IGF submissions

[Matt2East]

Just curious to see if anyone on here submitted a game to Independent Games Festival.

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries2008.php

If so, congrats, good luck, and I'll check it out if you post a link. :)

[DrWilloughby]

I entered Venture Arctic. Being recognized 2 years ago for its predecessor Venture Africa and hosting the show last year was a blast. I heart the IGF. Link to Venture Arctic in my sig.

[Musenik]

We submitted Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!

It's already in trouble. The competition looks overwhelming! I'll claim our title is the most fun of all of them, if it's the kind of game you like.

Circular logic can be so reassuring, in the face of certain doom. Thanks for the cheer, Matt2East! We'll need the luck.

We extend our good will to our competitors. May the best vintage boardgame adapted RPG with high school girls win!

[Matthew]

The box is a little slow at the moment (it's actually the ad server and email manager for CMP, too). Should be faster soon!

[Jesse Hopkins]

Birth of Shadows was entered - a game I composed the music for.
http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=205

[DrWilloughby]

Here's a quick writeup of my cursory glance and playthrough of many of the titles.

Another year, another group of stellar IGF entrants. Unlike two years ago, where Darwinia seemed to be the clear favorite going into the competition, I don't see an immediate front-runner. On the other hand, there seems to be more innovation this year than any previous year. It feels like indie game developers are gaining some confidence in their wacky designs: while there are plenty of traditional strategy, SHMUP, and platformer style games, there are also quite a number of truly unique games as well.

Another thing to note is that every year I seem to know less and less about the entrants. Partly this is because there are many MORE entrants (173 this year) but also because there doesn't seem to be a centralized place where I can follow indie games anymore. TIGSource is starting to be my primary reading these days, though their coverage (like GameTunnel's) tends to be a mite skewed towards a particular style of game.

Anyways, in my cursory glance through the entries, these are the ones that stood out to me. It's heavy on titles that aren't out -- it's easier to see potential in something you haven't actually experienced.

Gish 2
http://gish2.com/
Hard to ignore this one, but my prediction is that if it's an evolution of the original concept rather than a revolution it will be rewarded by customers but not the IGF.

World of Goo
http://2dboy.com/
Another game about sticky balls. Based on a much smaller experimental title that got huge critical acclaim. My guess is World of Goo FTW.

The Path
http://www.tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/
Horror and Little Red Riding Hood. Production values look stellar. One to watch.

Schizoid
http://www.torpexgames.com/
A coop gauntlet style shooter. Looks like a ton of fun.

Threadspace: Hyperbol
http://www.hyperbol.com/
An impressive and unique strategy hybrid. Multiplayer focused games haven't fared that well in the IGF in the past, but this one certainly makes an argument for its inclusion.

Tree of Life + Axiom Overdrive
Reflexive has been known to put out some real pablum, but they also poured their hearts into the unique Wik & the Fable of Souls. These two titles could have promise, though to be honest, I have no idea what they are.

Masq
http://www.alteraction.com
A text adventure that has a unique feel to it. (apologies for the wrong name before)

Fret Nice
http://www.fretnice.com/
Control a platformer with a Guitar Hero controller. Somewhere in the cobwebbed portions of my brain I remember several people speaking highly of this. Sounds interesting.

Soup du Jour
http://www.digital-eel.com/soup/
From Digital Eel, the makers of IGF-nom Weird Worlds. Is this something interesting or a casual-friendly portal sell-out?

Polychromatic Funk Monkey
http://www.farbs.org/games.html
A fun, simple puzzle game. Would be nice to see the concept expanded upon.

Immortal Defense
http://immortaldefense.com/
The best tower-defense game ever created. Probably not different enough from other titles of the same genre to pick up awards, but certainly notable.

Venture Arctic
http://www.venturearctic.com
Yes this is my game. I like it a lot. Unique gameplay, interesting topic.

Phew... what a great group of games.

[MiceHead]

http://www.synthscribe.com/media/eow_oct.jpg

Our upcoming title, The Wonderful End of the World (http://www.dejobaan.com/wonderful) is one of the many hopefuls in this year's competition.

[MikeVitt]

http://www.precisiongames.net/images/screens696/BoS_game1.jpg

I submitted a beta version of my RPG called "Birth of Shadows". There's definitely a lot of interesting entries this year :)

[papillon]

My oft-mentioned almost-done novel adventure game is in there, but wow that's a lot of interesting games.

