FunEffect.com

Last weekend, more than 100 people sought to create 371 PC games in 48 hours using game creation tool Klik & Play, working no more than two hours on each project. Why 371? Organizers declared a "quantity war" against Global Game Jam, which gather 1600 developers who created 370 games with a similar 48-hour deadline.

The group far exceeded that goal and produced 529 games, all of which are gathered on this "Pirate Kart 2" page at Glorious Trainwrecks. There's bound to be more than a few terrible, if not offensive titles in that tally, but with such a huge collection, there's also sure to be a lot of fun gems in there, too.

Just browsing through the selection and screenshots is entertaining; in the first three pages of the list alone, I came across titles like The Most Racist Game Ever, The Least Racist Game Ever, Pride And Prejudice: The SHMUP, Army of 2 Gears Versus the Elder Scrolls, of Passage IV: Race to the Grave (parody of Jason Rohrer's acclaimed game).

The most recent Hand Eye Society social gathering, we are informed, was a success. Photographs by Mark Rabo confirm last Thursday's Toronto event was jam-packed.

Superbrothers, together with game studio Capy, gave presentations about their upcoming games, Sword and Sworcery and Heartbeat. "Despite a few glitches," Superbrothers write, "the event seemed to be very well received."

The next Hand Eye Society exhibition -- date TBA -- will be mounted by Benjamin Rivers.

The Hand Eye Society writes that it is a not-for-profit coalition dedicated to a) helping to make games; b) connecting game developers with one another; and c) cultivating "diversity in game creation and public perception of games."

Toronto, Canada! To plan around its schedule of video game -themed mixers, simply visit the Hand Eye Society Calendar of Events.

[teletex oo8: live deep?]
[The Hand Eye Society]

Natural Selection 2 was voted Indie Game of the Year by the members of Mod DB. According to developer Unknown Worlds, the above video reveals “the first game footage of the skulk, marine, gorge, command station, the sentry and a marine base chock full of marine toys”.

The other games honored are Wolfire’s Overgrowth, 0 A.D. (an open-source ancient history RTS), FOnline: 2238 (a pretty amazing-looking free-to-play Fallout MMORPG), and Platinum Arts Sandbox, a free, open-source 3D game creation program. Really cool stuff. I need to pay closer attention to Mod DB, apparently!

By the way, for those of you who were curious about the results of the NS2/Overgrowth Preorder Promo that happened last month, Wolfire’s provided a postmortem. And for those of you who were curious about Wolfire’s John Graham, Wolfire’s John Graham’s beard, and more importantly, Wolfire’s John Graham’s beard’s color, check out this video. Warning: it’s hot! Continue reading

[Another 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards announcement, and I think the Penny Arcade folks are well deserving of accolades, especially given their great work with Child's Play and their genuine, infectious love of gaming in all its forms.]

The 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards have announced that the key figures behind popular webcomic Penny Arcade, the Child’s Play Charity and the Penny Arcade Expo events -- writer Jerry Holkins, artist Mike Krahulik and business guru Robert Khoo -- will be awarded the prestigious Ambassador Award.

The Special Award honors an individual or individuals who have "helped the game industry advance to a better place, either through facilitating a better game community from within, or by reaching outside the industry to be an advocate for video games and help further our art."

It is chosen by the elite Choice Awards Advisory Committee, part of the highest honors in game development acknowledging excellence in game creation, which includes game industry notables such as Ben Cousins (EA DICE), Harvey Smith (Arkane), Raph Koster (Metaplace), John Vechey (PopCap), Ray Muzyka (BioWare), Clint Hocking (Ubisoft), and many others.

Holkins, Krahulik and Khoo will receive their award for their genuine, gamer-friendly empire they've built over the past decade, lovingly skewering video game culture and developers while building up a following, events and an industry-leading video game charity that help epitomize the positive elements of 'gamer spirit'.

Penny Arcade itself began in 1998 when high school friends and life-long gamers Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik began to pen the webcomic, which featured two semi-autobiographical gamers who joked, argued and swooned over all things video gaming. The website soon grew in popularity as gamers spread their favorite comic strips to friends, and the comic garnered a loyal following of like-minded game fans.

After years of financial difficulties, the comic duo met Robert Khoo, who quickly became the team’s business manager, and helped to create a burgeoning empire centered around the comic, which now includes the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX), a huge bi-annual gathering of gamers that hosts tabletop, console and PC games while celebrating gaming culture.

