Are You Indie?

On Saturday, February 6, IndieCade co-hosted the closing party for the Art History of Games with the IGDA Atlanta Chapter at the W Midtown in Atlanta. The format was an “Indie Game Slam” in which participants could sign up for three minutes to show their independently produced games. We had a packed house, and 14 games all of which were cool and interesting in various ways. Among the treats, Jesper Juul showed his Global Game Jam game, which is a hoot, and Eric Zimmerman previewed a new as-yet-unreleased game. Games presented, in order, were:

Electro-Mechanical Tic Toe Toe by Jim Steiner
4:32 by Jesper Juul
Space Miner by Hoyt Jolly
BeeStruction by CMU Game Creation Society (Presented by Conor Fallon)
Game-A-Day by Chris DeLeon
Restless Realms by Restless Interactive (presented by Kyle and Dan
Legerdemain by Nathan Jerpe http://www.roguelikefiction.com
The Sun Always Lies, presented by Brian Shurtleff, Global Game Jam 2010, Albany, Georgia
Super Matador Tres, Global Game Jam, 2010, Atlanta (presented by Holden Link and Ian Guthridge)
Walking by Desert Hat
Waking Up by Eric Zimmerman and Josh Debonis (presented by Debonis) (unreleased)
Rocket Car by Games That Work (presented by Dov Jacobson)
Rationalization by Mike Treanor
Vision by Proxy by Team Rose (presented by Andrew Ho)

Okay bragging rights (and full disclosure). This final game was made by students in my game design class last semester!

Many thanks to the Art History of Games organizers, John Sharp, Ian Bogost and Michael Nitsche, as well as Jesse Lindsley (IGDA/Thrust Interactive) and Kelly Spikes (W Midtown).

The Art History of Games is a three-day public symposium and exhibition jointly organized by SCAD Atlanta and the Georgia Institute of Technology! The event will provide a venue for artists, scholars and game developers to discuss games as a form of art as well as set the path for conversations going forward.

February 4-6, 2010
Rich Auditorium at the High Museum of Art
1280 Peachtree St N.E., Atlanta GA 30308

Register at: http://arthistoryofgames.com/registration

Speakers include:

Brenda Brathwaite, creator of Train, winner of the IndieCade 2009 Vanguard Award
John Romero, designer of Doom and co-founder of Gazillion Entertainment
Christiane Paul, New School professor and Whitney Museum adjunct curator
Jesper Juul, author of A Casual Revolution
Frank Lantz, designer of Drop7 and Parking Wars
Celia Pearce, IndieCade Festival Chair & Asst. Prof. of Digital Media at Georgia Tech

Attendees are also invited to attend the premiere of three commissioned art games by Jason Rohrer, Tale of Tales, and Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman, at Kai Lin Art (800 Peachtree St. N.E.).

Early registration ends Thusday, January 14: $15 for SCAD and Georgia Tech students, $25 for academics and students from other institutions, and $40 for the general public.

Register at: http://www.arthistoryofgames.com/registration

For more information, please visit http://www.arthistoryofgames.com or contact .

We wanted to give a quick, if belated, shout-out to the 2010 IGF Finalists.  This year’s line-up has a ton of solid games, and the IGF Jury did a bang-up job of selecting interesting, quality work.  The entire list of IGF Finalists for 2010 is located here:  http://www.igf.com/02finalists.html

Congrtulations to all of this year’s finalists, and we wish you the best of luck!  And of course, we want to give an extra big shout-out to Daniel Benmergui, Cactus, Lazy 8 Studios, and Tyler Glaiel for Today I Dies, Tuning, Cogs, and Closure respectively.  All four games are former IndieCade finalists, and we wish them great success in the 2010 Independent Games Festival.

And finally, props to Steve, Matt, and Simon - the IGF is looking at another bang-up year.

Sam

Check out photos of our showcase at GameCity Nottingham

Hey Folks!  A buncha you asked, so I’m posting the videos we screened at the IndieCade Award Show.  There were put together by an awesome group of folks who volunteered their time and expertise to make these out of materials submitted by the developers.  Thanks to Kellee Santiago, Paul Cibis, Sarah Smith, Emily Ferenbach, and Psychic Bunny!  The event was a great success, and I hope those of you who weren;t able to make it enjoy these videos.

Aether, Moons Stories, Ruben & Lullbay, Spectre

Minor Battle, Modal Kombat, Zeno Clash

IndieCade Award Show Movie 1 from Sam Roberts on Vimeo.

Akrasia, Gray, Global Conflicts: Latin America, Train

You Get Me, Deep Sleep Initiative, Mightier

IndieCade Award Show Video 2 from Sam Roberts on Vimeo.

Classic Night, Dear Esther, The Maw, The Path

Cogs, Eliss, Radioflare, Tuning

IndieCade Award Show Video 3 from Sam Roberts on Vimeo.

Osmos, Papermint, Shadow Physics

Closure, Everybody Dies, Nanobots, Sowlar

IndieCade Award Video 4 from Sam Roberts on Vimeo.

Thank you to all of the gamemakers, speakers, judges, advisors, volunteers, patrons, & friends who participated in IndieCade 2009! What a spectacular four days of play and inspiration and camaraderie!!

