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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!
How indie creature feature Incredipede stumbled onto Steam
In October, Incredipede developer Colin Northway introduced us to the Offspring Fling process of submitting an indie game to Steam:"Apply to Steam, be rejected, release without it, get popular, be noticed by Valve, release on Steam."Steam has since overhauled its submission process with Greenlight, a crowd-sourced method of voting games onto the service. Now from a developer's perspective, the indie submission system needs a related makeover and a new name. We suggest the Incredipede process:"Post on Greenlight, be rejected, release without it, get popular, be noticed by the IGF and through an award nomination get a deal to release on Steam without Greenlight at all, haters."It's a little more complicated and relies on a smidgen more luck, but the Incredipede process is one of many new ways to get an indie game on Steam. No matter the system, the goal remains the same – a Steam launch can propel an indie game from "hobby" to "day job," or change a sales outlook from "disappointing" to "happy.""More and more Steam is the place to be for indie games," Northway tells me. "If I had $15 for every time I heard the comment, 'I would buy this if it was on Steam,' then I'd be much happier with the sales. Which is why I'm really looking forward to the Steam release."Through its own convoluted yet successful process, Incredipede is coming to Steam for PC and Mac on March 18.
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.
IGF 2013 finalists set a Little Inferno, dial Hotline Miami for Thirty Flights of Loving
This year's Independent Games Festival finalists have been selected, a smattering of almost 30 top independent games that have launched within the past year. Leading multiple-nomination games are Subset Games' Best of the Rest 2012 favorite FTL: Faster Than Light, Cardboard Games' adventure offering Kentucky Route Zero, street vendor sim Cart Life from Richard Hofmeier and Little Inferno, the surprisingly delightful Wii U game about burning things from Tomorrow Corporation.Other notable mentions include The Fullbright Company's nod for excellence in writing with its first game, Gone Home; Blendo Games' sequel Thirty Flights of Loving is also up for the win in writing. Terry Cavanagh's Super Hexagon is up for an award in design, while Dennaton Games' Hotline Miami is up for the Seumas McNally grand prize along with all the games listed in the first paragraph of this post. And, as announced back in December, IGF finalists will be offered a Steam distribution deal.For the full list of nominees, hit up the source link below – the nominees will be playable and showcased during GDC in San Francisco, March 27-29. The winners will be revealed during the annual awards show on Wednesday night, March 27.
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."