As well as drawing over 100,000 game-positive geeks to the events in Seattle, Washington and now Boston, Massachusetts every year, the team created the Child’s Play Charity in 2003, leveraging their large fanbase to help support children’s hospitals with games, toys and money. In 2009 alone, the charity raised $1.78 million dollars in donations from gamers and a host of game development and publishing studios. For these community and philanthropic successes, the Penny Arcade team is jointly receiving the Ambassador Award.

"The Penny Arcade crew might be some of the most flippant, adorable game fans out there," says Meggan Scavio, Event Director for GDC. "So obviously, we’re delighted to recognize their efforts in providing a genuine voice and event for gamers, and working with both fans and developers in the Child's Play Charity to raise millions of dollars for a great cause."

The trio will be present to collect the Ambassador Award at this year's Game Developer's Choice Awards ceremony, held immediately following the Independent Games Festival Awards on Thursday, March 11, during GDC 2010 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center.

Choice Awards organizers have also recently confirmed Valve co-founder Gabe Newell as the recipient of the Pioneer Award, as well as debuting 2010 regular awards finalists led by Naughty Dog's Uncharted 2 and Thatgamecompany's Flower.

For further information about the Choice Awards, please visit the official Game Developers Choice Awards website. For further information about GDC and to register for attendance, please visit the official Game Developers Conference website.

The 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile, an event that celebrates excellence in games for Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone operating systems (OS), Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation Portable, and other handheld devices, has named the finalists for its third annual competition, with a host of outstanding portable titles showcased this year.

This year's IGF Mobile marks a record number of entries with 170 titles submitted for the competition, up nearly 65 percent from last year's total, which itself was double over the previous year. The finalists for IGF Mobile will compete for $5,000 in prizes, including specialized awards for art, design, audio, technical prowess, and iPhone game creation, as well as the IGF Mobile Best Game award.

Some of the notable titles nominated for this year's IGF Mobile Awards include iPhone games such as double nominee, Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor, downloadable games for Nintendo's DSi including Powerhead Games' Glow Artisan, and promising titles from a host of worldwide indie developers, from England's Studio FungFung through Finland's Secret Exit and beyond.

This year, overall winners in each category will be announced on Feb. 8, 2010, with the category winners receiving $500 in prizes, a place as an overall IGF Mobile Best Game finalist, and the opportunity to showcase their mobile game at the IGF Pavilion during Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco this March.

In addition, all finalists for 2010's IGF Mobile competition -- whether category winners or not -- will receive one All-Access pass to attend GDC 2010 and attend the multiple mobile-specific Summits there, including the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit and the iPhone Games Summit. (The IGF Mobile judges have also named three games in each category as 'honorable mentions' which - while not quite making it to become a finalist this year - are commended as some of the most intriguing and high quality independent mobile games of the year.)

The full list of finalists and honorable mentions for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition are:

Best Mobile Game Design:
MiniSquadron (Studio FungFung, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Glow Artisan (Powerhead Games, DSi)
Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor (Tiger Style, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Honorable mentions: Ancient Frog (Ancient Workshop, iPhone/iPod Touch), Globulos Party (Globz, DS), Mind Wall (Robinson Technologies, iPhone/iPod Touch).

Achievement In Art
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (superbrothers + capy + jim guthrie, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Guerrilla Bob (Angry Mob Games, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Zombie Pizza (Appy Entertainment, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Honorable mentions: Tilt: An Adventure In 1.5 Dimensions (XEODesign, iPhone/iPod Touch), Ancient Frog (Ancient Workshop, iPhone/iPod Touch, Minigore (Mountain Sheep, iPhone/iPod Touch).

Technical Achievement
Stair Dismount (Secret Exit, iPhone/iPod Touch)
SCVNGR (SCVNGR, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Tumbledrop (Starfruit Games, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Honorable mentions: Dawn Of Heroes (Wicked Studos, DS), Aera (ichromo, iPhone/iPod Touch), iPixel (Hecticus Software, iPhone/iPod Touch)

Audio Achievement
Lilt Line (different cloth, iPhone/iPod Touch)
MuBlip (para9, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Zombie Pizza (Appy Entertainment, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Honorable mentions: MelodyBloxx (Beatshapers, PSP Minis), Earth Dragon (levitylab, iPhone/iPod Touch), iBlast Moki (Godzilab, iPhone/iPod Touch)

Best iPhone Game
Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor (Tiger Style, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Drop7 (Area/Code, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Hook Champ (Rocketcat Games, iPhone/iPod Touch)
Honorable mentions: Minigore (Mountain Sheep, iPhone/iPod Touch). Pocket God (Bolt Creative, iPhone/iPod Touch), Doodle Jump (Lima Sky, iPhone/iPod Touch).

IGF Mobile Best Game
Finalists will comprise the winners of the five above categories, to be announced on Monday, February 8th.

Beyond the awards and cash prizes for the IGF Mobile winners, previous finalists have also been showcased prominently on Apple's App Store. A special store section highlighted the IGF-nominated iPhone games from 2009's IGF Mobile Competition, which included acclaimed titles such as Fieldrunners, Real Racing, Zen Bound and Galcon. Previous year's winners are now finding success on console platforms, including 2009's IGF Mobile "Next Great Mobile Game" winner, Reflection, which has been signed by Konami to be distributed on Nintendo's DSi.

"With the explosive growth in the mobile games market, and the exciting prospects for emerging mobile platforms and smartphone OSes, it's great to see this year's IGF Mobile finalists revealed," said Simon Carless, chairman of the IGF. "With smartphone platforms rapidly maturing, we're going to see a plethora of high quality independent creations over the next few years, and we sincerely hope that IGF Mobile has become one of the best venues to check out these inspiring titles."

The Independent Games Festival itself was established in 1998 to recognize the best independent game developers, much the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. The creation of IGF Mobile in 2007 was the direct response to the maturing of the mobile game industry and the desire to similarly recognize and reward those driving the advancement of the space.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival Mobile finalists, visit the official IGF Mobile website; and to register for GDC, please visit the official Game Developers Conference 2010 website.

[Adventure Game Studio, a freeware game creation tool for bringing adventure games to life, plays host to a variety of brilliant graphical adventures each year, and the AGS Awards celebrates all the best releases. In this round-up piece, Igor Hardy of A Hardy Developer's Journal looks through some of the AGS gems of 2009 and shares some of his personal favourites.]

2009 was a year of great achievements for Adventure Game Studio. Two AGS-made titles appeared among IGF 2010 finalists (Boryokudan Rue and Ulitsa Dimitrova), several others were released commercially by both established and starting up indie studios (Blackwell Convergence, Time Gentlemen Please!, Dante's Divine Comedy, Downfall) and are considered to be among the most interesting adventure games of recent times.

And yet there is much more to 2009 than this short list of titles. As in previous years the most important AGS-centered events remain: all 12 MAGS monthly competitions and the yearly AGS Awards, for which the first round of voting has just ended. Nominated for the Best AGS Game of The Year are:

! - Ben Chandler
Shifters's Box - Outside In - Ben Chandler
The Marionette - Team Effigy
The McCarthy Chronicles: Episode 1 - Steven Poulton
Time Gentlemen, Please! - Zombie Cow Studios

You can check out the nominees for all other categories in the freshly established list at AmericanGirlScouts.org.

Concurrently, I've tried to select a small number of games that would the best representation of what excited the AGS community during the course of the year. I think I’ve managed to choose a group of titles that are particularly striking and creative. However, I want to be clear that the way the picks were taken was highly subjective - these are all games I can recommend based on my own experiences and I left out some promising titles I haven’t properly played yet. Continue reading

The 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile, an event that celebrates excellence in games for Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone operating systems (OS), Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation Portable, and other handheld devices, has named the finalists for its third annual competition, with a host of outstanding portable titles showcased this year.

This year's IGF Mobile marks a record number of entries with 170 titles submitted for the competition, up nearly 65 percent from last year's total, which itself was double over the previous year. The finalists for IGF Mobile will compete for $5,000 in prizes, including specialized awards for art, design, audio, technical prowess, and iPhone game creation, as well as the IGF Mobile Best Game award.

Some of the notable titles nominated for this year's IGF Mobile Awards include iPhone games such as double nominee, Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret Of Bryce Manor, downloadable games for Nintendo's DSi including Powerhead Games' Glow Artisan, and promising titles from a host of worldwide indie developers, from England's Studio FungFung through Finland's Secret Exit and beyond.

This year, overall winners in each category will be announced on Feb. 8, 2010, with the category winners receiving $500 in prizes, a place as an overall IGF Mobile Best Game finalist, and the opportunity to showcase their mobile game at the IGF Pavilion during Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco this March.

In addition, all finalists for 2010's IGF Mobile competition -- whether category winners or not -- will receive one All-Access pass to attend GDC 2010 and attend the multiple mobile-specific Summits there, including the GDC Mobile/Handheld Summit and the iPhone Games Summit. (The IGF Mobile judges have also named three games in each category as 'honorable mentions' which - while not quite making it to become a finalist this year - are commended as some of the most intriguing and high quality independent mobile games of the year.)

The full list of finalists and honorable mentions for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition are: Continue reading