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IGF 2014 axes Technical Excellence category, ups finalists minimum to six
Independent Games Festival Chairman Brandon Boyer revealed new policies for IGF 2014 after the festival opened to submissions last week. The removal of the Technical Excellence category stands as this year's most significant change. Boyer says the decision stems from the "rise of widespread, affordable middleware [that] has, if not leveled the playing field, then at least given many equal footing from which to begin." Additionally, the previous minimum number of five finalists in a category has been bumped up to six. The Student Showcase and Nuovo Award (which rewards innovation) will remain at eight finalists, however, and honorable mentions will still be named for each award. Last year's decision to restrict IGF finalists from re-submitting the same project to future festivals also remains in place. Boyer asks that any questions concerning these changes be directed to "chairman [at] igf [dot] com." Submissions for IGF 2014 will be accepted until October 19 for the Main Competition and until October 31 for the Student Competition.
Independent Games Festival 2014 now accepting submissions
The 16th annual Independent Games Festival is now accepting submissions from indie developers. Those looking to enter the competition must enter by October 19. Entries for the student showcase are due October 31. IGF nominees compete for roughly $60,000 in prizes across a number of categories, including Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, Design, and Narrative Awards. Becoming an IGF finalist may not guarantee success, though finalists' games will be playable at GDC 2014 in San Francisco.
PSA: IGF finalist 7 Grand Steps now available
Independent Games Festival Nuovo award finalist 7 Grand Steps is now available for PC and Mac through both Steam and the developer's official website. Purchasing the game through Steam will net you a sweet 10-percent discount off the game's full price of $14.99 (provided you buy before June 14), whereas buying directly from Mousechief gets you a free digital copy of 7 Grand Steps' soundtrack. A free demo is also available, should the prospect of a multi-generational, lineage-based strategy game not instantly sound like the coolest.
IGF finalist 7 Grand Steps premieres for PC June 7
Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! developer Mousechief announced that its Independent Games Festival Nuovo award finalist title 7 Grand Steps is set for release on June 7 for Windows and Mac. 7 Grand Steps is a board game-like strategy game in which players guide a family through multiple generations, tracing the roots of western civilization along the way. Depending on the choices players make, future generations may produce laborers, kings, or adventurers. Competing families battle for resources during each era, however, and players must plan carefully in order to advance their family's bloodline. Trial versions for PC and Mac are available at Mousechief's website.
IGF design nominee Starseed Pilgrim lands on Steam on April 16
Starseed Pilgrim is preparing to colonize Steam on April 16 for PC, Mac and Linux, following its IGF 2013 nomination in Excellence in Design, developer Droqen tells Joystiq. All nominees in the IGF this year snagged some sweet Steam distribution deals: if Steam is Plymouth Rock, Starseed Pilgrim is one of the founding pioneers. Just imagine Thanksgiving.Starseed Pilgrim has players tend the symphonic garden of the universe. Or, less poetically, it's a platformer built on a blank slate that players make their own, building bridges, destroying pathways and "embracing fate," as Droqen describes it. When Starseed Pilgrim launches on Steam, it will be at a 25 percent discount, but it's available to purchase now for $6 from its official site.
Trespassing at the IGF awards: Cart Life dev directly after his big win
Half an hour after winning three IGF awards, including the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Cart Life developer Richard Hofmeier stepped backstage, stripped off his suspenders and over-the-shoulder gun holster, and said he wished his game would drop dead."I want it to die, frankly," Hofmeier told Joystiq. "I can't wait for it to die. People keep resuscitating it."Don't get it wrong – Hofmeier was cripplingly humbled by the praise from the IGF, but he wasn't convinced he deserved any of it. After a big win, passionate creators usually speak of the post-awards high, of feeling unreservedly ecstatic. After picking up the IGF's grand prize, Hofmeier rode a different wave."Highs and lows I guess," Hofmeier said. "I had high opinions of the other nominees and I kind of want to share this with them. I feel like I've already overstayed my welcome with this game and I'd like it if maybe some of this esteem and elevation could go to some games that deserve it more. I already got so much more out of this game than I ever thought I would. I thought it would just be my friends and me playing this thing. The other games are so well-made."
