Check out this great video
(source: Tim W.) where Nikki Inderlied talks to Phil Fish and some other guy about Everyday Shooter. Dammit, it is no coincidence that (ES developer) Jon Mak was absent during the video… these guys are totally working for him as PR!
I love the part where Nikki asks Phil whether he thinks Everyday Shooter should have won the grand prize, and he gets a little bit nervous. You know why that is? It’s because I was standing right behind the camera with my shirt off, holding a baseball bat with a rusty nail through it… all like sweating profusely with my eyes bugging out… blood all dripping down my mouth because I just chewed off the head of John Romero… my nipples all pierced with CliffyB’s earrings… CliffyB’s actual ears on a necklace around my neck…
Wait, what, where was I? Oh yeah! Jon Mak is a P-I-M-P, and Everyday Shooter is a rad game. Totally deserving of its wins… which were very many!
True life adventure: some drunk guy at a party at GDC talked to me for an hour before I realized that he thought I was Jon Mak. I politely corrected him:
I had the privilege of getting a personal demo of Tri-achnid from one of its creators, Edmund McMillen (the other being the programmer, Florian Himsl). In this game, you control a tri-achnid, as he searches for his brothers.
The atmosphere in this game is phenomenal. The graphics, music, and sound work together wonderfully to bring the three-legged protagonist and his world to life. You start caring for this critter almost immediately. It’s hard to forget when he first grabs his egg sac and lets out a little cooing sound. And when he slams into a rock too hard, you feel palpably hurt for him.
The thing that makes this game difficult to get into (and probably the reason why it didn’t qualify for IGF this year) is that it is hard to control. Watching Edmund play is great, because he can really get around and do some cool stuff, but for me it can be frustrating to even get from point A to point B. There are moments where the legs just don’t move as quickly as you’d like and it’s easy to get stuck… darn.
But regardless, I find Tri-achnid to be a real wumpus of a game that should definitely have made it into IGF this year.
Speaking of which, check the extended for some totally (not) poignant IGF reflections:
Hello there TIGSource readers. After meeting up with Derek Yu at GDC (and falling head over heels for him) I got on my knees and begged him to let me write for TIGSource. Begrudgingly he agreed, but said I would have to do my damnedest to impress him. For now I’m on a trial basis until he kicks me to the curb, but I have attitude for gains!
Some of you may know me as the editor of The Gamer’s Quarter, or even my shabby (and recently belated) GameSetWatch column Parallax Memories. With that said, I’m hoping that I can add to the already fantastic lineup of TIGSource news and articles here, so if I bore you just let me know (and Derek, so that he can fire me).
For my first entry I wanted to share with the community Greg Costik’s GDC Maverick Award acceptance speech. It is touching and heartfelt as well as inspirational.
“[I’m] delighted also that the development community so clearly sees that we we’re trying to accomplish is important. ... [O]utside the industry’s mainstream, the signs are hopeful—in the increasing attention paid to independent games as a means of sustaining our heritage of creativity; in the serious games and “games for change” movements; in the growing acceptance and study of games by the academy.
I want you to imagine with me a game industry that would make us proud to belong to.. I want you to imagine a 21st century in which games are the predominant artform of the age, as film was of the 20th, and the novel of the 19th; in which the best games are correctly lauded as sublime products of the human soul. I want you to imagine an educational system in which games are integrated into every aspect of the curriculum, in which everyone understands that games can illuminate things in ways that are complementary to but different from text.”
Very potent words there, and one can only hope that they ring true outside of the choir he was preaching to in the audience last Wednesday night. I recommend heading over to Manifesto’s blog to read the entire speech.
Student Showcase finalists are:
Base invaders, Invalid Tangram, Opera Slinger, Gelatin Joe, And Yet it Moves, Toblo, Euclidean Crisis, The Ball of Bastards, The Blob
Excellence in Audio finalists:
Aquaria, Bone: The Great Cow Race, Everyday Shooter, Fizzball, Racing Pitch
Finalists for Excellence in Visual Arts:
Aquaria, Golf?, Samorost 2, Castle Crashers, Roboblitz
The finalists for Design Innovation Awards:
Aquaria, Everyday Shooter, Armadillo Run, Toblo
Finalists for Technical Excellence:
Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow, Armada Online, Bang! Howdy, Blast Miner, Band of Bugs
Best Web Browser Game finalists:
Bubble Islands, Gamma Bros., Samorost 2
Indie GameTap award. The three winners of this prize will share $50,000 and have their game published on the service.
First runner up: Blast Miner
Winner: Everyday Shooter
The Audience Award winner is Castle Crashers.
The Darwinia team introduces the finalists for this year’s SMAs:
Aquaria
Armadillo Run
Bang! Howdy
Roboblitz
Everyday Shooter
The 2007 Game of the Year prize went to Aquaria, the previously unhonored 2D fantasy game from indie shop Bit Blot. After stumbling verbally, one of its designers admitted, “This is a terrible speech.” But the massive applause proved the audience didn’t really care.
“All IGF finalists who were able to submit a playable demo (or had significant public play opportunities in the last year) are eligible, and the one with the most votes picks up the $2,500 prize.”
Well, can’t say that these guys don’t stand a chance to win something now. (The madness resumes tomorrow.)
Still a secret and under wraps, the developer of Everyday Shooter has finally let out small bits and pieces from his upcoming abstract shooter in the shape of a preview video.
A serious IGF contender with three nominations, just one short of this year’s record set by Aquaria.
A list of finalists in each category was released today. Here’s an excerpt from the web site:
Nominations are led by Bit Blot’s dreamlike, innovatively controlled 2D underwater adventure title Aquaria, which garnered 4 nominations (out of six), including one for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
Other Grand Prize nominees included Queasy Games’ cleverly designed abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed 3 nominations in total – nominees for the top prize were rounded out by Peter Stock’s intelligently complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Three Rings’ Wild West indie strategy MMO Bang! Howdy, and Naked Sky’s Xbox Live Arcade action-puzzler RoboBlitz.
Feel free to post your predictions in the comments section. Derek might be convinced to give out an Aquaria goodie to anyone who gets the most categories right!
