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[brog]

Most of the games that would've felt fresh or interesting I had already heard about or played over a year ago

Maybe that's because you're involved in the "indie games scene", and you're hearing about a lot of the interesting projects long before they're done.  It can take a long time (for people who aren't you) to make a game.  The ones you've heard about a year ago are probably still new to people who don't associate with game developers.

[cactus]

Maybe that's because you're involved in the "indie games scene", and you're hearing about a lot of the interesting projects long before they're done.  It can take a long time (for people who aren't you) to make a game.  The ones you've heard about a year ago are probably still new to people who don't associate with game developers.

That is part of the reason, yes. Another part of it is that I have a very narrow idea of what games I would like to play, and it's getting even more narrow for every game that sparks my interest. I rarely play a game that I like and afterward think "I wish there was another game just like this". It's weird how with every cool and fresh game I play, the scope of what you can do with games seems to be getting smaller and smaller for me instead of bigger and bigger.

[Jad]

Perhaps I should go ahead and organize the "Melly's Always Right Awards".

A benevolent despot, always a nice thing.

I say go! Now when people go nutters over MARA at least they know exactly who to bash

[simoniker]

I was a little distressed by some of the semantics going on in here, so if you check out the IGF website nowadays, you'll see that the rewarding innovation 'tagline' (which is a number of years old, anyhow) is no longer there. Hopefully that will help people not fixate on it, because as other posters have pointed out, we've already been through the 'what is innovation and does it really matter anyhow?' phase, two or three years ago.

My 2c - the IGF is about awarding great video games made by individuals and smaller groups. The Main Competition area tends to award games that are incrementally or sometimes moderately/significantly 'innovative' - as judged by the wider set of judges. The Nuovo Award has specifically been set up to award games that are truly different, whether that be emotively, gameplay-wise or experientally. Some people might say those games are very 'innovative'. Your definition is up to you.

As Alec said a few pages back, this setup is intended to be the best of both worlds. If you want to support an awards that is more experiential and pure 'innovation' focused, then please support Indiecade - it's a great festival that I think is only going to get stronger. If you care a lot about game-like titles, then support showcases like PAX 10 by all means. And we hope you'll continue to support the IGF, too, as a showcase and awards that is trying to cram the entirety of the often fractured but frickin' amazing indie scene into just 30 or so game picks.

We'll continue to tweak the awards so that we show the best games - those that make us happy, make us think, teach us new things, and are darn fun and enjoyable to play - submitted to our GDC audience and honor them by giving them prizes, and we _are_ listening.

Simon@IGF.

[GregWS]

The Main Competition area tends to award games that are incrementally or sometimes moderately/significantly 'innovative' - as judged by the wider set of judges. The Nuovo Award has specifically been set up to award games that are truly different, whether that be emotively, gameplay-wise or experientally. Some people might say those games are very 'innovative'. Your definition is up to you.

As Alec said a few pages back, this setup is intended to be the best of both worlds.

Well, I guess all I can say is best of luck to you/the IGF then.  I generally believe that having the best of both worlds isn't really possible in the truest sense, but that approach was the one I thought was being taken so I'm not really surprised hearing it stated explicitly.

[st33d]

I have to say that I'm most interested in the Design awards, followed by the Technical awards (ie: the games that are fun to play).

I'm stuck on the boss on Star Guard at the moment 

I met the Hello Games people briefly at a Bafta event not long ago. They seemed like nice people. They had a Joe Danger demo on and it looked like a lot of fun to play, it was quite impressive.

[WillGraham]

Here's our feedback for Igneous. We didn't expect to get nominated for anything in the main competition, but we're kind of surprised that we scored worst in Technical tho.



Igneous scored best in:  Visual Art

And scored worst in:  Technical

---

WOW!

I only realized I can't die after my heart was pounding in the heat of =
the second level! The combination of the visuals, extremely simple =
gameplay and the sound was very, very effective.

Your credits list doesn't mention who did the sound, but whomever that =
is needs big praise - the fast paced drums were exactly the right choice =
for the audio.

