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[Ramivacation]

Hello gentleman. First time poster, long time lurker here. I wasn't sure of the appropriate section for this topic, so feel free to kick my butt in the correct direction if need be.

So, getting down to brass tacks here, I've been working on a video game with a small team for a little over two years now and we'd like to enter it into the IGF. I know some people around here have some experience with that event, so I was hoping I could get a little info on it that I didn't find on the GDC/IGF website.

My biggest question is this; Can I submit a demo or does it have to be the full, finished, perfectly polished final product? It's a pretty complex game, and we expect beta testing the final version to take at least 6 months. So we're planning on submitting a 2 hour demo, and we'll be focusing on getting that as perfect as we possibly can before the November 1st deadline. Is that frowned upon or anything like that? Is it even allowed?

And hey, any other advice or tidbits or what have you concerning the IGF would be appreciated too. This is my first indie project and, frankly, I don't know what the hell I'm doing anyway.

STAY BEAUTIFUL, TIGERS

[William Laub]

State of Development: All Entered Games must be in a "beta" state or better (i.e., Entered Games must be feature-complete). At least one (1) level of each Entered Game must be complete and fully playable.

[Ramivacation]

Uhg. Thanks. There's a lot of info there, I guess I overlooked that. Nice for my first post to be something I should have noticed myself. Ah well, thanks again.

[Matthew]

The IGF will judge what it can play.  There have been finalists that have toed this line by submitting short demos successfully (including finalist/winners).  It has also backfired for some people, who banked too heavily on the IGF judging promised features over actual, you-can-play-it-right-now substance.

The best rule of thumb is to think of the IGF as you would think of your market.  If you were to release a demo to the playing public, and expect a positive response--if people will eat it up and demand more--then the IGF judges will probably feel the same.  I don't mean to say your game must be commercially viable to be a finalist; your target audience might be quite niche!  I'm saying a smooth, polished experience will help.

Polished experiences do well if they are polished in such a way as to highlight their strongest features.  Good polish helps bring innovative qualities to the forefront in a digestible way.  Bad polish is just extraneous effects, tweens, and features on an otherwise indistinct game.

To test this, silently watch fresh people play your game.  Unless you're going to sneak yourself into every IGF judge's office to kibitz them, talking to your test subject will hurt you, not help!  You will not be able to talk a judge through your game, highlighting its awesomeness as they play.  The IGF judges have elevated tolerance for unfinished UI or broken tutorials, compared to average players, but their tolerance has limits.  Somebody new must be able to sit down and get into your game, and your game must reveal its strengths immediately and clearly.

Vague, I know, but I hope it helps.  And good luck!

[dessgeega]

advice: don't waste your money.