IGF grand prize winner gives his booth away to 'Howling Dogs'
IGF Seumas McNally grand prize winner Richard Hofmeier, the man behind Cart Life, vandalized his own booth on the GDC show floor and handed it over to Porpentine, the developer behind text adventure Howling Dogs.Hofmeier hit up Porpentine on Twitter on Thursday morning, to kindly request he show Howling Dogs at his "booth thing." Oh, you know, just that booth for the awards that Cart Life totally swept last night. No big deal. Porpentine responded in the affirmative, and Hofmeier got to work tagging his own sign."IM REALLY EXCITED ABOUT HOWLING DOGS WINNING THE IGF," Porpentine later tweeted. For those at GDC, check out Howling Dogs in the IGF booth roundup in Moscone South. You can't miss it. Everyone else, play it here.
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime preview: Don't die alone
"Death may be a given, but at least you don't have to face it alone!"Despite the deeply morbid implications behind that statement from Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime's description blurb, it perfectly belies the beauty of the game, an adorable neon micro-platformer about rescuing cuddly creatures from bad robots, shooting lasers at metallic jellyfish while flying through space, and dying alongside your partner after all of these ridiculous, futile trials.Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime looks too cute to be depressing, but in the end, the gameplay is simply a mad rush to delay the inevitable. I played a co-op round with a new friend in GDC's IGF booth, and together we attempted to save planets of birds and rabbits from a hostile robot invasion, while fending off attacks on all sides of our circular spaceship.The ship itself contains a mini platforming landscape, with myriad ladders and levels that the two lovers must navigate to operate the ship's weapons, its shield and the steering. With a controller, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime uses two buttons and one analog stick for all of its mechanics: One player jumps into the cockpit and steers the ship by sliding a single thruster around its outer rim, and the other player runs around, operating the shield and one of five weapons systems, whether that be lasers, turrets or superlasers.
IGF 2013: And the awards go to... Cart Life!
The 2013 IGF awards have wrapped up at GDC in San Francisco, with Richard Hofmeier and Cart Life taking home the Seumas McNally Grand Prize of $30,000, the Nuovo Award for innovation, which snags $5,000, and the Excellence in Narrative award for $3,000. Cart Life is a simulation game about the hard times facing food cart vendors in small-town, USA, and as demonstrated by the screenshot above, it's more dramatic than you may expect.If you want to brag to your friends about playing the latest in hot indie games, you can pick it up on Steam now for a sale price of $3.50.Subset Games' space-based strategy game FTL: Faster Than Light picked up two awards at IGF 2013, Excellence in Design and the Audience award. Kentucky Route Zero and Cardboard Computer grabbed the Excellence in Visual Art award, 140 got the Audio prize and Little Inferno is Technically Excellent, according to the IGF.Check out the entire list of winners below. Congrats to all the winners!
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Back to Bed
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Klaus Petersen and Bedtime Gaming talk about artistic IGF student finalist Back to Bed. Check out the Kickstarter here. What's your game called and what's it about?Our game is called Back to Bed. It is a 3D puzzle platformer, wherein the player has to help a sleepwalker reach the safety of his bed by navigating him through a surreal and dreamlike environment.How did you hear that Back to Bed was an IGF Student Showcase finalist and has that changed how you approach the game's development?Well, we just read it on one of the game news sites, when the student showcase "winners" were announced, which of course caused celebration.But yes, the IGF nomination changed alot of things. Besides giving the team a giant boost, it also gives us the great window of opportunity to show our game to a lot of people. It also builds up a little pressure, I guess. But it's just things like this that makes the long hours during crunch worthwhile.%Gallery-179506%
140: A trippy rhythm platformer from Limbo's puzzle designer
There are lots of things worth knowing about 140. For one, it's a side project created by Playdead's Jeppe Carlsen, whose previous work includes creating the puzzles for the excellent Limbo. You might also like to know that it's an IGF nominee. Finally, you should know that 140 is going to be at GDC next month, and we are all over it.Those are good things to know, but what you need to do is watch the trailer right this very second.%Gallery-178858%
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Kentucky Route Zero
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We believe they deserve a wider audience with the Joystiq Indie Pitch: This week, Jake Elliot and Tamas Kemenczy of Cardboard Computer discuss the mad horse race of artistic game development and IGF nominations with Kentucky Route Zero. What's your game called and what's it about?Kentucky Route Zero is game about exploring a secret highway in Kentucky that runs through Mammoth Cave, and meeting the unusual characters who live and work there. We call it a "magical realist adventure game." Like most magical realist literature, it blends realism and fantasy pretty evenly. Like most adventure games, it's focused on story and characterization over tests of skill.How did you find out about your IGF nods – including one for the Seumas McNally grand prize – and what was your reaction?We released the game the same Monday morning that the IGF finalist announcements were made, with very little sleep the whole weekend prior, so it's kind of a blur! We're really honored to be in such fine company. Some of the other finalists – particularly Anna Anthropy's Dys4ia and Richard Hofmeier's Cart Life – have been our favorite games of the last year or two, so it's very meaningful for us to be placed alongside them in the IGF this year.
