Videogame Nation

By: Xander

On: May 18th, 2009

If you happen to be in the area of ‘Manchester, England’ anytime from now until September, you’d do well to stop by the Urbis Centre to check out their Videogame Nation Exhibition which is an exhibit mostly surrounding the British games industry. Interestingly, as spied by Negative Gamer, there’s actually a small section dedicated to indie smash-hit Darwinia. The exhibit as a whole seems to cover everything from the DSi right down to the early days of ‘Jet Set Willy’ and the old bedroom programmers like The Oliver Twins. It’s interesting to see such a thing created surrounding video games, and for there to be an indie presence is rather heartwarming. Be sure to check it out if you have the chance, as it sounds like a worthwhile trip, but if that’s impossible then check the Negative Gamer link for a bunch of photos from the event (Such as the one heading this post).

Unity 2.5: Unity For Windows!

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: March 19th, 2009

Good news everyone! Unity, the rapid cross-platform game development tool used by the likes of Flashbang Studios and Infinite Ammo to create wonderful, technically advanced independent games has just been updated to version 2.5! Along with a slew of new features and improvements, the big news is that it is now available for Windows (being previously Mac-exclusive).

Unity features one-click deployment for Windows, Mac, Wii, Web, and iPhone, a great interface, full physics simulation, networking, and pretty much anything else you might need to painlessly make a full fledged, seemingly big budget 3D game. You can freely download a one month free trial of Unity from their website. For free!

Full Version 2.5 feature list here.
Alec’s thoughts on Unity here.

DefconAR

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: February 23rd, 2009

I just recently rediscovered Offworld, Brandon (the Brandon people are talking about when they say I look different in my press photo) Boyer’s excellent, excellent indie/weird gaming blog. I shall be diligently mining it for TIGS content from now on.

This video is of DefconAR, a super-cool Augmented Reality prototype from Introversion. Quoth programmer Leander Hambley’s forum post:

DefconAR was originally just gonna be a cool little toy for us to use in the office to wow people who came to see us. Who’d have to hide the Defcon screen from your boss when playing Office mode, if there isn’t even a window open for it? Have a small tile on your desk, wearing some AR goggles, and no one would know. Obviously there isn’t much to it at the moment, I still need to spice up the world rendering, and then add in some actual content, but just imagine how this would look with nukes flying over the globe in realistic arcs, and maybe even 3D mushroom clouds.

Yes, please, this is awesome. You know, if it were feasible, this sort of thing could make for a great Gamma… (GammAR?)

Polytron Corporation Acquires Fez

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: January 25th, 2009

Hurrah, the Polytron site is live! And I’ll be darned if it ain’t the slickest thing ever. More good news! Fez is planned for a 2009 release. Here’s the press release, direct from Polyplex One:

Montreal, Thursday the 22nd of January , 4:29pm, Montreal

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

The Polytron Corporation is proudly excited to announce its friendly takeover of Fez!

The venerable multimedia multinational giant today announces it has taken control of the production of highly anticipated indie darling sensation Fez. The rights to the game were transferred from indie darling sensation collective Kokoromi, who demanded nothing in return but a dream, and a wish.

Winner of the 2008 IGF Excellence In Visual Arts Award, Fez also features 2008 IGF nominated design innovation.

Polytron is vibrating with glee at the prospect of bringing it’s much needed decades of experience in the field of computer entertainment to Fez, and its team.

Confident in its dedication to the project, Polytron projects a release in 2009.

More screenshots here. (Check out the new and also improved art style!)
More press after the jump.

About Polytron:

Worldwide leader in the field of polytronics, The Polytron Corporation is a name you can trust for all your electronic computer entertainment needs.

About Kokoromi Worldwide:

Worldwide game/art party leader Kokoromi an experimental game collective formed by a rare union of Montreal gamemakers and curators to promote games as an art form and expressive medium worldwide.

About Excellence In Visual Arts:

Fez won it.

About Fez:

We’re making it.

Play-Make.com

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: January 13th, 2009

This post is long overdue. Shame on me!

Ivan “Russia’s Gift to Gaming” Safrin (“toastie” on the forums) has launched a sexy new indie gaming blog, all grey and pink and personal, featuring significant contributions from Adam “Host of Killer Pool Parties” Saltsman (a.k.a. “adamatomic”), called Play-Make.com. It’s more developer-centric than the average blog, with many links to postmortems, exclusive interviews, and other excellent things.

Beyond that, it provides a new perspective on The World of Indie Games, if you’re interested in that sort of thing. (And my guess is you are!) I love how personal it is. There’s even some juicy behind-the-scenes details on the first TIGJam!

While I’m writing this post, I might as well mention that Ivan’s been The Official TIGSource Photographer since Gamma 256. You can find his photos of numerous indie events on his Flickr photostream. (That is, if you really want to get an idea of just how infrequently I bathe!)

I was going to add this to the External Links section, but apparently I already did when I first sat down to write this post!

Gish Design Tour

By: Derek Yu

On: December 16th, 2008

David Rosen continues his tour with an oldie but goodie from Edmund McMillen: Gish! Although at his pace, it’s less of a tour and more of a rampage. This one’s real fun.

Speaking of Wolfire, if you want a free copy of Lugaru for Christmas, all you have to do is join the Overgrowth Facebook page.

Tech: Overgrowth Terrain Generation

By: Derek Yu

On: October 8th, 2008

Over at the Wolfire blog, updates are coming fast and furious about development of Overgrowth, also known as Lugaru 2. The latest update is a fairly lengthy discussion of how the team is thinking of generating realistic looking terrain for their game. A very interesting read… indeed.

On the art side, team artist Aubrey has posted a time-lapse video of himself working on one of his amazing conceptual pieces for the game!

Overgrowth can’t come soon enough, but in the meantime I’m going to enjoy the hell out of watching it develop.

(Thanks, wormguy!)