I think my quote was pretty good and we should have just left it at that instead of talking about hitler directly

Fixed

FFX had the most interesting setting but underdeliver everything, good character that does not develop, good premise for shitty plot, interesting gameplay but smake and mirror, great cinematic for mundane moment, for all silly I found FF8 was it was sincerly and honestly believing in own hype and deliver some nice moment. Also cinematics was not stop and go, you played during cinematics, they prolong action, literaly, like when irving shoot at edea, you press the button the camera swirl into the air, edea dodge the camera swirl into the air another character in a car and it seemlessly transition to the control of that camera, it makes sense. Now it's all stop watch nonsense doing the action for you, go back to walking simulator RANDOM COMBAT start with FFX

yeah

What puzzles me is you mentioning FF8. I've only just started it, but am bored because it's just spamming summons over and over. My PSP keeps dimming the screen due to watching summons for 75% of the gameplay. What's so great about FF8?

Not the unskippable summons animations, that's for sure

It's been awhile since I played it so I have to go by memory here, but I liked that it was epic in scope (OMG 4 DISCS!!! ENDS IN SPACE, EVERYTHING IS HUGE AND EPIC), I liked the 'power gaming' feeling when collecting all the random spells and goodies even though it made the characters kind of generically interchange-able in some ways (you could put 100 ultima on whatever stat to max it) but it still did a good job of making it feel like you made the characters stronger when they were doing their 9,999 x 20 limit breaks or whatever. I liked the level of polish and detail and how for a glimmering moment in games it seemed like extra production value could add to what made the games nifty and charming in the first place, hold it up and strengthen it, as opposed to detracting from it / replacing it as seemed to happen more and more as games gained better graphics but at the expense of fun/coolness. I thought it was alright that the characters weren't goofy kids, I put off playing FFX for many years because I didn't want to play as that whiny blonde soccer brat douchebag (voice acting - why you ruin games??). I thought the secrets you hunt down were worth hunting down, whatever that mega gf was at the bottom of the sea or the secret boss enemy with a million hit points, or just the random collectible GFs and cards and stuff they just did a good job of making it all seem worth it and cool.


Yeah, so I like it but hey maybe you like another one better. If you like FF6 better you are probably right it kicks every kind of ass that a final fantasy game can kick. If you like FF7 I'm sure you and your sephiroth avatar are happy as can be. If you are a teenage nerd on the internet and you cut your teeth with FFX there isn't much that can be done about it, it does some things right and not all of the magic of FF games had been leeched out before that was made but it was probably the last game worth playing and it was barely worth playing. And did I mention I don't want to watch a whiny soccer kid whine?

Chrono Trigger, Disgaea, FF6 + FF8

Baaalluuurrrsss gaaate. Not they crappy console versions either.

Is that a Charles Barkley Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden sequel?

i wouldn't really trust claims made by the developer of something, i'd rather see independent tests for obvious reasons of bias

also in general it's good to go with something proven over something new and untested, regardless of how attractive the new untested thing seems (i.e. the gold rush mentality is bad)

anyway, i wouldn't suggest he decide on a particular thing just yet, he should try them all out before deciding which he likes, not go on hearsay or recommendations. so he could try sdl, try sfml, try directx, try game maker, try unity, try a bunch of stuff, no reason not to try them all when he's so early in the learning process

I think you mean e.g. instead of i.e.  Also, the gold rush mentality isn't bad at all.  Ask the forty niners. They made it rich!

Your obvious reasons of bias is really funny and ironic because it is a blatant example of your bias against developers.   

I don't think so, Tim

I am pretty damn rusty.

shut the fuck up they're amazing

Rango, good? It was decent but I found it much too predictable to be good or immersive.

Its all opinion and my fav is rango but what 3dcgi movie do you think is the best?

I liked Up, The Incredibles, and Toy Story 1 and 3

I'm psyched to see Rum Diary tonight. Johnny Depp hasn't done much that wasn't crap for a long while, but I'm still cautiously optimistic that this movie will kick all kinds of ass.

[Dark Star]

Total Recall is also from a Philip K Dick story (We Can Remember It for You Wholesale), I definitely agree that some of the best adaptations of sci fi material have taken kernels of ideas and done their own thing with them.

Dark Star, John Carpenter's first movie he made as a student is fantastic.  He co-wrote it with Dan O'Bannon who went on to write Alien & Total Recall among others.

