Game|Life's Chris Kohler, on GDC 2008. (source: GameSetWatch)

GDC Overview (video)
Indies Take the Cake at Game Developers Conference

Petri Purho's winning acceptance speech, now on eBay

Rod Humble's Stars over Half Moon Bay (presented during the Experimental Gameplay Sessions at GDC 2008) is now available for download, public discussion and debates.

GDC 08: Experimental Gameplay Sessions
GDC 08: Nuances of Design

The entire clip can also be downloaded as a 350 MB .wmv file from GameVideos.com. IGF and indie games mentions starts around the thirteenth minute mark, though the show makes a bit more sense when watched from the beginning.

Note: This is an old post, updated with one new video. (source: Gamerscore)

A couple of photos taken during Metanet's N+ launch party were posted on the official site. Raigan and Mare had also updated their development journal on IGN with a list of their favorite platformers and games.

In other news, Kotaku recently published a preview for the upcoming PSP version of N+.

N+ XBLA launch party photos
GameSetWatch press coverage
Freeware recommendations
N+ PSP impressions

Chief XNA architect Chris Satchell explains XNA's community features to G4TV's Adam Sessler. (video demonstrations of JelloCar, Little Gamers and Zauri in the extended)

Seen in video, Andy Yang demonstrates the new GarageGames' service InstantAction (currently in beta test phase). Think Kongregate, but with fully-featured 3D multiplayer games.

Joystiq's InstantAction preview

Skit shown during Microsoft's GDC keynote to promote the new community features for XBLA.

From Gamasutra: Excited about the revelation of XNA's new peer-reviewed community game distribution service for Xbox Live? Following the GDC keynote unveiling, Microsoft's Dax Hawkins goes in-depth on exactly how game submission, review, and posting will work for the Spring beta of the service.

As part of the new sponsored feature, created for Microsoft's Gamasutra-based XNA microsite, Hawkins explains the details for XNA Creators Club members:

"As many have foreseen - and passionately anticipated - the next step for community game development is to let creators share their games widely with others. We are pleased to announce that in spring of this year we will enable community game distribution with a beta for Xbox LIVE.

As a premium (paid) XNA Creators Club member, you'll be able to share your games with other creators via Xbox LIVE Marketplace. (For information on becoming a premium member, see XNA Creators Club Premium Membership.) After the beta, you'll be able to share your games with 10 million Xbox LIVE users.

This article provides general instructions on how to prepare your game for submission. It goes over the guidelines for acceptable content, describes the peer-review system, and shows you how to download and play a community game. Some of the procedures for the beta differ from the general procedures. This article will specify the beta differences."

You can now read the full Gamasutra sponsored feature on the subject, with plenty of details and screenshots on how submission and review will work, possible rejection criteria, and what the approved games will look like on the service.

The winners for the 2008 IGF competition have been announced. The official IGF press release from GameSetWatch in the extended. (winning entries are in bold, more videos arriving very soon)

Student Showcase ($2,500): Synaesthete
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Empyreal Nocturne
Galaxy Scraper
Gesundheit!
Mayhem Intergalactic
Poesysteme
Polarity
Ruckblende
Synaesthete
The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom
Flipside (Half-Life 2 Modification)
Foamzilla (UT2004 Modification)

Technical Excellence ($2,500): World of Goo
World of Goo
Goo!
Audiosurf
Axiom: Overdrive
Gumboy Tournament

Excellence in Visual Art ($2,500): Fez
Clean Asia!
Fez
Hammerfall
Synaesthete
The Path

Design Innovation Award ($2,500): World Of Goo
Battleships Forever
Fez
Fret Nice
Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
World Of Goo

Excellence in Audio ($2,500): Audiosurf
Cinnamon Beats
Fret Nice
Audiosurf
Clean Asia!
OokiBloks

Best Web Browser Game ($2,500): Iron Dukes
Iron Dukes
Globulos.com
Tri-Achnid

Gleemie Award:
Desktop Tower Defense (winner, $5,000)
Skyrates (first runner-up, $3,000)
Quadradius (second runner-up, $2,000)

Audience Award ($2,500):
Audiosurf (winner)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($20,000): Crayon Physics Deluxe
Audiosurf
Crayon Physics Deluxe
Hammerfall
Noitu Love 2: Devolution
World of Goo

Petri Purho interview (14th February, 2008)
Gamasutra interview
Wikipedia entry

Advice from previous and current IGF winners - Jonathan Mak (Everyday Shooter), Paul Preece (Desktop Tower Defense) and Petri Purho (Crayon Physics Deluxe) discusses game development in this special 1UP article posted just two days ago.