IndieCade applauds all of the 2009 finalists and commends the awardees.

World/Story:
Dear Esther - The Chinese Room - http://www.moddb.com/mods/dear-esther

Gameplay Innovation:
Closure - Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480006

Auteur:
Eliss - Steph Thirion - http://www.toucheliss.com/

Jury Award:
Moon Stories - Daniel Benmergui - http://www.kongregate.com/games/danielben/i-wish-i-were-the-moon

Fun/Compelling & Best in Show (EA Partners Sponsored)
Osmos - Hemisphere Games - http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/ “>http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/

Vanguard:
Train - Brenda Brathwaite - http://mechanicmessage.wordpress.com/ “>http://mechanicmessage.wordpress.com/

Sublime Experience:
Tuning - Jonatan ‘Cactus’ Soderstrom - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTY494iujdA

Audience/Finalist Choice:
Minor Battle - Andre Clark - http://minorbattle.com/

Audience/Finalist Choice Runner Up:
The Deep Sleep Initiative - ARx - http://www.deepsleepinitiative.com/

Honorable Mention:
Aether - Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel - http://armorgames.com/play/2153/aether
Papermint - Avaloop - http://www.papermint.com/
Spectre - Vaguely Spectacular Team - http://www.spectregame.com/

Check out Ben Fritz’s article in the LA Times, featuring Keiko and Lucas Pope, creator of 2009 Finalist Mighter, calling IndieCade “The Video Game Industry’s Sundance.”

Hello, IndieCaders! 

Richard Lemarchand here - I’m a game designer at Naughty Dog in Santa Monica, and I’m also a lover of indie games, an ardent advocate of DIY culture, and a helper-out to the organizers of IndieCade.

You’ll be hearing more from me this week as the festival unfolds and the conference confers - for starters, I’m helping to organize a metric tonne of “Mini-Microtalks” at the IndieCade Opening Party on Thursday night.  Please consider yourselves cordially invited! http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/event.php?eid=163187835733&ref=nf

The Mini-Microtalks will be given by the creators of the games in this year’s festival, and are short-format presentations of a kind that you might be familiar with - each speaker gets 12 slides, each of which is displayed for exactly 16 seconds before auto-advancing, giving the speaker exactly three minutes and 12 seconds to say what they gotta say.  We did something similar at GDC this year - it’s going to be great!

Anyway, party invitations aside - thanks to Adam for blogging the list of this year’s finalists!  Coincidentally, I just got done compiling a list of links to the games (or where the games aren’t directly available, links to reviews and videos of them), and wanted to share them with you all - the list is right there, down at the end of this post.

To see videos of the games, please check out Brandon’s amazing round-up over at Offworld!

See you at IndieCade!

Aether - Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel - http://armorgames.com/play/2153/aether
Akrasia - Team Aha! - http://gambit.mit.edu/loadgame/akrasia.php
ClassicNight - Akarolls - http://akarolls.wordpress.com/2009/02/11/classicnight-construction-simulation/
Cogs - Lazy 8 Studios - http://www.lazy8studios.com/download_cogs_now
Closure - Tyler Glaiel and Jon Schubbe - http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480006
Dear Esther - The Chinese Room - http://www.moddb.com/mods/dear-esther
The Deep Sleep Initiative - ARx - http://www.deepsleepinitiative.com/
Eliss - Steph Thirion - http://www.toucheliss.com/
Everybody Dies - Jim Munroe - http://nomediakings.org/games/everybody_dies_takes_bronze_at_ifcomp.html
Global Conflicts: Latin America - Serious Games Interactive - http://www.globalconflicts.eu/
Gray - Mike Boxleiter and Greg Wohlwend - http://www.intuitiongames.com/gray/
The Maw - Twisted Pixel Games - http://www.mawgame.com/
Mightier - Lucas Pope and Keiko Ishizaka - http://www.ratloop.com/?games/mightier
Minor Battle - Andre Clark - http://minorbattle.com/
Modal Kombat - David Hindman and Evan Drummand - http://www.modalkombat.com/
Moon Stories - Daniel Benmergui - http://www.kongregate.com/games/danielben/i-wish-i-were-the-moon
Nanobots - Erin Robinson - http://www.bigbluecup.com/yabb/index.php?topic=34941.0
Osmos - Hemisphere Games - http://www.hemispheregames.com/osmos/
Papermint - Avaloop - http://www.papermint.com/
The Path - Tale of Tales - http://tale-of-tales.com/ThePath/
Radio Flare - studio radiolaris - http://www.radiolaris.com/radioflare/
Ruben & Lullaby - Erik Loyer - http://opertoon.com/2009/05/ruben-lullaby/
Shadow Physics - Steve Swink and Scott Anderson - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bb5DjyoDObA
Sowlar - Odd Man In - https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=9588
Spectre - Vaguely Spectacular Team - http://www.spectregame.com/
Train - Brenda Brathwaite - http://mechanicmessage.wordpress.com.
Tuning - Jonatan ‘Cactus’ Soderstrom - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTY494iujdA
You get me - Blast Theory - http://www.blasttheory.co.uk/bt/work_yougetme.html
Zeno Clash - ACE Team Software - http://www.zenoclash.com/