I rented this and despite some laughably bad effects work and plodding story it was still pretty good. A lot of the time I was thinking "space travel portrayed as being carried out by regular working joes / anti heroic mystique, haven't I already seen this done better in Alien?" but yeah, this is the guy who went on to write Alien. I loved the arguments with the bomb and how some of the threads get wrapped up, and little flourishes like they don't remember their own first names.

Jorge Luis Borges is fantastic, and one of my favorite authors, but I wouldn't call any of his stuff horror.

The circular ruins is cosmic horror

Weird fiction in general is hard to pin down with narrow genres, but Borges had several works that feature the occult, and the dread of human insignificance in a horrifying / unknowable universe. Lovecraftian isn't Lovecraftian because of the monsters

The Circular Ruins

by Jorge Luis Borges



No one saw him disembark in the unanimous night, no one saw the bamboo canoe sink into the sacred mud, but in a few days there was no one who did not know that the taciturn man came from the South and that his home had been one of those numberless villages upstream in the deeply cleft side of the mountain, where the Zend language has not been contaminated by Greek and where leprosy is infrequent. What is certain is that the grey man kissed the mud, climbed up the bank with pushing aside (probably, without feeling) the blades which were lacerating his flesh, and crawled, nauseated and bloodstained, up to the circular enclosure crowned with a stone tiger or horse, which sometimes was the color of flame and now was that of ashes. This circle was a temple which had been devoured by ancient fires, profaned by the miasmal jungle, and whose god no longer received the homage of men. The stranger stretched himself out beneath the pedestal. He was awakened by the sun high overhead. He was not astonished to find that his wounds had healed; he closed his pallid eyes and slept, not through weakness of flesh but through determination of will. He knew that this temple was the place required for his invincible intent; he knew that the incessant trees had not succeeded in strangling the ruins of another propitious temple downstream which had once belonged to gods now burned and dead; he knew that his immediate obligation was to dream. Toward midnight he was awakened by the inconsolable shriek of a bird. Tracks of bare feet, some figs and a jug warned him that the men of the region had been spying respectfully on his sleep, soliciting his protection or afraid of his magic. He felt a chill of fear, and sought out a sepulchral niche in the dilapidated wall where he concealed himself among unfamiliar leaves.

The purpose which guided him was not impossible, though supernatural. He wanted to dream a man; he wanted to dream him in minute entirety and impose him on reality. This magic project had exhausted the entire expanse of his mind; if someone had asked him his name or to relate some event of his former life, he would not have been able to give an answer. This uninhabited, ruined temple suited him, for it is contained a minimum of visible world; the proximity of the workmen also suited him, for they took it upon themselves to provide for his frugal needs. The rice and fruit they brought him were nourishment enough for his body, which was consecrated to the sole task of sleeping and dreaming.

At first, his dreams were chaotic; then in a short while they became dialectic in nature. The stranger dreamed that he was in the center of a circular amphitheater which was more or less the burnt temple; clouds of taciturn students filled the tiers of seats; the faces of the farthest ones hung at a distance of many centuries and as high as the stars, but their features were completely precise. The man lectured his pupils on anatomy, cosmography, and magic: the faces listened anxiously and tried to answer understandingly, as if they guessed the importance of that examination which would redeem one of them from his condition of empty illusion and interpolate him into the real world. Asleep or awake, the man thought over the answers of his phantoms, did not allow himself to be deceived by imposters, and in certain perplexities he sensed a growing intelligence. He was seeking a soul worthy of participating in the universe.

After nine or ten nights he understood with a certain bitterness that he could expect nothing from those pupils who accepted his doctrine passively, but that he could expect something from those who occasionally dared to oppose him. The former group, although worthy of love and affection, could not ascend to the level of individuals; the latter pre-existed to a slightly greater degree. One afternoon (now afternoons were also given over to sleep, now he was only awake for a couple hours at daybreak) he dismissed the vast illusory student body for good and kept only one pupil. He was a taciturn, sallow boy, at times intractable, and whose sharp features resembled of those of his dreamer. The brusque elimination of his fellow students did not disconcert him for long; after a few private lessons, his progress was enough to astound the teacher. Nevertheless, a catastrophe took place. One day, the man emerged from his sleep as if from a viscous desert, looked at the useless afternoon light which he immediately confused with the dawn, and understood that he had not dreamed. All that night and all day long, the intolerable lucidity of insomnia fell upon him. He tried exploring the forest, to lose his strength; among the hemlock he barely succeeded in experiencing several short snatchs of sleep, veined with fleeting, rudimentary visions that were useless. He tried to assemble the student body but scarcely had he articulated a few brief words of exhortation when it became deformed and was then erased. In his almost perpetual vigil, tears of anger burned his old eyes.

