GDC 2008

Posted by Derek Yu Fri, 15 Feb 2008 19:03:00 GMT

Find us in the conference halls, or join us on the forums. GDC news all this weekend and next week. More TIGS memes than you can shake a (joy)stick at.

Posted in Community, IGF / GDC | 23 comments

The State of Jon Blow

Posted by Derek Yu Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:28:00 GMT

Jonathan Blow has a couple of new lectures up, available for download in mp3 format. They come with the power points he used during the talks.

The first one is from a lecture he gave at Game Focus Germany on January 24th. In it, he talks about design and production, and why he develops games as an indie. Really insightful look into independent game dev. Also some very sobering realities. 3-year games? Bug reports from Microsoft with hundreds of entries?

The second lecture was given at the Nordic Game Jam in Copenhagen on February 1st. I haven’t listened to this one yet, but the focus, I believe, is more on the actual physical labor of creating a game – namely, “design, programming, and art.” (EDIT: Apparently it isn’t like that at all.)

The hardest part of listening to the first lecture was hearing Jon play Braid but not being able to see or play it myself! But if you’re wondering how it’s looking, check out this post which has a bunch of HUGE screens. Props to the artist, David Hellman! Looks fantastic.

Jon is also running an interesting-sounding session at GDC next week, called “Nuances of Design.”

(Valentine’s Card Image Source: Marzy Blahs)

Posted in Community, Developers, IGF / GDC | Tags DavidHellman, JonathanBlow | 6 comments

Gleemax Sponsors the IGF

Posted by Derek Yu Mon, 11 Feb 2008 18:08:00 GMT

Gleemax is a new online gaming community started by Wizards of the Coast (you know, the Magic: The Gathering guys?). It’s essentially a social networking/news site focused around tabletop strategy and RPG games. It’s also, apparently, going to be an indie video game portal.

Gamasutra reports:

The top three winners will receive $2000, $3000, and $5000 cash prizes, respectively, along with the chance for distribution on Gleemax. The seven contestants are World of Goo, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Skyrates, Depths of Peril, Quadradius, Desktop Tower Defense, and Polarity.

This sounds very similar to Gametap’s unsuccessful involvement in last year’s IGF, although the big difference is that WotC is offering cash prizes and not advances (on 5 or 10-year distribution deals).

(Thanks, Alec!)

Posted in Business, Community, IGF / GDC | Tags 2DBoy, PetriPurho | 5 comments

IGF 2008 Audience Award Voting Opens

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

IGF 2008 Student Showcase Finalists

Posted by BMcC Sun, 30 Dec 2007 11:20:00 GMT

IGF 2008 Student Showcase Finalists:

• Crayon Physics Deluxe
• Empyreal Nocturne
• Galaxy Scraper
• Gesundheit!
• Mayhem Intergalactic
• Poesysteme
• Polarity
• Ruckblende
• Synaesthete
• The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom
• Flipside (Half-Life 2 Modification)
• Foamzilla (UT2004 Modification)

Oh man, Crayon Physics is up for the Student Showcase Award and the Grand Prize? Impressive!

But I gotta say, I’m rooting for Gesundheit! on this one. That game is just so well put together. I’d love to see Hammill come away with a win. Not anything against Petri, of course! He can have the Grand Prize as a consolation. :)

www.igf.com

Posted in Community, IGF / GDC | Tags MattHammill, PetriPurho | 14 comments

Experimental Gameplay Workshop 2008

Posted by Derek Yu Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:19:00 GMT

Jonathan Blow has called out for submissions for the Experimental Gameplay Workshop in 2008. The EGW is a series of live presentations about innovative or interesting game designs (both WIP and finished). It’s part of the Game Developer’s Conference that takes place in February.

Past games have included Katamari Damacy, Ragdoll Kung Fu, early versions of Braid and Everyday Shooter, Jim McGinley’s Jugglin’, Kyle Gabler’s Experimental Gameplay Project, and Masaya Matsuura’s visual-rhythm game Mojibribbon (depicted left).

Participants are expected to give a 10-15 minute live presentation about their game, including slides, and answer questions at the end of their presentation. The deadline for submissions is January 15th.

Posted in Community, IGF / GDC | Tags JimMcGinley, JonathanBlow, JonathanMak, KyleGabler, MarkHealey | 1 comment

Goo!: The Road to IGF (A Montage)

Posted by BMcC Fri, 07 Dec 2007 11:36:00 GMT

Posted in Nerd Love, Videos, IGF / GDC | Tags PillowFort | 32 comments

10th Annual IGF Finalists Announced

Posted by BMcC Mon, 03 Dec 2007 08:03:00 GMT

Congratulations Petri, Joakim, Kyle, Edmund, Phil, Aubrey & Tommy, cactus, and all the finalists! Yer goin’ to IGF!

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:

• Audiosurf
• Crayon Physics Deluxe
• Hammerfall
• Noitu Love 2: Devolution
• World of Goo

Best Web Browser Game:

• Globulos.com
• Iron Dukes
• Tri-Achnid

Design Innovation Award:

• Battleships Forever
• Fez
• Fret Nice
• Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
• World Of Goo

Excellence in Visual Art:

• Clean Asia!
• Fez
• Hammerfall
• Synaesthete
• The Path

Excellence in Audio:

• Cinnamon Beats
• Fret Nice
• Audiosurf
• Clean Asia!
• OokiBloks

Technical Excellence:

• World of Goo
• Goo!
• Audiosurf
• Axiom: Overdrive
• Gumboy Tournament

[This post was brought to you through a joint collaboration between BMcC and Derek. We love you all.]

UPDATE: Brandon’s thoughts actually in the extended!

Posted in IGF / GDC | 105 comments

Synaesthete

Posted by Xander Thu, 25 Oct 2007 10:50:00 GMT

Synaesthete is the work of four DigiPen students (Zach Aikman, Joseph Tkach, William Towns and Andy Maneri), and to use their own words:

To use mine, it mixes elements of Robotron, Rez and any number of Bemani titles, swishes them into an isometric angle and sends the player on a psychedelic trip through an abstract existence suffused with sound. Probably not as snappy as their explanation, but hopefully it’ll give you some idea of the gameplay. In Synaesthete you play a grey protagonist who leaves for different worlds from his hub world, which for one reason or another features a fountain. Once there, you have to extinguish all enemies from the area, using your beat attacks. Instead of having a gun, ammo, or even the ability to aim, you have music. In play, three beats fall from the sky, as Low, Medium and High beats. You simply time your button presses to the music, and you attack the enemy automatically, which leaves you free to mostly concentrate on running away.

Points and combos are awarded for accuracy with timing, and whilst you can simply concentrate on a single beat-style to kill the enemy, you can try to get a little more complex and involve the other beats in your attack chain for extra points, a faster chain growth and more attacks to defeat the enemy faster. Of course if you flub it trying to show off then you can end up completely wrecking your combo forcing you to try and catch up to the peak of your musical maelstrom. It’s a risk-and-reward mechanic that really pays off, although maybe there aren’t enough risks to outweigh just mashing the beats and hoping to fire lasers across the world, but at least it doesn’t scare you off from trying to keep up with the pace.

(Basically at this point you should just start downloading it, it’s worth the size/wait, but hit the extended if you want to keep reading! It will please me…)

Posted in Action / Arcade, Freeware, IGF / GDC | 33 comments

2008 IGF Student Entries Announced

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