My selection for the IGF

FATALEFATALEFATALEFATALE

Our invitation to judge in the Independent Games Festival was withdrawn when we said we were submitting an entry ourselves. As it turns out, that was probably a smart move. Because when I had a look at each of the 301 entries in the festival, I couldn’t resist the urge to compare them with our own. And, frankly, FATALE beats them all, in every category. :) This is why I have only selected 4 games for each prize in the festival. The fifth game -and clear winner- of each category is our own FATALE. I’m sorry, I just can’t be objective about this. :)

I have based my selection on the information available on the IGF website, the game developers’ own websites, videos and screenshots. I have played demos and games when they were publicly available. But I must admit that some of my choices were based on very little data. So I reserve a margin of error. I could have missed a really great project. And I could have included a rather lousy one. Apologies ahead of time.

Apart from simply choosing the most interesting projects in each category, I have tried to limit the amount of overlap between the different categories. Which wasn’t always easy because interesting entries tend to be good in several categories simultaneously. such as our own wonderful FATALE, for instance

Despite of the high quality of some, I have rejected games created by DigiPen students because I don’t consider them serious contenders. The IGF has a separate competition for student work. I hope they use this category in the future.


Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Windosill
Windosill
Fig. 8
Fig. 8
Amnesia
Amnesia: The dark descent
TRAUMA
TRAUMA

I make no secret about the fact that the thing I like most about the games industry is its girlfriend its potential. There are many videogames that are fine games as such, even on the independent scene. If you want to play a game, there’s an enormous amount on offer. But I know this computer of ours can do a lot more. I even believe that it can bring us a new medium, a medium as relevant and important to our times as cinema was to the previous century and printing to the centuries before. But the developers who strive for such greatness are few and far between. Even on the independent scene, where one would expect them in larger numbers than in the so-called mainstream industry.

If I had to make an absolute judgment, I’d probably send each and every game in the IGF back to the drawing board (including our own amazing FATALE). Luckily I can suffice with a relative selection. So I have chosen games that give me hope for the future of the medium. Games that are ambitious, that try to explore interesting terrain and/or allow us to do so while playing.

Windosill brings back fond memories of computer-based entertainment’s early days, when an interactive piece could just be called a “CD Rom” instead of getting labeled “GAME”. I think we could do much worse than reconnect with that time and pick up what was so rudely interrupted: playful interaction without the need to compete or achieve. Fig. 8 is equally whimsical but more challenging. But its challenge reminds of the real-world challenge of trying to ride a bicycle as a child, so it feels a lot more natural than in most games. It’s also a wonderful illustration of how a videogame can simply be a journey. Amnesia: The dark descent is probably the most ambitious game in the festival. Its scope and aesthetic rival -and exceed- many of the productions in the commercial industry, even. This is the kind of game I would like to see more of on the independent scene: uncompromising exploration of the narrative potential of high tech. Trauma re-invents the idea of an interactive movie in a spectacular and exciting way. It combines an intuitive and beautiful control system with an intimate engaging story (expressed by means of superb voice acting).


Excellence In Visual Art

LIMBO
LIMBO
A New Zero
A New Zero
Saturated Dreamers
Saturated Dreamers
DOPPELSCOPE
DOPPELSCOPE

I was pleasantly surprised by the care that independent developers are starting to put in the aesthetic presentation of their games. The “faux amateur” style seems to no longer be a badge of honour. Good riddance, too. Because there’s a lot of work to be done.

I was also glad to see that, next to some excellent examples of traditional 3D aesthetics, several developers are starting to explore real-time 3D aesthetics in an experimental way. In A New Zero all shapes are reduced to their bare minimum covered with a seductive colour palette, that can almost make you forget you’re playing a relatively banal war game. Doppelscope adds to its simplification of shapes a new kind of sensory experience that affects the entire environment and doesn’t shy away from a bit of glossy spectacle here and there. Many entries in this year’s festival feature silhouettes as their main graphical element. But aesthetically, Limbo, is the superior game of the entire lot. Saturated Dreamers surprised me. The characters that seem to carry the story are naive art at best, and actual typography has been carefully avoided, but the playing reveals an interesting generative canvas of unlikely combinations of shapes and colours. I like the aesthetic connection it suggests between computer-based geometry and walllpaper and textile patterns.