[Agent 4125]

I entered my game...

http://www.joystickjohnny.com

http://www.joystickjohnny.com/ext/screen_arcade1.gif

[James C. Smith]

I entered Ricochet Infinity (http://www.ricochetinfinity.com). I know a breakout game may seem about as innovative as a match 3 game, but I am really proud of the player created content sharing integration. This is not something you find in any typical casual games or even core games. The Ricochet player community is starting to get really good at making new contents. Here is a peak at the recent Halloween Spooktacular (http://www.ricochetinfinity.com/levels/levelsetinfo.php?levelsetname=Halloween+Spooktacul ar) set of levels.

http://www.ricochetinfinity.com/levels/cache/Halloween%20Spooktacular/3.jpg http://www.ricochetinfinity.com/levels/cache/Halloween%20Spooktacular/10.jpg http://www.ricochetinfinity.com/levels/cache/Halloween%20Spooktacular/13.jpg http://www.ricochetinfinity.com/levels/cache/Halloween%20Spooktacular/11.jpg

[ZuluBoy]

Wow, there are so many great entries this year.
Good luck to all the entrants.

[jeb_]

We're participating with Harvest: Massive Encounter,

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=131 (or check the screenshot in my signature)

There are so many great games in this year's list! I hope the jury members have time to give each game its deserved attention.

Musenik: thewreck (one of our members) tried your game and (though I can't quote him on it) thought it was bizarre and amazing at the same time :)

[DrWilloughby]

We're participating with Harvest: Massive Encounter,

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=131 (or check the screenshot in my signature)

There are so many great games in this year's list! I hope the jury members have time to give each game its deserved attention.

Musenik: thewreck (one of our members) tried your game and (though I can't quote him on it) thought it was bizarre and amazing at the same time :)
Ah, yes, Harvest looked cool. Looking forward to it!

[Pkeod]

World of Goo looks awesome =D I remember playing that when it was just a game design test thing (http://www.experimentalgameplay.com/game.php?g=1) and it was still fun to build a really high tower of goo.

[EnigmaCEO]

Solved! (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=137) and Arm Wrestling League (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=145) submitted.

Having games in the IGF competition is like having a commercial during the Super Bowl. Great visibility that will serve as a "Hello World" if nothing else.

[ChrisP]

I submitted Mayhem Intergalactic to the student competition. (I'm a university student.) Didn't think I was likely to be able to compete against a field like this one in the main competition - so many great indie games recently! - but there's no entry fee for the student competition, so I figured why not. :)

[gummikana]

I submitted Crayon Physics Deluxe (http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/) to the competition. But I'm really rooting for World of Goo, because if it wasn't for Kyle and his work on the Experimental Gameplay Project, I probably never would have made Crayon Physics in the first place. And also from what I've seen (http://2dboy.com/2007/09/10/world-of-goo-gameplay-trailer-1/) it seems to be one of the most complete and coolest games in the competition.

[jeb_]

I submitted Crayon Physics Deluxe (http://www.kloonigames.com/crayon/) to the competition. But I'm really rooting for World of Goo, because if it wasn't for Kyle and his work on the Experimental Gameplay Project, I probably never would have made Crayon Physics in the first place. And also from what I've seen (http://2dboy.com/2007/09/10/world-of-goo-gameplay-trailer-1/) it seems to be one of the most complete and coolest games in the competition.

Nice to see the Crayon developers here at Indiegamer :) Yeah, World of Goo looks really great and seems to play well, too.

[javier]

I submitted Masq (http://www.alteraction.com). I presented it here (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=11011&highlight=masq) a few months ago for feedback and got useful comments. We'll see how it goes.

Good luck to all

Javier Maldonado
www.alteraction.com

[gummikana]

jeb_: Thanks for the warm welcome. For some reason I thought you guys were participating with The Strategist. I don't why I thought of that. I'm not the biggest fan of the RTS genre, but Harvest seems really cool and different. Best of luck to your whole team.


I submitted Masq (http://www.alteraction.com). I presented it here (http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=11011&highlight=masq) a few months ago for feedback and got useful comments. We'll see how it goes.


I'll do the same thing that jeb_ did and say it's nice to see Masq developers here at Indiegamer :)

[speeler]

Apparently I missed this thread when it was announced, but we entered Depths of Peril (http://www.soldak.com/content/blogcategory/17/30/).

[mooktown]

It's not my game, but... Go! Fez (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=179)!

[cliffski]

Having games in the IGF competition is like having a commercial during the Super Bowl. Great visibility that will serve as a "Hello World" if nothing else.

That's not my experience. I think I'd have got more out of it if I'd spent my IGF fee on google adverts personally.
If you win, that's another matter, but unless you are pretty sure you will, then I'd spend the fee on ads personally.

[Chris Evans]

That's not my experience. I think I'd have got more out of it if I'd spent my IGF fee on google adverts personally.
If you win, that's another matter, but unless you are pretty sure you will, then I'd spend the fee on ads personally.

