The latest TIGSource competition, this time with a theme of “versus” is now open for voting, with eighty-something (count ’em!) entries up for your voting attention. There are some strong entries in there, such as the philosophically significant Jesus vs Dinosaurs, the attractively cloudy Brigands, of the peculiarly conflicted Tetris Fight Club. Experimental! Indie! Affirmative!

You should take a look.

There aren’t many game design competitions that I feel a man of my total lack of game-design skills could possibly have entered, but TIGSource’s Assemblee is one. I curse myself for not submitting something – though in fairness I was moving house at the time, so drawing sprites in Photoshop on my laptop whilst sat in a removal van would doubtless only have resulted in nightmarish ineptitude. The super-clever concept is this: a little while back, any passing artists and musicians created and submitted a ton of original creations, with no specific game or aim in mind. In other words, they had no idea what their creations would be used for, or who by.

In stage 2, any interested programmers helped themselves to this cheery mountain of weird and wonderful assets, and mashed them into working games. Some of the results are astonishing.
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This must be one of the most extraordinary interviews ever to be featured on a games site. It’s subject is Vasily Zotov, the creator of bizarre adventure title, Quite Soulless. The topics covered include Zotov’s strange art style, the reason behind his creativity, the status of the mentally ill in Russia, homelessness, the status of immigrants, and Zotov’s troubled move to California. Here’s a sample quote:

I am the different bee, I mean my literacy sucks, anyway I wanted is to create story, and I hate to be an artist (but I am capable of that), the games are my only window to literacy. I wanted to be a writer and was not capable of, may I say my games are not an art but this BRIDGE.

Zotov has a new game out, a free puzzle game called Space Spy, which you can get here.

This has to be one of the finest entries to TIGSource’s awesome Bootleg Demakes competition. It’s Gang Garrison II, a demake of the peerless Team Fortress 2. It’s a two-dimensional version of the red-vs-blue class-based game we all know and love. In fact it’s almost the same game… only flatter. It’s got network code, heavies, snipers, scouts, the lot. There’s a video of it in action after the link, but I think you should just download it and host a server – anyone can do it!

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Heavens to Betsy, someone’s demade You Have To Burn The Rope!

As part of TigSource’s Bootleg Demakes compo (now closed), entrant Blueberry has created Advanced Set The Rope On Fire Cartridge. And a mighty feat it is too. Not only rolling back the sophisticated 2D graphics of the original, they’ve also adhered to the specific rule that it must in some way change the way the original game plays. Twist ending! (Via IndieGames)