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IGF 2009: The Shortlist

Written by Kieron Gillen on January 7, 2009.

And the IGF shortlist has gone live. It’s quite the selection of games - some already released, some only hinted at, some not even online. But it’s worth remembering, there’s been a solid classic amongst the shortlist for every year of the competition. What’s this year’s World of Goo? Can’t wait to find out. The full list is beneath the cut, including links to all the site sites I could find. Some, as far as I can work out, don’t have a web presence yet.
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Pictures For Truth: Click-Click-Click-Click-Boom!

Written by Kieron Gillen on December 2, 2008.

Continuing my prodding at the IGF entries, I found this. It’s called Pictures For Truth and it’s a French/Canadian made Amnesty International game about exposing human rights abuses leading up to the Beijing Olympics. It’s a short little thing, but strikes me as a cross between Global Conflicts and Jet Set Radio. It’s more of a model for a game than a full game, but some more thoughts beneath the cut…
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Watching The Watchmen: IGF Judges

Written by Kieron Gillen on October 22, 2008.

This came out at the weekend, but I think it could be fun to talk about a wee bit (If only to remind the Indie Devs who read us, you’ve still a few days to put yourself forward). The full list of judges for the IGF have been announced. It’s quite the list of luminaries, plus Jim and I to represent the riff-raff. The thing is… the IGF is actually the one award in gaming which actually means something. Winning it can genuinely change a developers path, in terms of both visibility and the deals with visibility leads too. So, I think it’s actually worth turning our eyes to consider who’s going to get to decide this stuff…
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Independent Games Festival 2009: Coders - go!

Written by Kieron Gillen on July 1, 2008.

And - hark! - there was a great call across the land. And with it, there was a sound like locusts, as a million coders started typing code and similar. The Independent Games Festival have made their call for entrants for the 2009 competition. People who want a crack at the assorted prizes - past winners include everything from World of Goo to Darwinia to Audiosurf to Braid to Aquaria to other splendid pieces of awesomeosity - have from now until November 1st to get their entrants in. People for the Student competition have another couple of weeks, until the 15th, as presumably the IGF people know students are slack. They’ve announced new judges for this year too, including Kyle “World of Goo” Gabler, Rod “Sims” Humble, Soren “Civ4″ Johnson, Chaim “Spore” Gingold, Petri “Crayon Physics” Purho and Jim “Rock Paper Shot…” waitaminute! Jim! You never told me about this.

I’d mock Jim more, but I’m doing it too. Any excuse to play Indie games, us.

IGF Winners Announced

Written by John Walker on February 21, 2008.

The results are in, with the winners announced for the 2008 IGF Awards.

The standard of entries this year was just stunning, and when we’ve tried to pick out our favourite of the top prize entries, it’s been impossible. For us it came down to three. Audiosurf has taken over our lunchtimes (and mornings and afternoons and evenings) this week, and is obviously a triumphant achievement. Crayon Physics Deluxe is so charming and serene, while letting you feel like a wizard as your drawings come to life. And World of Goo evoked memories in us of the first time we played Lemmings (a high compliment indeed). Winners lie beyond.

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Fez Footage From GDC

Written by John Walker on February 20, 2008.

Finally some new footage of IGF competition finalist Fez.

I’ve played the first level, and oh boy. Need more.

If You Go Down To The Woods Today…

Written by John Walker on February 15, 2008.

One of the more esoteric and unusual games in the forthcoming Independent Game Festival awards, Tale of Tales’ The Path doesn’t play like most games. It pretends to. But it’s not the same.

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Iron Dukes

Written by Kieron Gillen on February 13, 2008.

I’ve been meaning to play this since seeing it was in the IGF finalists, but Leigh Alexander being happy about it in the afterglow of her cleaning up Patrick Murphy’s interview with the developers over at Gamasutra made me follow the link and play the preview version online. And it’s really cute, in a deliciously warped fashion. It’s basically a much more playful Pirates with a splash of RPG-elements and a tongue-in-cheek Steampunk approach which brings to mind Mike Mignola’s delirious The Amazing Screw-On Head. Except even sillier.
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Still Alive: Audiosurf on Steam

Written by Kieron Gillen on February 11, 2008.

News reaches us, courtesy of our comrades at PC Gamer, that Audiosurf will be available to pre-order on Steam from later today, with the full version available on Friday for those who fancy canoodling with a Game as a Valentines day come-down. Also, it’ll come with Valve pop hits like Still Alive, TF2’s retro-jingles and the electro-bleeps of Half-life 2. And, tech-watchers should note, it’s the first game including the Steamworks tech.

Our love for Audiosurf remains undimmed since Jim looked at it a few weeks ago. Having played most of the IGF grand finalists, my position is that while World of Goo is the best game per se and probably should be the winner and Crayon Physics is simply the most magical, Audiosurf will make the most money. Getting on Steam’s a good start for making that prediction come true, yeah? Oh - and PCG have an interview with creator Dylan Fitterer too…
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Eurogamer IGF Round-up

Written by Kieron Gillen on January 31, 2008.

Following on from the hands-on first-impressions of the IGF Grand Finalists Walker, Rossignol and myself penned, the mighty Eurogamer WordTsar Bramwell commissioned me to have a look over the rest. And they’ve published it. In it I start like this…

Having played most of the Seumas McNally Grand Finalists for the Independent Games Festival next month, I really don’t envy the judges. Entirely smitten by what I played of World of Goo, I presumed it was a shoe-in. Then Walker let me have a crack of the code of Crayon Physics Deluxe which is plain magical, and technically an enormous leap on from what I’d played in the freely available early prototypes. Finally, with Jim acting as a facilitator, I found myself introducing Audiosurf to my MP3 library. They may be getting married. It’s technically and conceptually a tour de force. Any one would be a worthy winner.

And continue cheerfully onwards, having a blitzkrieg run through all the finalists for the main prizes. Read!

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