The only improvements I can think of are:

1) I want more levels!
2) The difficulty curve was a bit too steep between the levels, but =
that's understandable given the small amount of levels. It's not that I =
could stop without completing the game.

---

Interesting design! I like how well you've pressured the player and =
captured an intensity you don?t see often in games. The effects are nice =
but I fear that they are TOO overwhelming now, it's almost difficult to =
tell what is happening - some editing back on the degree of effects =
would probably benefit the game. Overall a really well done experience!

---

Very cool work and from scratch!=20

---

I really like the high speed fast paced nature of this game. The overall =
environment and feeling you've created through the visuals and audio is =
great.

That said, the actual gameplay itself could be improved. I felt like =
several of the levels I wasn't actually doing anything but just pressing =
forward. Then on a couple of the other levels I couldn't even get =
through it because "random" objects from behind kept knocking me off the =
bridge.

Overall great experience, but I'd like to get more of a feel like I had =
control over the outcome.

---

As a fan of just about any game in which you play as a ball, I had quite =
a good time with this one. The action is challenging and requires quick =
reflexes, although I wasn't crazy about the third level, as there were a =
number of times when the I simply couldn't see what was going on behind =
the fire that came toward my screen. I felt like getting through that =
level was more a matter of luck than skill.=20

Aside from that, nice use of effects and sound, loved the tiki's grunts.

This is one game that I would definitely play on Xbox Live (I played =
using a controller).

---

What an intense experience.  This is a game that used graphics and sound =
as an integral part of the experience and not just for eye and ear =
candy.  I was immersed.

So much extra stuff had to be installed for this game.  I wonder how the =
development team would handle optimizing and paring down the game.  All =
in all, this is a small gripe.

[simoniker]

Well, I guess all I can say is best of luck to you/the IGF then.  I generally believe that having the best of both worlds isn't really possible in the truest sense, but that approach was the one I thought was being taken so I'm not really surprised hearing it stated explicitly.

I agree, it's not possible to have truly the best elements of X and the best elements of Y. But we want to honor diverse sets of games, and this is how we're doing it, at least this year.

IGF Student Showcase winners announced on Monday, by the way.

[raiten]

Here's something I came across just by accident - two of the members of the Nuovo jury are given credit in "Today I Die" (as "critical feedback from" - Jason Rohrer and Rod Humble). I'm a big fan of the game and I think it definitely deserves to be a nominee for the Nuovo, that's not what I'm taking issue with here. I know the indie world is small, but seriously, this kind of stuff looks pretty bad.

[simoniker]

And that's the problem with using a smaller amount of named jury members for Nuovo, Raiten - there are inevitable perceived conflicts of interest, and another way that controversy may ensue.

I've been thinking about this a lot, and the analog to the IGF in the book world appears to be the Man Booker Prize (large amount of often relatively 'unknown' books submitted, winner gets a lot of welcome acclaim and publicity), and that, too, is dogged with similar controversy.

This is specially true because there's a jury and people are constantly deconstructing who the jurors are and their possible comments on the transparency of the process and links to winners:

http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/awards/the_man_booker_prize_a_world_federation_wrestling_match_for_bookworms_and_bookies_4645.asp

[Interesting to note in that piece that a judge is raising hell about the jury not being able to properly read the longlisted set of books - some analogs, there.]

Similarly in modern art, the Turner Prize is constantly controversial for similar reasons:

http://www.businessday.com.au/executive-style/culture/revisiting-controversy-20090518-b8p7.html

So part of my conclusion here is that, in prizes which are very high-profile and during which there is no already-perceived 'frontrunners', controversy always abounds. Not that I'm saying we won't do anything as a result, but it's funny that, if we were move to a more Nuovo-style set of jury members for each prize next year, I bet there will be one or multiple examples of people noting 'Wait, but X guy, who is on the audio jury, totally hangs out in the indie scene with Y guy who submitted his game, and then Y guy's game got nominated'.

I also run the Game Developers Choice Awards, for example, and I really doubt (fingers crossed) there is going to be significant controversy for that prize this year, despite similar voting methods. Why? There is a perceived wisdom on the top mainstream games of the year. No such thing for 'indie'. And that's where the fun begins...