Kentucky Route Zero's quasi-demo, Limits and Demonstrations, is free
Limits and Demonstrations offers a brief, introspective glimpse into the anomaly of IGF finalist Kentucky Route Zero, via a free download for Windows, Mac and Linux. Developer Cardboard Computer calls Limits and Demonstrations "not exactly a prequel but directly related to some upcoming stuff," along with ties to small details in Act 1 of Kentrucky Route Zero.Limits and Demonstrations is a tour through an experimental museum, featuring work from fictional artist Lula Chamberlain, and demonstrating the more endearing aspects of Kentucky Route Zero's full game: namely the art style, dialogue and vague, psychological creep factor. Viewed as a demo, Cardboard Computer says that if Limits and Demonstrations runs on your PC or Mac, Kentucky Route Zero will too.If you have 10 minutes or so to spare, download Limits and Demonstrations for free right here.
IGF finalist Kentucky Route Zero is out now, looks out of this world
The first act of Kentucky Route Zero, finalist in this year's Independent Games Festival, is now available. Developed by Cardboard Computer, the adventure game tells the story of "a secret highway in the caves beneath Kentucky, and the mysterious folks who travel it." It's also very, very pretty.The game will be split into five acts. The first act is available now on PC and Mac, while the remaining four will be released "over the next year or so." All five acts can be purchased as a bundle for $25, with players getting access to acts 2 through 5 as they become available. The bundle also includes soundtrack MP3s and a monthly newsletter. Act 1 can be purchased individually for $7. All downloads are DRM-free, and a Linux version should be coming soon.Now, if you haven't already, watch that trailer.
Valve to distribute IGF finalists on Steam, indies rejoice
All finalists of the Independent Games Festival main competition will receive an offer to distribute their games on Steam, working directly with Valve to get their games on PC, Mac and Linux.The main competition includes the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence In Design, Excellence In Art, Excellence In Narrative, Technical Excellence, Excellence in Audio, and the Nuovo Award, which each come with their own prizes and perks. Each category has six finalists, except the Nuovo Award, which has eight. Finalists are announced in January.Past IGF winners include Braid, Fez, Super Meat Boy and Minecraft – just imagine if those games had launched to great fanfare, for the first time, on Steam.
IGF 2013 adds 'Excellence in Narrative' category
INT. BOYER FLAT - NIGHTBRANDON Boyer, Independent Games Festival chairman, sits at his computer. Hands shaking, he types out changes to the 15th annual independent games festival awards. He whispers his revisions as he types. BRANDON We're adding a new category to this year's festival, 'Excellence in Narrative'.He mumbles the next few paragraphs to himself, then aloud. BRANDON But as judging kicked off in early October, it was clear that there was something special about this year's lineup of games in particular that made the absence of a Narrative category especially conspicuous. And so, because so many of our judges have said there are so many games in this year's festival that they specifically want to recognize for their world and their story, we are giving them an avenue to do so. A few more seconds of rapid typing go by, he finishes with flair. The PHONE RINGS, Brandon walks away. CLOSE ON: Computer Screen. Near the bottom it reads "Adding this new Narrative category will mean that we'll be returning to the traditional five finalists per, along with honorable mentions, and the standard eight for Nuovo and Student Showcase. We hope you'll understand and appreciate the changes we've made, and will continue to make in coming years, as the both the landscape of independent development and the festival itself grows and evolves."
