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[Paul Eres]

that may be true; i suspect none of the judges actually finished my entry this or last year, for instance, because it can take 30+ hours to finish the game. dragonmaw said that he feels confident in judging a game if he gets '1/5' through the game, although it seems like it'd be hard to tell what 1/5 even is if you don't know how long the game is.

last year i remember reading a blog entry of a guy who waited until the last day before he played any of the games he was assigned to judge. i would be surprised if that were not common. you can't really judge a 30+ hour long game if you wait for the last day to play any of the games.

that said, aquaria did win, and aquaria is also about 20 hours long (it took me 23 hours the first time through). edit: glaiel beat me to it.

[AndySchatz]

Good point, I stand mostly-corrected, though I would say that Aquaria wasn't a "classic" RPG in the same sense that I think Paul would like to see a "classic" JRPG celebrated for being well-roundedly awesome.

[Paul Eres]

well, i didn't mean that the jrpg had to be classic in all ways. barkley shut up and jam gaiden was very non-classic, almost a parody of the form while also being a good example of the form. mark leung: revenge of the bitch also doesn't appear to be a classic jrpg (although it's definitely a jrpg in gameplay).

basically by jrpg i mean a game with a linear story and turn-based battles (as opposed to a wrpg which are more free-form, less of a linear story, more open exploration affairs like fallout and baldur's gate and dragon age, and often have real-time battles).

[Glaiel-Gamer]

Did aquaria submit a build where you could start in the "middle" part of the game (as an option)? When I played it it took about an hour or 2 before I started to actually feel compelled enough to keep playing and I can't imagine a judge playing the game for that long.

[Paul Eres]

hmm... that's a good idea. maybe next time i submit my game i'll include a save file from different points in the game or something

i had the same experience with aquaria: the first 3 hours of the game were kind of boring, i didn't get into it until 'open waters'

[AndySchatz]

On a topic brought up earlier: I'm totally in favor of having a writing award.  I loved Choice of Broadsides (the IF game that was mentioned earlier).  It's got *actually* good writing, as opposed to most games we like to say have good writing.

EDIT: In the same way that the audio award probably inspires more people to make games around some audio idea, I suspect having a writing award would inspire more developers to think about the writing in their games.

[Dustin Smith]

To bring up Space Funeral again, I noticed it wouldn't fit well into any other existing category -- I think a writing award would be nice as well.

Overall the judging, from what I gather, is a lot better this year.

[RCIX]

Erm, since when does an accusation actually mean by default that someone actually did the thing they're being accused of?

Are you joking? Did you read what I said? Did you somehow miss the entire paragraph that led to the conclusion you quoted?

Yes, I did, and it basically summed up to the part that i quoted...

i wouldn't be in favor of income limitations, but i'd be in favor of budget limitations. e.g. if your game has more than one million dollars in funding (like limbo had with its 2-3 million in funding) it clearly doesn't need the prize money or the attention, and also clearly has an advantage in terms of production quality (the number of people you can hire and their skills).

i don't think it's been that big of an issue though because mostly the games that win are those with low budgets; i haven't yet seen a game with 1m+ budget take the grand prize, just the minor side prizes (limbo took a bunch of those last year).

Minecraft is a great example here -- everything up to and including the Halloween update was worked on only by notch(I think). For that matter, virtually every indie game is a 1-3 man job.

As I said before, thinking that successful indie games shouldn't get prizes because they dont need it is a bias just like the IGF favoring USA games. Is the contest geared to award the best indie game or the best one made on a small budget?

[Dustin Smith]

seeing minecraft in the running would be akin to seeing Nirvana post-Nevermind in an 'indie music' category. Give Jesus Lizard a chance, man. (seeing as how Nirvana did a split-EP with them they did, in Cobain's headless ghost's defense)

[Zaphos]

I would also appreciate some sort of writing category in the awards.

[wsworin]

Well, I think the best would be to allow the small guys compete for the main prize in the form of a separate bracket(like the student bracket, but allowing guys who are self taught). After all, who is to judge what is indie after a while? It may indeed by done by 1-3 guys, but that same team may have millions to work with, which means a ton of possible contracting/advertising/ect. And contracting can easily equal many more employees if enough is spent.

Minecraft is an exemption since you are right that it was created on a small budget, I just used it as the example of something not needing the extra exposure and financial aid that this contest offers. It does rightfully deserve award though. But would a future game done by Notch and his company be allowed to enter under the indie banner? And these types of situations happen often.

I think the best is just two brackets based on budget or perhaps based on experience like the Indie Game Challenge has. Or open up the Student bracket to those like myself who aren't enrolled at any schools and self-taught, plus share in a main prize.

[AndySchatz]

well, i didn't mean that the jrpg had to be classic in all ways. barkley shut up and jam gaiden was very non-classic, almost a parody of the form while also being a good example of the form. mark leung: revenge of the bitch also doesn't appear to be a classic jrpg (although it's definitely a jrpg in gameplay).

Yep, and it's also true of old-skool ultima style RPGs, along with the console RPGs (which are just an extension of earlier first person RPGs like Bards Tale).

People just ahven't innovated as much in this space as indies have in other genres in recent years, notably platformers.  I've also grown weary of platformers but there's no denying that the past 5 years have seen some really interesting concepts approached through the platformer framework.

[Paul Eres]

i'd actually easily deny that: i haven't seen any innovative platformers in the last 5 years except for braid (and that's more a puzzle game than a platformer). indie or no. could you name some platformers that you consider innovative?

edit: and closure, now that i think about it (shame i forgot, its dev is right in this thread). closure and braid aren't exactly a storm of innovation in platformers.

[allen]

he didnt say "storm of innovation" he said "really interesting concepts approached through the platformer framework"

like Braid, Closure, Snapshot, various platformers Hempuli has done recently, Spelunky, They Need to be Fed, Nudo and many others.

not a storm of innovation, not really. but interesting concepts? sure

[Paul Eres]

if that's the case, that just as easily applies to indie jrpgs (or console rpgs as wikipedia calls them). i think it's just that people haven't played them enough to notice that. there are plenty of interesting concepts used. for instance, sword of jade had a jadedness countdown meter: you had to solve the game in x number of hours or the hero becomes too depressed, gives up, and the game ends forever, and doing inspiring things can delay that countdown, but doing depressing things increased it.

and what about winter voices for instance?

even if you haven't played it, just read this: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/10/18/wot-i-think-winter-voices-avalanche/

so if he was implying that indie platformers are trying out interesting concepts and indie rpgs aren't, that just shows he doesn't play very many indie rpgs