[Zaphos]

which prompted Sutherland ... to denounce the Booker Prize as "a lottery, not a literary competition."

  Yeah, there is always controversy.  Academic conferences have similar issues at times; siggraph had this: http://www.cs.utah.edu/~michael/leaving.html


One option to help the jury approach (maybe you do this already) is to ask judges to recuse themselves from the discussion of a particular game if they are too closely associated with it  ... and being listed in the credits would probably count as an automatic 'too close'.

[GregWS]

As long as a jury has enough people who are on opposite ends of the spectrum, there really isn't a problem.  So if there's someone on it who elevates gameplay above everything else, just make sure there's someone who elevate art, and someone who elevates narrative.  Then they'll be forced to fight amongst each other and reach some kind of consensus, which would likely end up picking some really good games.  Most "visible" people in the avant garde parts of the indie scene are fairly vocal about what they think is important, so creating a jury of people that disagree with each other in interesting ways would not be very hard. 

[Alec]

The Main Competition area tends to award games that are incrementally or sometimes moderately/significantly 'innovative' - as judged by the wider set of judges. The Nuovo Award has specifically been set up to award games that are truly different, whether that be emotively, gameplay-wise or experientally. Some people might say those games are very 'innovative'. Your definition is up to you.

As Alec said a few pages back, this setup is intended to be the best of both worlds.

Well, I guess all I can say is best of luck to you/the IGF then.  I generally believe that having the best of both worlds isn't really possible in the truest sense, but that approach was the one I thought was being taken so I'm not really surprised hearing it stated explicitly.

I don't see how a reasonable compromise isn't possible, and arguably, it's already been achieved. You have a main category that's more fair because it has a larger pool of judges (so that very opinionated judges who rank certain types of games up and other games down based on "politics", personal relationships, etc - won't have a big influence) and you have a very opinionated small panel that will have a tangible bias. (you could argue towards ideas that "feel refreshing")

I don't see any objective value in demanding "the IGF should only be about innovation!" or "the IGF should only be about excellence!" when ultimately having both - ends up rewarding a wider field of games while still being effective. (not rewarding too many games to the point where the awards become meaningless)

I could see someone making a case for "the IGF should have more nuovo-style awards", for example. Or if there was specific, fact-based feedback about how to improve the judging pool. (if someone analyzed the judges objectively and found that a significant % were very likely to be biased towards certain types of games, then it would make sense to bring that up)

[team_q]

Student IGF Winners:

Boryokudan Rue (UCLA)
Continuity (Chalmers University of Technology / University of Gothenburg)
Devil's Tuning Fork (DePaul University)
Dreamside Maroon (DigiPen Institute Of Technology)
Igneous (DigiPen Institute Of Technology)
Paper Cakes (Utrecht School of the Arts & USC)
Puddle (ENJMIN, France)
Puzzle Bloom (DADIU, Denmark)
Spectre (USC Interactive Media)
Ulitsa Dimitrova (Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany)

Honourable Mentions:
ASCIIp0rtal (Utah State University),
Conquest (Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg & University of Primorska),
Endless Frog Kids (UC Berkeley),
Gear (DigiPen Institute of Technology),
Mi (Odessa National University),
NormalTanks (Tyumen State Oil and Gas University),
Runesinger (USC),
Spinnr (Frostburg State University),
Sultans Of Scratch (Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy),
The Last Dance (IdEC UPF, Barcelona).

Good Job winners!

[Alexander Bruce]

Aye congrats all. Watched a couple of trailers from the student finalists. Some interesting stuff going on there.

[Zaphos]

Hooray!  I got an honorable mention!  

Also, the selection of winners looks really excellent.  I'm happy to see an AGS game making it, too

[Glaiel-Gamer]

No Halo?

Where did you go wrong judges!!?

[WillGraham]

Congrats to all the student finalists! We're very excited for March

[___]

Congrats to all the student finalists! We're very excited for March

Congrats to you sir, I like yer game, she's a beaut.

[team_q]

Do Student entrants not get feedback?