He understood that modeling the incoherent and vertiginous matter of which dreams are composed was the most difficult task that a man could undertake, even though he should penetrate all the enigmas of a superior and inferior order; much more difficult than weaving a rope out of sand or coining the faceless wind. He swore he would forget the enormous hallucination which had thrown him off at first, and he sought another method of work. Before putting it into execution, he spent a month recovering his strength, which had been squandered by his delirium. He abandoned all premeditation of dreaming and almost immediately succeeded in sleeping a reasonable part of each day. The few times that he had dreams during this period, he paid no attention to them. Before resuming his task, he waited until the moon's disk was perfect. Then, in the afternoon, he purified himself in the waters of the river, worshiped the planetary gods, pronounced the prescribed syllables of a mighty name, and went to sleep. He dreamed almost immediately, with his heart throbbing.

He dreamed that it was warm, secret, about the size of a clenched fist, and of a garnet color within the penumbra of a human body as yet without face or sex; during fourteen lucid nights he dreampt of it with meticulous love. Every night he perceived it more clearly. He did not touch it; he only permitted himself to witness it, to observe it, and occasionally to rectify it with a glance. He perceived it and lived it from all angles and distances. On the fourteenth night he lightly touched the pulmonary artery with his index finger, then the whole heart, outside and inside. He was satisfied with the examination. He deliberately did not dream for a night; he took up the heart again, invoked the name of a planet, and undertook the vision of another of the principle organs. Within a year he had come to the skeleton and the eyelids. The innumerable hair was perhaps the most difficult task. He dreamed an entire man--a young man, but who did not sit up or talk, who was unable to open his eyes. Night after night, the man dreamt him asleep.

In the Gnostic cosmosgonies, demiurges fashion a red Adam who cannot stand; as a clumsy, crude and elemental as this Adam of dust was the Adam of dreams forged by the wizard's nights. One afternoon, the man almost destroyed his entire work, but then changed his mind. (It would have been better had he destroyed it.) When he had exhausted all supplications to the deities of earth, he threw himself at the feet of the effigy which was perhaps a tiger or perhaps a colt and implored its unknown help. That evening, at twilight, he dreamt of the statue. He dreamt it was alive, tremulous: it was not an atrocious bastard of a tiger and a colt, but at the same time these two firey creatures and also a bull, a rose, and a storm. This multiple god revealed to him that his earthly name was Fire, and that in this circular temple (and in others like it) people had once made sacrifices to him and worshiped him, and that he would magically animate the dreamed phantom, in such a way that all creatures, except Fire itself and the dreamer, would believe to be a man of flesh and blood. He commanded that once this man had been instructed in all the rites, he should be sent to the other ruined temple whose pyramids were still standing downstream, so that some voice would glorify him in that deserted edifice. In the dream of the man that dreamed, the dreamed one awoke.

The wizard carried out the orders he had been given. He devoted a certain length of time (which finally proved to be two years) to instructing him in the mysteries of the universe and the cult of fire. Secretly, he was pained at the idea of being separated from him. On the pretext of pedagogical necessity, each day he increased the number of hours dedicated to dreaming. He also remade the right shoulder, which was somewhat defective. At times, he was disturbed by the impression that all this had already happened . . . In general, his days were happy; when he closed his eyes, he thought: Now I will be with my son. Or, more rarely: The son I have engendered is waiting for me and will not exist if I do not go to him.

Gradually, he began accustoming him to reality. Once he ordered him to place a flag on a faraway peak. The next day the flag was fluttering on the peak. He tried other analogous experiments, each time more audacious. With a certain bitterness, he understood that his son was ready to be born--and perhaps impatient. That night he kissed him for the first time and sent him off to the other temple whose remains were turning white downstream, across many miles of inextricable jungle and marshes. Before doing this (and so that his son should never know that he was a phantom, so that he should think himself a man like any other) he destroyed in him all memory of his years of apprenticeship.

