the flavor of his or her ship, pods, and power-ups.
And like R-Type, Prototype 2’s most interesting mechanic is the Force Pod, which is a detachable “option” that can be used to clear out hard-to-reach spots. In P2, the Force Pod can also be detonated at any time to clear out the screen. Skill with this thing is crucial if you want to survive in this game, which is punishing even at the easiest difficulty (it is for me, anyway).
Conclusion: the great presentation, numerous options, and overall polish make this a pretty awesome package. GET IT.
(Source: the one, the only, the Tim)
Posted in Highly Recommended, Shoot-em-ups, Windows, Competitions, Freeware | 8 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Mon, 17 Sep 2007 01:42:00 GMT
Guys, I am very happy to announce that the polls are now open for the B-Game Competition! Go and vote for up to 3 of your favorite games!
Voting will end at midnight, October 15th, whereupon the results shall be revealed and we will declare a winner!
I have to say, seeing all the games in one place is, well… to quote haowan:
This whole competition has created one of the most concentrated sources of awesome on the Internet. It’s bewildering, in a good way.
Well said! Everyone’s truly outdone themselves… not only are there a LOT of entries (29 total), but, you know, for a so-called “B-Game” competition, the quality is insanely high overall. I’m really happy to see that the entrants stuck closely to the theme and also made it their own. Jesus, you people really came up with some great ideas in one month.
This competition basically summed up why I love independent game development: the passion, the teamwork, the comraderie, the idealism. When I think about how we just rolled this thing up on a whim, and made it happen, and how everyone just bounced off of everyone else’s energy… well, shit dawg, it’s damn inspiring.
...I-I think I have something in my eye… (sniffle)
Posted in Community, Developers, Competitions | 9 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sun, 09 Sep 2007 17:28:00 GMT
Sampe’s Kylät is the winner of Game Maker Games’s Three Word Contest, where entrants were asked to make a game based around the words “break,” “deep,” and “wing.”
In terms of its visual and narrative styles, Kylät follows proudly in the footsteps of popular Game Maker platformers like Seiklus, flapflapflap, and the games of Darthlupi. It definitely falls short of those classics, however. For one thing, there’s almost no pacing – you’ll go from chatting up aliens (who speak… very… slowly) to being dropped into the middle of a chaotic war zone where it’s not obvious what’s hurting you and what’s not, or whether you’re doing any damage to your enemies. The whole thing feels disjointed and incomplete.
The story is interesting (if somewhat stilted). But I can’t say I recommend seeing it through, because the ending is totally lackluster and feels like a rush to meet competition deadlines.
(Source: Soldat Movies)
Posted in Platformers, Windows, Competitions, Freeware | 7 comments