Especially since each year more and more games have been submitted (which is good!), it means there's less visibility per title. There's so many games this year, they've had to display them across multiple pages. For example, my game is listed on one of the back pages, so I haven't received much traffic from the IGF site compared to several years ago.

That said, various blogs tend to do quick roundups of some of the more interesting/weird IGF entries, so you could receive traffic/exposure from them. Also, if your game is fairly interesting/unique, you could be approached by various publishers or other potential business partners/contacts.

Basically your miliage will vary. But generally just being an entrant isn't going to light up your sales or traffic. I certainly wouldn't compare it to a Super Bowl commercial. Getting to the next level definitely makes a difference though.

Personally, I like entering because I'm a competitive person and the IGF deadlines always do a great job of pushing me to getting my projects to a playable/stable state by a certain time. My productivity always goes up in the late summer/fall when I'm entering something for IGF. So that alone is worth it for me.

[EnigmaCEO]

That's not my experience. I think I'd have got more out of it if I'd spent my IGF fee on google adverts personally.
If you win, that's another matter, but unless you are pretty sure you will, then I'd spend the fee on ads personally.

YMMV I guess. My traffic has doubled so far and sales are up a bit. Which always happens when I submit games to IGF.

[GolfHacker]

It's not a magic bullet for success. My experience was similar to Cliff's. Fashion Cents made the list of top ten finalists in the 2004 IGF, but we did not see much impact from the IGF on our sales or visibility. There was some increase, but not much. Ditto for Dirk Dashing. Perhaps it depends on the type of game.

In the case of Fashion Cents, we got two things out of IGF experience. First, we had the opportunity to meet a lot of people face-to-face when we demo'ed, including potential publishers, magazine writers, and game reviewers like Russ Carroll and others. We ended up with a few reviews, a magazine writeup, and initial interest from Real Arcade, Game House, and Astraware. Second, we received a lot of useful feedback from passers-by on how to improve the game for folks who are color-blind, laptop users who only have a trackpad and not a mouse, etc. Mind you, we would not have received any of this had we not been named as a finalist and gone to the IGF to demo.

In the case of Dirk Dashing, we did not make the list of finalists. But we did receive useful feedback from the judges on how to improve the game - that was the first year the IGF provided anonymous judge feedback. And we did get some increase in web traffic, but not much.

Bottom line: if your only goal in entering the IGF is to boost sales and visibility, then don't bother. As Cliff said, there are better ways to spend your money. On the other hand, if you genuinely feel your game is innovative and well-polished, and you think you have a real chance at winning or at least making finalist, then go for it - if you do make finalist or win an award, then that's where the real payoff is.

[Farbs]

I submitted Polychromatic Funk Monkey (http://www.farbs.org/games.html), mostly for the publicity. Seeing my programmer art hit front page on Kotaku was nice :)

I can't imagine that PCFM would win anything, but making finalist would be pretty darned cool.

[Twitchfactor]

I submitted Polychromatic Funk Monkey (http://www.farbs.org/games.html), mostly for the publicity. Seeing my programmer art hit front page on Kotaku was nice :)

I can't imagine that PCFM would win anything, but making finalist would be pretty darned cool.

Oh, I played that, it was pretty cool. I like platformers that have different hooks, so you automatically get points in my book.

Even if you don't win, I'm looking forward to a full game, with say some power-ups and more levels.

Also, don't worry about the art, it looks pretty cool to me.

[AnthemAudio]

Yay, we submitted Kingdom Elemental to IGF this year. It's a resubmit, but last years version wasn't quite done by judging time.

We've redone the entire story complete with voice overs, found new actors to voice every one of the characters, tweaked a ton of gameplay features and crafted one of the best endings evAR in a game.

EVAR!

Has anyone tried the new 1.4 Kingdom Elemental here?

Hmm, also another game I worked in is there...Samurai Collosus. Yay!

[RinkuHero]

Immortal Defense
http://immortaldefense.com/
The best tower-defense game ever created. Probably not different enough from other titles of the same genre to pick up awards, but certainly notable.

Phew... what a great group of games.

Thanks! ^_^

[IbrahimC]

Well I'm part of the company that submitted Tae Kwon Do World Champion (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2008.php?id=96)

We've been focused on releasing for sale, and so haven't done much talking about it. But we're finishing the last bits today and will be going forward with production.

I must say, it's an exciting and humbling experience to create games on your own dollar. :)

But good luck to all, I can't wait to see which games get the nod this year.

-Ibrahim

[ApeZone]

I submitted Loco Mogul http://www.apezone.com/locomogul.php

Hoping the new graphics update will get in before the end date.