His victory and peace became blurred with boredom. In the twilight times of dusk and dawn, he would prostrate himself before the stone figure, perhaps imagining his unreal son carrying out identical rites in other circular ruins downstream; at night he no longer dreamed, or dreamed as any man does. His perceptions of the sounds and forms of the universe became somewhat pallid: his absent son was being nourished by these diminution of his soul. The purpose of his life had been fulfilled; the man remained in a kind of ecstasy. After a certain time, which some chronicles prefer to compute in years and others in decades, two oarsmen awoke him at midnight; he could not see their faces, but they spoke to him of a charmed man in a temple of the North, capable of walking on fire without burning himself. The wizard suddenly remembered the words of the god. He remembered that of all the creatures that people the earth, Fire was the only one who knew his son to be a phantom. This memory, which at first calmed him, ended by tormenting him. He feared lest his son should meditate on this abnormal privilege and by some means find out he was a mere simulacrum. Not to be a man, to be a projection of another man's dreams--what an incomparable humiliation, what madness! Any father is interested in the sons he has procreated (or permitted) out of the mere confusion of happiness; it was natural that the wizard should fear for the future of that son whom he had thought out entrail by entrail, feature by feature, in a thousand and one secret nights.

His misgivings ended abruptly, but not without certain forewarnings. First (after a long drought) a remote cloud, as light as a bird, appeared on a hill; then, toward the South, the sky took on the rose color of leopard's gums; then came clouds of smoke which rusted the metal of the nights; afterwards came the panic-stricken flight of wild animals. For what had happened many centuries before was repeating itself. The ruins of the sanctuary of the god of Fire was destroyed by fire. In a dawn without birds, the wizard saw the concentric fire licking the walls. For a moment, he thought of taking refuge in the water, but then he understood that death was coming to crown his old age and absolve him from his labors. He walked toward the sheets of flame. They did not bite his flesh, they caressed him and flooded him without heat or combustion. With relief, with humiliation, with terror, he understood that he also was an illusion, that someone else was dreaming him.

Total Recall

Yeah just saw it recently, aged much better than most 90s movies, also: crazy awesome soundtrack and endless quote material.

The remake starring Colin Farrel in the Arnold role comes out next year

Cohaagen, Give dees peopul ayuh, not shitty reboots

Code Geass is a good sci-fi anime if you're into that sort of stuff.

Does this have sex, violence, or actual mindfuckery though? If it came out in 2006 and isn't by a name I'm familiar with I usually assume it's the common animu sperg fodder

Here are a few Sci-Fi movies that I like:


Total Recall, Videodrome, Brazil, Solaris, Alien, Aliens, Battle Royale, Riki-Oh, Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Guyver OVA, Paprika, Heavy Metal, Wizards, Aeon Flux(tv), A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (british tv), District 9, Naked Lunch, The Fly, Scanners, eXistenZ, Dawn of the Dead, Robocop, Blade Runner, Dark City, The City of Lost Children, Strange Days, Terminator 1 and 2, Predator, Dead Alive, The Evil Dead, Forbidden Planet, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Frankenstein, King Kong, A Clockwork Orange, The Ninth Configuration, Eraserhead, El Topo, Santa Sangre, The Exorcist, Tokyo Gore Police, Ichi the Killer, 12 Monkeys, Cube, Series 7, Vanilla Sky, Pi, The Fountain, Attack the Block, Primer, Rubber, The Warriors, Mad Max, The Outer Limits, Twilight Zone, Tales from the Crypt, Batteries Not Included, Flight of the Navigator, Tron, District B13, Repo Man, Death Race 2000, Brainscan, The Toxic Avenger, Bloodsucking Pharaohs from Pittsburgh, Ice Pirates, Flesh Gordon, MD Geist, Plan 9 from Outer Space, Hobo with a Shotgun, Planet Terror, Starship Troopers, How to Get Ahead in Advertising, Biohunter, Fist of the North Star, Urotsukidoji: The Legend of the Overfiend, Ninja Scroll, Dead Leaves, Vampire Hunter D,  Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, Dinotopia, The Man who fell to Earth, Cemetery Man, House, TerrorVision, Deathstalker I - IV, The Vindicator, Nowhere, Cyborg, Time Cop, Universal Soldier, No Escape, Virtuosity, The Last Starfighter, Event Horizon, The Necronomicon, Slither, Splice, The Butterfly Effect, Maximum Overdrive, The Langoliers, The Lawnmower Man, The Blob, Man's Best Friend, Dead Heat, The Running Man, Highlander, Rollerball, Santo & Blue Demon vs. Doctor Frankenstein, Zardoz, The Man with Two Brains, Space Jam



(I left off stuff like Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Star Trek TNG on TV and original cast for the movies, Independence Day / Men in Black, Ghostbusters, Back to the Future, et cetera because they are so popular / prevalent they kind of go without saying).

Lovecraft is awesome. Ambrose Bierce had some good horror stories, this one isn't strictly horror but I enjoyed it very much:


Oil of Dog




My name is Boffer Bings. I was born of honest parents in one of the humbler walks of life, my father being a manufacturer of dog-oil and my mother having a small studio in the shadow of the village church, where she disposed of unwelcome babes. In my boyhood I was trained to habits of industry; I not only assisted my father in procuring dogs for his vats, but was frequently employed by my mother to carry away the debris of her work in the studio. In performance of this duty I sometimes had need of all my natural intelligence for all the law officers of the vicinity were opposed to my mother's business. They were not elected on an opposition ticket, and the matter had never been made a political issue; it just happened so. My father's business of making dog-oil was, naturally, less unpopular, though the owners of missing dogs sometimes regarded him with suspicion, which was reflected, to some extent, upon me. My father had, as silent partners, all the physicians of the town, who seldom wrote a prescription which did not contain what they were pleased to designate as _Ol. can._ It is really the most valuable medicine ever discovered. But most persons are unwilling to make personal sacrifices for the afflicted, and it was evident that many of the fattest dogs in town had been forbidden to play with me--a fact which pained my young sensibilities, and at one time came near driving me to become a pirate.

Looking back upon those days, I cannot but regret, at times, that by indirectly bringing my beloved parents to their death I was the author of misfortunes profoundly affecting my future.

One evening while passing my father's oil factory with the body of a foundling from my mother's studio I saw a constable who seemed to be closely watching my movements. Young as I was, I had learned that a constable's acts, of whatever apparent character, are prompted by the most reprehensible motives, and I avoided him by dodging into the oilery by a side door which happened to stand ajar. I locked it at once and was alone with my dead. My father had retired for the night. The only light in the place came from the furnace, which glowed a deep, rich crimson under one of the vats, casting ruddy reflections on the walls. Within the cauldron the oil still rolled in indolent ebullition, occasionally pushing to the surface a piece of dog. Seating myself to wait for the constable to go away, I held the naked body of the foundling in my lap and tenderly stroked its short, silken hair. Ah, how beautiful it was! Even at that early age I was passionately fond of children, and as I looked upon this cherub I could almost find it in my heart to wish that the small, red wound upon its breast--the work of my dear mother--had not been mortal.

It had been my custom to throw the babes into the river which nature had thoughtfully provided for the purpose, but that night I did not dare to leave the oilery for fear of the constable. "After all," I said to myself, "it cannot greatly matter if I put it into this cauldron. My father will never know the bones from those of a puppy, and the few deaths which may result from administering another kind of oil for the incomparable _ol. can._ are not important in a population which increases so rapidly." In short, I took the first step in crime and brought myself untold sorrow by casting the babe into the cauldron.

The next day, somewhat to my surprise, my father, rubbing his hands with satisfaction, informed me and my mother that he had obtained the finest quality of oil that was ever seen; that the physicians to whom he had shown samples had so pronounced it. He added that he had no knowledge as to how the result was obtained; the dogs had been treated in all respects as usual, and were of an ordinary breed. I deemed it my duty to explain--which I did, though palsied would have been my tongue if I could have foreseen the consequences. Bewailing their previous ignorance of the advantages of combining their industries, my parents at once took measures to repair the error. My mother removed her studio to a wing of the factory building and my duties in connection with the business ceased; I was no longer required to dispose of the bodies of the small superfluous, and there was no need of alluring dogs to their doom, for my father discarded them altogether, though they still had an honorable place in the name of the oil. So suddenly thrown into idleness, I might naturally have been expected to become vicious and dissolute, but I did not. The holy influence of my dear mother was ever about me to protect me from the temptations which beset youth, and my father was a deacon in a church. Alas, that through my fault these estimable persons should have come to so bad an end!

Finding a double profit in her business, my mother now devoted herself to it with a new assiduity. She removed not only superfluous and unwelcome babes to order, but went out into the highways and byways, gathering in children of a larger growth, and even such adults as she could entice to the oilery. My father, too, enamored of the superior quality of oil produced, purveyed for his vats with diligence and zeal. The conversion of their neighbors into dog-oil became, in short, the one passion of their lives--an absorbing and overwhelming greed took possession of their souls and served them in place of a hope in Heaven--by which, also, they were inspired.

So enterprising had they now become that a public meeting was held and resolutions passed severely censuring them. It was intimated by the chairman that any further raids upon the population would be met in a spirit of hostility. My poor parents left the meeting broken-hearted, desperate and, I believe, not altogether sane. Anyhow, I deemed it prudent not to enter the oilery with them that night, but slept outside in a stable.