Excellence In Audio

Broken Brothers
Broken Brothers
Demonica
Demonica
DOPPELSCOPE
DOPPELSCOPE
microsia - molecular tunes
microsia – molecular tunes

I was not very impressed with the sound in most entries this year. Sound still seems to be very much an afterthought for most independent developers. Which is a real shame, considering how powerful its effect can be on the player.

There’s a lot of music games out there. Many use the music to structure simple gameplay (last year’s audio category winner Audio Surf seems to have influenced a lot of designers) and others allow you to create some kind of music-like soundscape through interaction. Microsia stands out by successfully combining amusing interaction with actual composition. Broken Brothers didn’t fall into the tired trap of adding soft piano music to a war game but opted for a menacing oppressive soundtrack through minimal and almost humoristic means on top of melancholic music that actually helps you concentrate on your strategies of destruction rather than making you feel oh so bad about killing the enemy. Demonica‘s musical wall of sound is probably the most atmospheric entry in the festival. Doppelscope confronts electronic sounds with human interaction in analogy with how it expresses its theme of nature preservation through a very synthetic stylized look. Makes playing with computers feel hip again, without the need to resort to retro aesthetics.


Excellence in Design

Windosill
Windosill
Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!
Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!
Constellation
Constellation
Galcon Fusion
Galcon Fusion

I don’t think videogames need to be games as such. But for this category, I selected videogames that I find well designed as games in the strict sense of the word. The fact that two of them are dressed up as space conquest games only illustrates how irrelevant story and meaning are when it comes to pure game design. Both Galcon and Constellation are wonderfully simple-yet-complex systems that are fascinating to interact with. Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble! does have a story. Quite an extensive one, even. But it feels so much like a board game that I couldn’t resist putting it in this category. Windosill is probably the only game I selected for this category that is undisputedly at home on the computer. And in an irresistibly charming way at that. Games this playful are too rare.


Nuovo Award

Lose/Lose
Lose/Lose
hell is other people
hell is other people
Wait
Wait
A Slow Year
A Slow Year

I’m considering this category as the place for art works. Not necessarily “art games” but simply artistic pieces that use game concepts or technology. Lose/Lose reminds me a lot of the some of the net.art of the 90s we used to be involved in, especially the work of Jodi. I may not be the world’s greatest fan of modern art, but I like seeing it become part of independent game development. If only because game distribution would offer media artists an alternative venue for showing their work. A venue that is more appropriate for the digital medium, in my opinion. The other games are more interesting as experiences, rather than simple conceptual statements. There’s something very melancholic about playing with people who have been playing before you but are not at the moment (hell is other people). Wait may be ugly but it has a very inspiring game mechanic (which is rare in indie games). And A Slow Year simply appeals to me because of its references to traditional painting and the link that it makes between nature and machines.


Technical Excellence

Heroes of Newerth
Heroes of Newerth
Amnesia
Amnesia: The dark descent
HurricaneX2
HurricaneX2
7 Nights
7 Nights

All videogames are small miracles. Contrary to popular belief, computer hardware is still incredibly slow, unwieldy and inaccessible. But of all software that one can make with a computer, real-time 3D games must be the most complicated and technically impressive. There’s a tendency on the independent developers scene to look down on 3D games. But I think that’s just a self defense reflex that should not impair our judgment.
With the exception of Amnesia: The dark descent, none of the games I selected in this category are games that I would play myself. But I want to pay tribute to the effort that the developers are doing to, independently, create such technically ambitious projects. Hopefully their work encourages other indie developers and artists not to shy away in their comfortable flat platformer and shooter zones.

