Igf ?

[ppavlovic]

IGF 2005 competition entries are announced http://www.igf.com/2005entrants.shtml .

Who do you think will win? I like Gish.

[Anthony Flack]

But Gish entered last year as well.

I wish there was some faster way to browse through the submissions to find out which ones look the most interesting... 78 games is a lot to sift through.

I notice that "Eskimo Kisses" is listed simply as "Kisses". Weird. Because of this, do you think?

Eskimo has come under strong attack in recent years for its supposed offensiveness, and many Americans today either avoid this term or feel uneasy using it. It is widely known that Inuit, a term of ethnic pride, offers an acceptable alternative, but it is less well understood that Inuit cannot substitute for Eskimo in all cases, being restricted in usage to the Inuit-speaking peoples of Arctic Canada and parts of Greenland. In Alaska and Arctic Siberia, where Inuit is not spoken, the comparable terms are Inupiaq and Yupik, neither of which has gained as wide a currency in English as Inuit. While use of these terms is often preferable when speaking of the appropriate linguistic group, none of them can be used of the Eskimoan peoples as a whole; the only inclusive term remains Eskimo. ·The claim that Eskimo is offensive is based primarily on a popular but disputed etymology tracing its origin to an Abenaki word meaning “eaters of raw meat.� Though modern linguists speculate that the term actually derives from a Montagnais word referring to the manner of lacing a snowshoe, the matter remains undecided, and meanwhile many English speakers have learned to perceive Eskimo as a derogatory term invented by unfriendly outsiders in scornful reference to their neighbors' unsophisticated eating habits.

[Chris Evans]

Yeah, wasn't Gish a finalist last year?

[Greg Squire]

Yeah, wasn't Gish a finalist last year?

It was. I was unaware you could enter the same game the following year. That seems a bit unfair. Maybe no one at IGF has caught it yet.

[Gmicek]

It was. I was unaware you could enter the same game the following year. That seems a bit unfair. Maybe no one at IGF has caught it yet.

It's not against the rules, and has happened several times in the past.

[Mark Currie]

I've seen it before--I saw a game make it as a finalist one year, then not the next year. The game is called Hostile Space (http://www.interadventure.com/). It was a finalist in 2001, and no doubt was improved over the year, and an entrant in 2002. I guess the bar was higher in 2002, or maybe they handicap repeat entries.

I've also seen the case were an entrant wasn't a finalist in one year, but was the next year, but I forget which one exactly...if I had to guess I'd say it was "The Rift".

I guess Gish was improved since last time around and they are hoping for a bigger prize.

[dan]

Between the budgets of some "indies" and the re-entry rules, IGF has some strange policies.

No slight against Gish, by the way. It is a very good indie game.

[Greg Squire]

I guess if improvements are made then that's not so bad to allow it in the next year.

Anyway to be somewhat back on topic, I haven't looked through all the entries, but I do like Gish.

[lexaloffle]

Gosh, D.I.R.T. looks interesting. The test build link has been broken for a while though - does anyone know more about this game?

[Anthony Flack]

Woah, that animation with the rocket crashing looks pretty neat. And the reference to a "concrete sprayer" is intriguing...

[Cuculain]

dan: My thoughts exactly.

[Matthew]

Gosh, D.I.R.T. looks interesting. The test build link has been broken for a while though - does anyone know more about this game?

A friend of mine here in Arizona is the sole programmer/designer on the project (he brought on a pixel artist recently). The thrust of his engine's design is to track the physical characteristics of every pixel: their strength, how easily they're crushed or knocked free, weight, etc. Loose pixels get copied back to the terrain when they settle.

He's just getting into the actually round/game play on his design now--it'll start off as two-player split screen; I'm not sure where his plans are for multi-computer multiplayer support. The latest build is usually posted to his forums every few days. I let him know they were down just now--should be fixed whenever he can get ahold of his sysadmin. In the meantime, he updated the latest build link on his main page to: http://www.datarealms.com/forum/uploads/dirttest17.zip

I agree that the re-entry of Gish is a little odd. Although, I suspect there is a huge difference between the current version of Gish and what they submitted for judging last year. Personally I would rather see new projects submitted--I know Chronic Logic has some other projects in the pipeline too. We submitted two of our own new projects this year, and even considered submitting the Cartoon Network game we won a contract for during last IGF (decided against, since it'd be a little odd for a few reasons).

[lexaloffle]

Thanks Matthew. Downloading now..

Being a big Liero fan, I have very high expectations for this game!

[serg3d]

Latest build is not working on my computer (Radeon 9600 with LCD) pixels are scrambled...

[Dan MacDonald]

DIRT is pretty cool! has some performance problems though, the guys seemed really sluggish and it was hard to use the controlls. Flying the rocket was great though.

[Anthony Flack]

Hmm, I found it to be sluggish and unresponsive to the point where it was frustratingly nigh-impossible to get the players to do even the simplest things. Like jump. Or walk on an uneven surface.

