Driftmoon Preview

By: Derek Yu

On: November 26th, 2009

Driftmoon is a new top-down RPG project by Ville Mönkkönen, the creator of the survival game Notrium. Although it’s early in development, there is a playable preview (35 MB) of the game available from the game’s website. Driftmoon is in the final round of the second 2BeeGames competition.

There are some neat things about the preview. For one thing, the graphics are nice. I also like the way you can push and drag objects around and the Notrium-inspired survival elements are cool, too. The dialogue, leveling system, and puzzles feel a bit tacked-on, but hey, it’s just a preview! And it’s fun, besides.

IGF Student Competition Entries Announced

By: Derek Yu

On: November 19th, 2009

A record number (306) of entries to the Main Competition is, not surprisingly, followed by a record number of entries to the student competition. This year there were 193 games submitted by students to the IGF! I haven’t heard of many of the entries before, but they sound interesting – I’m seeing a lot of ideas and themes that are very rarely touched upon in gaming.

The IGF front page reminds us that previous student winners include Narbacular Drop (which became Portal), The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom, The Blob, and Jenova Chen’s Cloud. Fine company to be with, indeed. Congratulations to all the student entrants!

IGF 2010 – 306 Entries!

By: Derek Yu

On: November 3rd, 2009

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!

TIGSource Presents: Assemblee Competition!

By: Derek Yu

On: October 24th, 2009

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!

First Ever IGF China – Results

By: Derek Yu

On: October 16th, 2009

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:

Ludum Dare 15: Results

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: September 16th, 2009

The 15th Ludum Dare "48 hour solo game development competition” has ended. The theme this time around was “Caverns,” and there were over 143 (i.e., 144) games submitted — all of which you can find here. (With screen shots!)

The top honors this time went to ChevyRay‘s Beacon (shown above) and ’ Thorson’s Site">YMM’s Broken Cave Robot, which are both excellent. But there are many other gems! I advise scrolling through the voting results and trying everything.

Ludum Dare 16 will begin in December. Prepare thyself!

Gamma Comes to GDC

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: September 14th, 2009

You may have already heard this news, but I think it’s prudent to post it again: The fourth iteration of the previously Montreal-based indie game exposition / dance party, Gamma, will now be held at this year’s GDC in San Francisco. While I’m sad to not have an excuse to take the train up to Montreal this year, I’m thrilled to see Gamma return bigger than ever.

Read Simon’s announcement post for all the details. (Or if this is the first time you’ve heard of Gamma!)


Kokoromi will reveal this year’s theme and open submissions in November, so stay tuned!

Adult/Educational Compo: Results!

By: Derek Yu

On: September 10th, 2009

The results of the Adult/Educational Competition are in (and have been for a while now, sorry about that)! This was a super-close race between Edmund and Back Door Man, with the former winning by two votes. Congratulations to Farmergnome for winning the grand prize with his controversial game.

The top ten entries were:

1. Edmund – 72 (17.7%)

2. Back Door Man – 70 (17.2%)
3. I HAVE CANDY GET IN THE VAN – 47 (11.5%)
4. Super Cock Blockers – 44 (10.8%)
5. Jirosum – 33 (8.1%)

6. Mr. Jones’ Dream – 26 (6.4%)
7. I Love You 2 – 22 (5.4%)
8. Dildo Tank the First Squirt – 13 (3.2%)
9. Manfred Mansfield and the Invasion of the Alien Men – 12 (2.9%)
10. Sheets – 11 (2.7%)

You can find the full breakdown here. Once again, please be aware that some of these games depict graphic pixel-on-pixel intercourse and are possibly inappropriate for young children, depending on how tight-assed their parents are. Make note of what category the game belongs to before you play.

Does anyone love stats? Here are some: of the top 10 games, 8 were of adult nature, 1 was educational, and 1 was both. Proving once again that people enjoy sex more than they enjoy learning. But everyone loves video games.

Thanks to all the participants! This was a crazy one, and the next one might be crazier. See you next time!

Stimergy

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: August 17th, 2009

I should have seen this on either Heather or Renaud‘s blog, but of course I saw it on ’ll never get away with this, Offworld!">Offworld.

Stimergy is a game by Kokoromi‘s Heather Kelley and ’s Site">Polytron’s Renaud Bédard (Team EMERGENCY HAMMER), created in under 36 hours for the Bivouac Urbain game jam in Quebec. In the game you must guide ants toward a picnic blanket using attractive and repulsive pheromones. According to Renaud:

"The game was made from scratch in C# 3.0 using the Truevision3D engine with no prior design, graphics or sound work. All the graphics in the game are procedural, and the gameplay itself is based on AI rules, basically a cellular automaton plus the notion of “stigmergy” from the insect world."

You can find Stimergy here, along with a postmortem and time-lapse video of the creation of the game. And on the forums Renaud was kind enough to post a link to the rest of the Bivouac Urbain games, which includes entries by Anna and Messhof, among others. Pictures of the event can be found here.

Adult/Education Competition: Voting!

By: Derek Yu

On: August 15th, 2009

Voting is on for the Adult/Educational Competition! Originally, I was planning on doing a sequel to our B-Games Competition over the summer, but rehashing an old theme just didn’t seem right. I feel like TIGSource compos should always push forward into new, and sometimes challenging, territory. The A/E Compo really fit the bill.

Of the 28 finished entries, there were 13 adult entries, 11 educational entries, and 5 brave entries that made use of both themes – glad to see such an even split between the two. There’s some hilariously gonzo stuff in there, but also some thoughtful work. In general, the entrants broke some real ground in genres that are not generally thought of as innovative (if thought of at all).

Congrats to everyone who participated, but especially the ones who finished! PLAY AND VOTE.