25 thoughts on “My selection for the IGF”

  1. See, my reaction to seeing the entrants was quite different. I thought “oh shit oh shit oh shit these are all amazing, why did indie games have to get so good when I was starting to make them”. Which means it’s an odd feeling of relief to have been picked by a potential judge as a contender. Of course, my life would be better if fatale hadn’t been entered, as then I’d both be nominated and have one less rival, but I guess I can’t be too churlish at you right now.

  2. @ Paul: haha. Don’t blame me if she sucks at graphic design! 😉

    @ George: I’m not sure if our being a potential judge has any relevancy. We tend to have an uncommon taste in games. But we’ve been surprised before. I think the IGF would be a richer festival with your game in it. Touching wood!

  3. i think she majored in it — that or multimedia, i forget which, so she should be at least able to give me some direction in it

    oh and btw, the story has been edited since that video so if you’re just judging it on that video hopefully they’re less naive in the real game etc. etc. — i prolly shouldn’t have submitted the game in such an early state (less than half done), but wanted to use it as motivation to work more on the game more quickly

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  5. To the contrary of the joy you get from the attention to visual design I have been feeling lately like far too many games have been leaning on graphics to lure the prospective player in. Perhaps it is because screenshots are so often used as the representation of the work (and I am seriously disappointed that you used screenshots to represent your finalists in the AUDIO category rather than a link to some of the sounds contained in these games) but graphics are given way to much importance when it comes to the all important first impression.

    In the future I would like for more designers to have the courage to forgo graphics entirely.

  6. Well, Beyla, then you must be superhappy with the audio-only trailer we released for FATALE! :)

    I hear what you’re saying, but isn’t it just caused by the limitations of one medium to talk about another? Even music is often represented on the web and in the printed press by a picture of the artist or the cover of an album. An image can be seen instantly and the human brain can deal with multiple images simultaneously. Not so with multiple sounds. Let alone with multiple interactive pieces.

    To some extent, I’m glad that videogames cannot be represented in any other medium. That way nobody can mistake the reproduction for the real thing -which has been the sad lot of paintings, e.g.

    I don’t think good graphics are the cause of bad games. I think lots of people, including developers, really like what I would consider bad games. But with you, I am disappointed when a game that looks great ends up being dumb when you interact with it (which has been my experience with almost all AAA games lately). But many people really love dumb games.

  7. I am curious as well, and that was a vague answer.

    Is it because you feel the work they submitted to the professional category this year was sub-par compared to professionally developed games (in technical accomplishment and/or game design)?

    Or are you blatantly discriminating against them regardless of the level of quality of their games (again both in technical/design) because they are “students?”

    I can understand the first POV, but to simply disregard some of the amazing student games because they were made by students is laughably naive. There is nothing preventing a “student” game from being as good as or better than a “professional” game.

    I can’t see why anyone would actively make that argument unless they did feel that (mere) students were, in fact, “serious contenders.”

  8. Closure (http://www.closuregame.com/) which was nominated for 3 IGF finalist categories was made by a current DigiPen student. I feel all students should have an opportunity to compete in the professional category even if they make their game at school or while at home.

  9. I just think that students work in entirely different circumstances than professionals. On the one hand, they often have the luxury to make work disregarding many of the practical constraints of a professional, and on the other, in my experience, they seldom have the ambition (or the time) to actually create a complete game.

    And on a more personal note, I would also prefer to see more work by older people with a little bit more experience with life.

    Anyway, I don’t make up the rules: the IGF has a separate students category. Use it!

  10. “And on a more personal note, I would also prefer to see more work by older people with a little bit more experience with life.”

    So you want to discriminate against games just for how old the developers are?

    “Anyway, I don’t make up the rules: the IGF has a separate students category. Use it!”

    It’s not against the rules to submit a student game into the professional category. If they think their game is good enough to be critiqued on a professional standard, they have every right to enter and have a fair chance.

    I’m pretty glad you weren’t a judge. To disregard games based on who made them, rather than the game itself, would be a terribly unfair way to go about your duties.

  11. “they often have the luxury to make work disregarding many of the practical constraints of a professional”

    And please elaborate.

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