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Humans Must Answer
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. This week, former GSC developer and co-founder of Sumom Games, Eugeny Yatsuk, talks space chickens and shmups with Humans Must Answer. The babies are Yatsuk, co-founder Denis Matveenko and artist Olexa, by Olexa. What's your game called and what's it about?Humans Must Answer. It's a shmup, and one most will recognize as having an old-school vibe about it. You play as the pilot of a scout ship called The Golden Eagle, which is manned by chickens – they like to think they're a higher species of bird than they are.They're on the lookout for something (we're not saying quite yet) and discover it within the solar system that us humans inhabit. As it is set far into the future, humans have expanded to the other planets and set up a number of industries upon them. They also have a huge legion of robots operating for them around space. So the enemies you'll come across consist of robots and humans. Yes, humans are enemies – there are far too many plots about evil aliens when, in fact, humans are most likely more evil than anything we could fictionalize.The chickens attempt to contact them in a friendly manner but the humans respond by firing at them, which isn't particularly nice. They live to regret it though because we let you, the player, go on an explosive rampage against the aggressors. There is a purpose behind it other than mere carnage though, but that doesn't appear until later in the game's narrative.How does working on your own indie project compare to working on a larger series such as S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?Very different. Faster decisions and far fewer constraints. It's a very good feeling to be the author and be responsible for all aspects of the game, and not just some cogs as part of a big company.I know some guys who work on bigger projects and ownership of their creations boils down to things like, "I made that table and chair on Level 25." You start to fear for yourself when hearing this and want to avoid ever being in that situation. When I am 40 years old I'll look at what I have created in my life. I hope to be proud of it.%Gallery-170198%
IGF 2013 has way too many entries
The 2013 edition of the Independent Games Festival Main Competition received a record number of submissions. 589 games are in the running for next year's prizes, versus a paltry 567 in 2012. To accommodate the massive influx of games, the Main Competition award categories will consider six finalists each, with the Nuovo Award featuring eight. The Microsoft Studios prize first awarded this year to Super TIME Force, which gives a winning game a guaranteed publishing deal on Microsoft platforms, will be presented again in 2013.You can start browsing all the entries here; perhaps you'll be done by the time finalists are announced in January.
Submissions open for 15th annual Independent Games Festival
The 2013 Independent Games Festival, held at GDC in San Francisco next March, is now accepting entries for the main and Student Showcase categories. The deadline for entries to the main competition is October 17 and the Student Showcase deadline is October 31, both at 11:59 p.m. PDT.The main competition entry fee is $95, and applicants will be competing for more than $55,000 in prizes: the Seumas McNally Grand Prize of $30,000; Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, and Design, each competing for $3,000; Technical Excellence for $3,000; the Audience Award for $3,000 and the Nuovo Award for $5,000. Each category will have six finalists – except the Nuovo Award, which has eight – and will be announced in January.Eight games chosen for the Student Showcase will be awarded $1,000 each, with one taking home the title of Best Student Game and an extra $3,000. There is no entry fee for the Student Showcase, though it does have its very own rule set.IGF 2012 saw 850 entries, with Fez eventually taking home the Seumas McNally Grand Prize – Polytron's second IGF award following an Excellence in Art win in 2008. Alexander Bruce, IGF 2012 winner in Technical Excellence for Antichamber, shares some sage Twitter advice for those entering this year: "Suggestion: Take that IGF deadline as a great thing to work towards, submit the best thing you can, update often, and expect nothing from it."
'What's it like to have your indie game stolen?'
No journalist, friend or decent human being wants to ask that question, especially not to an 18-year-old first-time developer who recently saw success as a student finalist in IGF 2012. Unfortunately, today we asked Mattia Traverso that very thing about his game One and One Story, after the events unfolded live on his Twitter feed: Traverso alerted the community that One and One Story had been counterfieted with "THEY STOLE MY GAME" and a succession of five tweets that included seven capitalized f-bombs.One and One Story hadn't been cloned or copied, but it was completely stolen -- code, graphics and all. The group that stole it implemented a few unused assets that were hidden in the game file, Traverso told Joystiq, and its version has completely broken animations and stretched graphics."It's kind of hilarious," Traverso said hours after his initial discovery. But when he first got the Google Alert and tracked down the stolen game to the App Store this morning, Traverso didn't find anything about the situation amusing."I panicked. I didn't know what to do, so I screamed on Twitter," he said.His screaming didn't go unnoticed and it drew the attention of other indies, including Canabalt's Adam Saltsman. Saltsman instructed Traverso to fill out a DMCA takedown, and two hours after his discovery Traverso was able to breathe a little easier.
