GDC 2010: Photos

By: Derek Yu

On: March 15th, 2010

Chrissy “Nava” Chubala took many fantastic photos of GDC this year – everything from sessions to the awards to the IGF Pavilion to recreation. Check out her photo collection here.

Rebekah Saltsman also took some great photos of the various goings on.

Nice way to reminisce about the conference for those who were there, and hopefully it will inspire others to make the trip next time. Thanks, Chrissy and Rebekah!

UPDATE: There’s also the official GDC photostream.

GDC 2010: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP

By: Derek Yu

On: March 14th, 2010

Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP is an iPhone game collaboration between superbrothers (aka Craig Adams), singer-songwriter Jim Guthrie, and Capybara Games, the creators of Critter Crunch. These two videos are from the GDC build of the game, where the player engages in some exploration and combat. I got a chance to try it at the IGF Pavilion, where S&S EP was being shown for winning IGF Mobile’s Achievement In Art award. It’s great – the stylized art, the evocative audio, and the detail in each area makes you excited to see what’s coming next. The combat was also fun, if simple.

The combat video is after the jump:

(Source: GameSetWatch)

IGF Award Winners

By: Derek Yu

On: March 12th, 2010

Former IGF Awards host Andy Schatz (pictured above) got to take the stage again tonight, only this time it was to accept both the Seumas McNally award and the Excellence in Design Award for his 4-player co-op stealth game Monaco. Other winning games included the long-lost Limbo, which won awards for Visual Art and Technical Excellence, Closure, which won Audio, and cactus’s Tuning, which won the Nuovo Award.

You can view the entire show here.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:

• Joe Danger
• Monaco
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Super Meat Boy!
• Trauma

Excellence in Visual Art:

• Limbo
• Owlboy
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Shank
• Trauma

Excellence in Audio:

• Closure
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Shatter
• Super Meat Boy!
• Trauma

Excellence in Design:

• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard For Gravity
• Cogs
• Miegakure
• Monaco
• Star Guard

Nuovo Award:

• A Slow Year
• Closure
• Enviro-Bear 2000
• Today I Die
• Tuning

Technical Excellence:

• Closure
• Limbo
• Heroes of Newerth
• Joe Danger
• Vessel

Student Showcase:

• Boryokudan Rue
• Continuity
• Devils Tuning Fork
• Dreamside Maroon Student Version
• Igneous
• Paper Cakes
• Puddle
• Puzzle Bloom
• Spectre
• Ulitsa Dimitrova

Cactus gave the best IGF acceptance speech I’ve ever heard!

IGS Photos

By: ARelativelyHotGirl

On: March 9th, 2010

Coming in live…

IGF 2010 Student Showcase Winners

By: Derek Yu

On: January 18th, 2010

The winners of the IGF 2010 Student Showcase have been announced. These student games will be playable at the IGF pavilion at GDC this year, along with the rest of the IGF finalists, and will compete for the Best Student Game award. They were picked out of 190 student entries.

The winners are:

Student Showcase Winners:

• Boryokudan Rue (UCLA)
• Continuity (Chalmers University of Technology / University of Gothenburg)
• Devil’s Tuning Fork (DePaul University)
• Dreamside Maroon (DigiPen Institute Of Technology)
• Igneous (DigiPen Institute Of Technology)
• Paper Cakes (Utrecht School of the Arts & USC)
• Puddle (ENJMIN, France)
• Puzzle Bloom (DADIU, Denmark)
• Spectre (USC Interactive Media)
• Ulitsa Dimitrova (Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany)

The judges are also recommending 10 honorable mentions:

Honorable Mention:

• ASCIIp0rtal (Utah State University)
• Conquest (Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg & University of Primorska)
• Endless Frog Kids (UC Berkeley)
• Gear (DigiPen Institute of Technology)
• Mi (Odessa National University)
• NormalTanks (Tyumen State Oil and Gas University)
• Runesinger (USC)
• Spinnr (Frostburg State University)
• Sultans Of Scratch (Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy)
• The Last Dance (IdEC UPF, Barcelona)

Congratulations to the winners!

2010 IGF Finalists: Main Competition

By: Derek Yu

On: January 4th, 2010

The results are in. Your main competition finalists for 2010 are:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:

• Joe Danger
• Monaco
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Super Meat Boy!
• Trauma

Excellence in Visual Art:

• Limbo
• Owlboy
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Shank
• Trauma

Excellence in Audio:

• Closure
• Rocketbirds: Revolution!
• Shatter
• Super Meat Boy!
• Trauma

Excellence in Design:

• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard For Gravity
• Cogs
• Miegakure
• Monaco
• Star Guard

Nuovo Award:

• A Slow Year
• Closure
• Enviro-Bear 2000
• Today I Die
• Tuning

Technical Excellence:

• Closure
• Limbo
• Heroes of Newerth
• Joe Danger
• Vessel

Congratulations to all the finalists! Now… DISCUSS.

Gamma 4

By: Derek Yu

On: December 2nd, 2009

Kokoromi Collective has announced that Gamma 4 will be a part of next year’s GDC in March. The theme is “one-button games” and entries must only use a single button on the Xbox 360 controller. Windows and Mac OSX games are both accepted. The submission deadline is January 31st.

Also, it’s not related to Kokoromi or Gamma, but OneSwitch.org is a website dedicated to single-button games and interfaces designed for the physically-handicapped.

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!

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: