I went to San Diego once for a ComicCon... It was so pristine compared to San Francisco D:

It is a pretty place   Grew up here, moved away, but had to come back.  Now I'm most likely here for good.

Hey all, in case you didn't see this thread:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=25772.msg725185#msg725185

We're doing another San Diego indie meetup TONIGHT (may 3rd, 2012) at Karl Strauss brewery in Sorrento Valley.

Details here:
http://anyvite.com/m81aloaij7

Yeah ive said before i dont like the audience award but i was SUPER psyched that fs won it.  That game deserved an award and i think that is a perfectly appropriate one for it to win.

Hey Andy, I liked your hosting this year, even if I think you took the boat/islands analogy a bit too far. Also, my girlfriend said you were the only game developer there that didn't look like a game developer, which I suppose was a compliment .

haha thx i did my best.  Massive respect for people like tim shaefer and jon stewart who are genuinely funny within that structure.

Fez was not considered for the art award because it had already won.

what if all assigned judges rely on other judges to tell them about what happens past 5 minutes

haha yeah at this point ill admit im just trolling.

it's possible though that in the first 5 min of seiklus you don't find any hidden areas, and so you miss the idea that it's also about finding hidden stuff and not just about finding stuff that's out in the open

but then another judge tells you that its really worth it to play a little more to find the hidden areas. You end up going back and trying it for a little while longer and finding that you still dont really connect with the game.

also there's a bit of irony in "playing a game for 5 minutes" and judging it harshly in the igf thread

Kinda like saying the visual arts nominees don't deserve to be there based on screenshots and short videos?

Also it would be nice, for the sake of civil discussion, if when we agree with the other side we could say "ah, good point I hadn't thought of that" or, "yknow, there may be some truth to what your saying" or "well I still kinda disagree with this other thing but I can see where you are coming from".  My level of frustration and civility stays within reasonable ranges when I feel like the discussion is constructive and not contrarian.

Which is why i say "you guys really do have a good point about games not getting played enough, but here, I'd like to help focus the discussion on how this might create a problem for a smaller subset of entrants".

And btw, I'm off for the day, so this is my last response for now!

I asked for examples of overlooked games so that we could use those as a framework for fixing the problems that caused them to be overlooked.  If the reason a game was overlooked is simply differing tastes, then yes, I will dismiss the argument.

i'm not sure what distinction you're making here -- are you saying that *some* games are overlooked because of different tastes, and that others are not? that doesn't really make sense to me. how is that even possible, and, even if it is possible, how could you tell the difference?

If the argument is: I like this game, I think it should have been nominated, but the judges are like "nah, bro, we looked at it and didn't like it", then we have to defer to the judges.  But if the judges were like "nah bro, we didn't see that game" or "nah bro, we dont like the developer of that game" or "nah bro, that game violated some rule that doesnt actually exist" then those are problems we can work to fix.

@antyschatz For the last point I think that something like a feedback could work if it's not possible to play a working copy. (e.g. "I was unable to play the game because it didn't worked") I agree that it doesn't make sense on giving the money back on these cases.

RE setup problems: When inviting judges is there a form to tell which platforms is a judge able to play? Maybe on the games that are difficult to set up due a platform should be given to a judge that only plays that platform. This is just my assumption, because I don't know the exact process, but I think that being a judge with games only for that platform makes the set up process less of a shore.

Another question that I've is if an iOS game is for, say, the iPad 2 but the judge has only an iPad 1. Does it get assigned to an another judge?

And I agree about the judging time, if I recall well someone said that the judging time was one month and with broken builds on the mix. They should raise it by one or two months.

Yep, that's exactly how the judging process begins.  Judges mark what platforms they have available to them and games are doled out accordingly.

I had that exact problem with an ipad game.  I did request that someone else play it via the backend judging system.  I don't know if someone else did, though as has been noted before, the games are overassigned to try to combat this problem.

@antyschatz - did you mean that there was some problem with getting dust to run besides not owning an xbox? you didn't make clear what the issue was with playing it. did fez have the same issue? fez was also an xbla-exlusive game, and it is a finalist. there have been lots of xbla-exclusive games that were finalists and/or won categories in the past, such as limbo, fez again, spelunky hd, insanely twisted shadow planet, probably a dozen more... was there some problem running it that those games didn't have?

i also wonder about why you asked for examples of great overlooked games and claimed we had no case because we could not name any if you were just going to dismiss them on the basis of taste anyway -- which is why i originally said it was pointless to name them and that they are irrelevant. the main controversy is over the fairness of the judging process, and the treatment of igf judges/staff towards indie developers, not the end result

did you play kale in dinoland, as a curiosity? i haven't, but from the trailer, it looks really great, so i'm not sure what the problem the judges had with it was that caused most of them to stop playing before finishing the tutorial was?

-- at the very least, it has a huge amount of production values put into it

also, regarding the fees 57k/53k issue, yes the igf does have sponsors: http://www.igf.com/05sponsors.html

I believe that Dust was only playable on Xbox dev kits (and with a weird setup I believe, though I wasnt on a jury that looked at it).  Fez had a PC build.

I asked for examples of overlooked games so that we could use those as a framework for fixing the problems that caused them to be overlooked.  If the reason a game was overlooked is simply differing tastes, then yes, I will dismiss the argument.  As for Dust, it may have been unfairly overlooked, but for sadly unavoidable reasons.  I'd like to be able to fix THAT problem, but I don't think we can.

I'm happy to provide other interesting cases: a friend of mine made an XBLIG game that I thought was quite interesting (Hidden in PLain Sight). While I personally did not nominate it nor do I think it should have been a finalist, I do believe it should have been looked at closely as it was doing some interesting stuff.  I don't actually know whether it was, but I suspect it wasn't.

I did not play Kale. This is why I really can't argue too much on one side or the other, because I don't think the devs are being all that forthcoming, and given the time that was spent with it, sure, maybe that's a little on the short side, but it's not egregious for the bottom half of entrants.

I should also say that I was also frustrated by some games not getting enough time -- but the key difference is that I'm fine with games that are nowhere close to being finalists only being given a short amount of time.  But I did feel that more unknown games in the top 20 after the first discovery round were quite likely to slip through the cracks.  And so the the FTLs of the competition are what we should be worried about, not the Kale in Dinolands.

I don't think that the IGF is "horrible" in everything and I think that the judge system is good. I don't agree with their taste on art, but that's just my opinion.

However I think that the situation that happened with Dinoland was bad (that said they didn't behave very well on not talking to the IGF staff), and that IGF should find something to fix it, like not inviting the judges again if they don't play their games without a valid reason or give the money back in some conditions. Guys like Brandon just retweet an article saying fuck you and stay like that. So I hope that Venus Patrol fails because of his pretentiousness, something that I wouldn't even desire to FEZ. So it's that bad.


I do respect that Matthew and Andy and any of the IGF insiders are giving us information about how the IGF works. I still think that IGF isn't perfect due to not having obligatory feedback and some "punishment" to not working judges, but it's preposterous to think that they don't want to improve and I respect these guys for being way more civilized than that blogger-that-I-can't-recall-her-name-that-said-fuck-you-at-the-final.

So I thank Andy and Matthew (and other IGF apologists) for giving your time here. I might reconsider participating on IGF since you guys surely give a fuck about it.

I agree the blog post was terrible.  I'll admit that I sympathize with frustration (I think that's pretty obvious) towards those that want to watch the IGF burn and don't discuss it in mature ways, but to say that entrants are shit is never something I would imply.  I think entering the IGF is an awesome thing to do whether you have a big game or a small game, a perfect one or a broken one.

I am personally suspicious of the Kale thing because of their apparent bitterness towards the IGF.  I'm not so sure they were treated unfairly and it kinda sound like they are more interested in making a stink rather than solving a problem.  So I don't 100% trust their motives.  That said, they may be entirely on the money... I simply don't know enough one way or another.

I agree that some games get short shrift.  I think that the IGF awards too many well known games and not enough unknown games.  Not because unknown games are more deserving by nature, but because the system creates an unfair bias towards well known games.  Part of the solution to this problem is getting more minutes (or hours) with the entire set of games.  But this solution can only take us so far, and it dependent on prodding judges to change their behavior, which is a difficult thing to do when you take into account that the judges are volunteers and are generally in positions that keep them very busy with other matters.

As for people having different taste in games, for instance the argument that Iconoclasts or Dust should have been nominated: there's a couple of issues here.  One is just of taste.  I don't care to argue taste, especially in the visual arts category which is judged by some amazingly talented and influential artists.  The other is with platform.  Dust was an XBLA game that proved very difficult for some jurists to properly judge simply due to setup problems.  While I don't know for sure that this is why it wasn't a finalist, I do know that games that require niche hardware will AND ALWAYS WILL have an inherent problem in a competition like this.  It's not worth nitpicking on this issue, it's the plain and simple truth.  Paul, if you argue this point I will strangle you.

And so I think the main solution is one of process and judging architecture.  How do we help to flatten out the judging so that we remove unwanted biases.  Keep in mind that some biases will exist, simply due to the tastes of the judges.  This is natural.  You dont have to agree with the judges tastes.

So, in conclusion, yes, it's a problem that some games don't get enough play time by the judges, but only in that it prevents certain games from rising to the top that otherwise would have if they were given more time.  If we can solve that problem, by one means or another, then we're golden.  I believe the best way to solve this problem is by changing the social backend of the judging technology and by tweaking how the juries are given the results of the first round of discovery.

I have a hard time sympathizing with people wanting their money back when I personally tried so many games that were broken.  I do believe that it's the entrant's task to make sure this doesn't happen.  In a few extreme cases, I can see sympathizing with someone who wants their money back, but to be honest, the IGF is like a big lottery, unless something wildly egregious and indisputable happens, you can't expect value when losing in a contest.

Honestly, the explanations I've read here and other places seem perfectly valid to me and have somewhat turned me on the subject. And I'm getting the feeling that some people are willfully ignoring them in order to stay outraged.

Oh my lord, a breath of fresh air, thank you. Not for agreeing with me but for your humility and for not being a contrarian.

I also have been wrong about some things too.  I think the critics of the IGF are right in many ways and it desperately needs improvement in some ways.

I should have known better than to enter this battle

I've worded my post badly. Yes, Judges should try out all games. But let's say a Judge played Game A just as long as Game B. It's a problem in humans themselves that they will favour what they know and which seems familiar to them.

i don't think anyone thinks that can be fixed. but what *can* be fixed is judges being encouraged to only play a game for a few minutes, rather than giving games more of a chance. we're not trying to revolutionize the human mind here, we're just trying to avoid cases where a game is not played by judges at all, or not played for even a single level

I played far more games than you can expect most judges to play, in any sort of reasonable world. I spent many more hours than what you are suggesting Paul.  But I didn't play most of the games for a full hour.  Judges simply need to prioritize their time.  A flat hour for every game is just not realistic.  Judges MUST prioritize their time, and the social element (judges talking to each other about which games are worth trying) is how the discoveries of less well-known games are made.  Your suggestion that all games be played by 15 judges for an hour is not even close to feasible or productive.

I agree that theres a bias towards well known games and I think its a problem, but you are barking up the wrong tree in terms of a solution.

At the time I couldn't find anything to work off of, so I invented my own:

Code:

       public bool CanSeeTile(MapPoint a, MapPoint b)
        {
           
            if (a == b)
                return true;

            if (a.X < 0 || b.X < 0 || a.Y < 0 || b.Y < 0 || a.X >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.X || b.X >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.X || a.Y >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.Y || b.Y >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.Y)
                return false;

            if (TileEngine.VCache != null)
                return CanSeeCachedTile(a, b);

//            const float maxDist = 20;

            for (int i=0; i<3; i++)
            {
                Vector2 offset = new Vector2(0,0);
                Vector2 currentPos = new Vector2(a.X + 0.5f, a.Y + 0.5f);
                Vector2 dest = new Vector2(b.X + 0.5f, b.Y + 0.5f);
                switch (i)
                {
                    case 0:
                        if (a.X == b.X || a.Y == b.Y)
                            continue;

                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        break;
                    case 1:
                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        break;
                    case 2:
                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        break;
                }
                dest += offset;
                Vector2 slope = new Vector2(dest.X - currentPos.X, dest.Y - currentPos.Y);

                bool blocked = false;

                while (!blocked)
                {
                    float distX;
                    distX = (currentPos.X % 1);
                    if (distX == 0 && slope.X != 0)
                        distX = 1;
                    else if (slope.X > 0)
                        distX = 1 - distX;

                    float distY;
                    distY = (currentPos.Y % 1);
                    if (distY == 0 && slope.Y != 0)
                        distY = 1;
                    else if (slope.Y > 0)
                        distY = 1 - distY;

                    if (Math.Abs(dest.X - currentPos.X) < distX && Math.Abs(dest.Y - currentPos.Y) < distY)
                    {
                        currentPos = dest;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        float moveX = distX / Math.Abs(slope.X);
                        float moveY = distY / Math.Abs(slope.Y);
                        if (Math.Floor(dest.Y) == Math.Floor(currentPos.Y) || slope.Y == 0 || moveY > moveX)
                        {
                            currentPos += slope * moveX;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            currentPos += slope * moveY;
                        }
                    }
                    MapPoint tilePos = new MapPoint((int)Math.Floor(currentPos.X), (int)Math.Floor(currentPos.Y));
                    if (tilePos == b)
                    {
                        return true;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        blocked = GetVisibility(tilePos)>0;
                    }
                }
            }
             
            return false;
        }

As an aside, Monaco should win every competition it enters because it's real great.

As an aside, I love you.  Also Monaco gets better every day

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games.

AGREE AGREE AGREE... this isn't just me defending the IGF, this is actually the truth.

i'm curious about what you mean by truth here -- isn't whether something is "major" or "minor" a personal issue? i don't think something can be factually important or unimportant, since ultimately / on the scale of the universe nothing is all that important, but in the correct context anything can be important

for instance, if 499 games are judged fairly and 1 game gets judged unfairly, if you're one of the 499 guys that 1 guy isn't important, but if you're that guy it's pretty important

What is important is finding the right finalists and winners.  What is important is promoting the importance of independent game development.

It's frustratingly easy to accuse the IGF organizers or judges of being lazy or corrupt.  This can be done without the presence of facts.  *I Know* I've been in a similar situation.  I entered Monaco in the IndieGameChallenge in 2011, hoping to win the 100K so I wouldn't have to borrow money from indiefund.  It was a finalist, but did not win, nor should it have.  Limbo won (it should have).  And in the student category a game called Inertia won.  I was really angry over both of these.  I didn't believe Limbo should have been in the compo because it was supposedly about giving unknown games exposure, while Limbo won after it was already out and had made tons of money.  I was angry that the organizers had encouraged Playdead to enter (though I wasn't angry with Playdead, they had every right to enter given that the compo organizers were encouraging it).

As for Inertia, it won an absurd amount of prizes, despite IMO being the weakest game in the competition (sorry guys, that's how I felt).  Why did I believe it won?  Because it was by a student team at the Guildhall at SMU.  Who ran the competition?  The Guildhall at SMU.  It sure seemed like a problem.

Well, I made a stink about it to friends, but before writing anything publicly, I wrote to the compo organizers, explaining my feelings, and that many others shared those feelings as well.  I talked to them about the process.  It turns out that no Guildhall people were involved in the judging.  There was no corruption after all.  All the judges were pulled from a variety of companies, including some that I respected.

Do I agree with their choice of winner?  NO.  I don't really like the way they ran the competition, nor do I really like the condescending way everyone was treated while at DICE.  I *hate* that they are unwilling to release the names of judges (they will only release the names of the companies those judges work for).  But these are things that can be fixed.  And I can choose to support or not support the indiegamechallenge in the future.

The point is that I did my work to find out the truth behind what happened.  And then I brought this to the organizers and expressed my opinion to them.  Sure, part of my emotions were related to the fact that I would have really liked to win 100K and I didn't.  But I did my part to actually find out what went wrong before I accused them of "shitting on themselves".  I think they are well meaning people.  I think the competition is too commercial for my tastes, given that Gamestop is the primary sponsor.  But all in all they are trying to do their best, and like everyone else, they are fallible.