It does look interesting, and it could be really great, but at the moment it's simply broken and unplayable. Do they have time to fix it before IGF? I find it a little puzzling that they would ever let their game get in such a state, with so much detailed work and yet the basics just don't function.

[Yuriy O]

How come zuma or other real arcade top games dont participate ?

[PoV]

Not sure, but I read somewhere that Zuma was a clone of some Japanese arcade game.

[Yuriy O]

Not sure, but I read somewhere that Zuma was a clone of some Japanese arcade game.

It most likely is, but I thought it don't make a difference to participate..

[MrPhil]

I could hardly get the characters in DIRT to do anything. Consider a new control sceme.

[Dom]

Zuma is a port of a Playstation 1 puzzle game, published by Inforgrames in Europe at least. I forget the original name, but the PS1 version wasn't actually as good

[Gmicek]

Why doesn't every indie developer in the world participate?

Anyway, maybe the reason large developers like Gamehouse and Popcap don't participate is because they understand the spirit of the competition and feel their participation wouldn't be appropriate.

[Mark Fassett]

Reasons I didn't participate include, the fee, the fact that my game is innovative in only one small way, and is not likely to win, and from some I've talked to that weren't finalists, they didn't really get any sort of sales boost from the $100 they spent.

[simonh]

And you have to exhibit your game in America if you're a finalist, ruling out lots of non USA people.

[Chris Evans]

I got a lot traffic from the IGF website when they first posted the entrants list. However, I don't think any of it generated any pre-orders for my game. I've gotten pre-orders from other avenues.

It seems IGF brings your site "industry" traffic not "consumer" traffic. Though this isn't necessarily a bad thing. I just recently got contacted by a fairly big online publisher and it's possible they saw my game scanning the IGF entrants list (I'll have to ask). If this is true and if the deal works out, then the $100 more than pays for itself even if we don't make it as a finalist.

[Anthony Flack]

Anyway, maybe the reason large developers like Gamehouse and Popcap don't participate is because they understand the spirit of the competition and feel their participation wouldn't be appropriate.

Yeah, the IGF comp aims to promote innovation

I think a lot of deserving games never get entered simply because the developer lives too far away. Having to travel to the IGF is a bit of a shame really, and surely skews the entries towards those who are already in the area, and members of the jet set.

[Matthew]

Zuma is a clone of Time Loop (or Puzz Loop in Europe), an arcade game. The PSX game--Ballistic--is also derivative of the arcade original.

I think a lot of big companies don't enter the IGF because of their status as established. In addition to rewarding fresh game design, I think the IGF also has a very strong slant towards "breaking in" newfounded studios. The Project Goldmaster award this last year was set up specifically for that purpose, as an example.

The entries every year seem to be split into two categories: veteren developers trying something new (usually experienced ex-retail people leaving to start up their own companies), and totally new companies getting their footing on something less groundbreaking (usually young developers).

The IGF rules themselves are extremely lax. Half-Life 2 could be entered, since Valve funded 100% of its developed, and Valve isn't a member of the ESA or ELSPA. It's all very subjective on who is picked as a finalist. This qoute is from http://www.igf.com/judging.htm:

Based on the ratings from the jury pools and the desire to showcase games that excel in the various categories of audio, art, game design and programming, the Chairman selects the games for the Final Round.

[Edmund]

Howdy guys its Edmund from chronic logic, i read about the Gish confusion and thought id post.

the version of Gish we entered in IGF last year, i dont know if you could have counted it as a game, it had no premise, 4 collection levels, no lighting no bad guys, no VS, no particle effects not really much of anything, just Gish and a very basic unlit collect the pac pellets premise the version we got to show at IGF was actually far more advanced then the one that was submitted to the finals.

So basically the Gish we submitted last year wasn't the Gish you've played today.

But yeah as far as IGF 2005 goes im also liking D.I.R.T alot, i hope it makes it to the finals id love to play a more polished verson
-Edmund

[Abscissa]

Between the budgets of some "indies" and the re-entry rules, IGF has some strange policies.

No kidding. A $100,000 budget seems a tad excessive to be considered indie. I know commercial games cost many millions, but still. Perhaps they're using the indie definition of "self-funded", but that would mean Half-Life 2 would be eligible.

the version of Gish we entered in IGF last year, i dont know if you could have counted it as a game, it had no premise, 4 collection levels, no lighting no bad guys, no VS, no particle effects not really much of anything, just Gish and a very basic unlit collect the pac pellets premise the version we got to show at IGF was actually far more advanced then the one that was submitted to the finals.

Ahh, that makes a lot of sense. Come to think of it, it answers the question I had last year when watching some site's video interviews of "If Gish is already entered, and a finalist, then why does the interview make it sound like they haven't finished it yet?" I get it now

[dan]

Heh. If 100K bothers you, you'd better not look any closer....

If there's some sort of deal where the versions are significantly different for a re-entry, like Gish, I retract my objection. I was thinking that devs were just putting a new coat of polish on a game and resubmitting it.

Best wishes to all involved. I'm pleased to see steady improvement in indie game quality because I think good perceptions help us all.

We'll be scrapping with y'all next year