At about midnight some mysterious impulse caused me to rise and peer through a window into the furnace-room, where I knew my father now slept. The fires were burning as brightly as if the following day's harvest had been expected to be abundant. One of the large cauldrons was slowly "walloping" with a mysterious appearance of self-restraint, as if it bided its time to put forth its full energy. My father was not in bed; he had risen in his night clothes and was preparing a noose in a strong cord. From the looks which he cast at the door of my mother's bedroom I knew too well the purpose that he had in mind. Speechless and motionless with terror, I could do nothing in prevention or warning. Suddenly the door of my mother's apartment was opened, noiselessly, and the two confronted each other, both apparently surprised. The lady, also, was in her night clothes, and she held in her right hand the tool of her trade, a long, narrow-bladed dagger.

She, too, had been unable to deny herself the last profit which the unfriendly action of the citizens and my absence had left her. For one instant they looked into each other's blazing eyes and then sprang together with indescribable fury. Round and round, the room they struggled, the man cursing, the woman shrieking, both fighting like demons--she to strike him with the dagger, he to strangle her with his great bare hands. I know not how long I had the unhappiness to observe this disagreeable instance of domestic infelicity, but at last, after a more than usually vigorous struggle, the combatants suddenly moved apart.

My father's breast and my mother's weapon showed evidences of contact. For another instant they glared at each other in the most unamiable way; then my poor, wounded father, feeling the hand of death upon him, leaped forward, unmindful of resistance, grasped my dear mother in his arms, dragged her to the side of the boiling cauldron, collected all his failing energies, and sprang in with her! In a moment, both had disappeared and were adding their oil to that of the committee of citizens who had called the day before with an invitation to the public meeting.

Convinced that these unhappy events closed to me every avenue to an honorable career in that town, I removed to the famous city of Otumwee, where these memoirs are written with a heart full of remorse for a heedless act entailing so dismal a commercial disaster.

My idea was to do a mashup of every sci-fi and fantasy franchise (Starfleet uniform, lightsaber, alien bursting through my shirt, Gryffindor scarf, the One Ring, etc.)

This sounds pretty tight. Might be better to hone in on just the nerdiest sci fi stuff, it sounds maybe a little to all over the place if you throw in fantasy - either way it would be pretty sick though.

I always thought street fighter II turbo, MvC2, Megaman 2, and Megaman X2 were each the pinnacles of their respective runs. But my face is probably wrong and stupid

unbalanced; third gauge doesn't even appear in the title. Reeks of favoritism

True that.


I remember listening to a podcast where Edmund was really close to releasing Super Meatboy, and even though he had all that hype and he was set to have a huge release he was still worried that he might completely fail. Maybe if there was a therapy session for the big league indies, they could move the circle jerk around a campfire in the redwood's some weekend, cry on each other and relate their holocaust experiences, and then Fish could gtfo of the IGF this year

It's just that the judges will decide on that. I'm pretty sure anything from 4 years ago won't win any awards.

That's 4 fucking years of effort right there, not 4 years of having a game on your harddrive.

How about you calm down? No one is saying the game hasn't changed a lot and doesn't deserve any awards, we're saying they've already won awards and received tons of recognition, why not step aside and let other people have a shot?

I feel it is against the indie spirit and against the spirit of the IGF to let your ego get so huge that you would step on others just to get another award and to think of the IGF as the Oscars.

Others have been working just as hard for these four years, but will get over-shadowed by the so-called "indie darling" Fez, made by one of the most popular indie developers (despite never actually having made a game before). I bet the media influence will have a direct impact on the way judging goes. It's impossible to say what's going on in the mind of a judge but given the choice between an unknown game by an unknown dev and Fez, which one do you think he's going to spend more time with?

Hey Allen, a lot of your posts chalk the re-entry up to ego, but honestly it seems more motivated by financial concerns. After 4 years there is probably some uneasiness about whether or not the hype has dissipated, and if a few little guys have to be stepped on to boost sales figures I think there is going to be some crushed little guys along the way. I think it stems from lack of confidence, a casual observer can see that Fez is going to go the bank upon release but to a dev who has never actually released a game and who has dumped 4 years in development he probably feels he has to do anything within in his power to see this through. The tragedy is of course that he doesn't need it but he probably can't see it, and anyway the decision to thrust another more deserving dev into the big time instead of boosting Fez's sales 10% or whatever should have been with whoever is calling the shots at the IGF not left to Fish