1UP: So You Want To Make A Game

An offline version for this IGF Web Browser Game category winner was recently made available for download; players encountering lag or stutter problems with the browser version of Iron Dukes can grab this file instead, available in both 800 x 600 and 640 x 480 flavors.

This demo features one playable level only.

Iron Dukes download page
Flash Game Pick: Iron Dukes (One Ton Ghost)

More photos in the extended. (source: David Sandberg, Vincent Diamante)

Note: Tons of pictures from the IGF awards ceremony added.

P.B. Winterbottom, Noitu Love 2, World of Goo, Fez

Joakim interviewed by Veronica Belmont

SHOT is a new browser-based puzzler by GameDesign, in which players must push all balls off the edge of the green area save for one to complete each stage. There are certain rules to adhere to, but instructions are simple enough for players to learn in just a matter of seconds.

Each level is randomly generated, so there is very little chance of playing a similar puzzle after each restart. The game ends when time runs out, but you're allowed to undo as many moves as you like before that happens. An online high score table is included.

Name: SHOT
Developer: GameDesign
Category: Puzzle
Type: Browser

Another gameplay video from Fez, winner of IGF's Excellence in Visual Art award.

A couple of games from the much touted XNA user-created games for the Xbox Live Arcade service. (more videos in the extended)

Rough release dates for both Jonathan Blow's Braid and The Behemoth's Castle Crashers were revealed in a recent Microsoft's press release. Braid will be available on the XBLA this spring, while Castle Crashers is due out this summer 2008.

More photos in the extended. (source: The 1UP Show)

cactus, Clean Asia

Dylan Fitterer, Audiosurf

An informal chat with Mateusz Skutnik, developer of Submachine and the Covert Front series.

Hi Mateusz, can you provide us with a little introduction for the benefit of the readers who are unfamiliar with your works.

I'm a flash games architect, most known works include Submachine series, Covert Front and DayMare Town, and I'm also graphic novelist, with ongoing series of Rewolucje, Blaki, and more one shot albums. I live in Poland and here are my graphic novels published, that's a reason why you probably associate me more with online games, than comics.

Which do you prefer to be associated with, if you had to make a choice? Your art, or your games?

Hard to tell, if you'd ask me that question before the Submachine outbreak I'd say by my comics, but now... They're equal let's say. Besides I do manage to fit my art into the games as well, so it's like the same story, just different medium.

From Gamasutra: At its GDC 2008 keynote, Microsoft announced the full range of peer-reviewed community features coming for amateur-made XNA games and a new XNA game player for its media player Zune.

To fully illustrate where Microsoft wants to take the community orientation, Chris Satchell officially revealed Xbox Live: Community Games, its service it says will put "power in the hands of the community." Split into four distinct stages -- create, submit, review, play -- the service will be community managed, and will be restricted by Microsoft only for IP conflicts and otherwise "massively objectionable" content.

For the submission stage, developers will create a "creator identity," similar to the standard gamer identity that tracks achievements and reputation. The creator identity too will help developers build a reputation and a history of games developed. When a game is submitted, the creator is expected to accurately rate the game on a sliding scale, with "blood, injuries, hostility, and cruelty" categories shown as an example.

From Gamasutra: A gigantic panel of independent developers - including Noel Llopis (Powerof2Games), Jacob Van Wingen (Gastronaut Studios), Jamie Cheng (Klei Entertainment), Jon Mak (Queasy Games), and Ryan Clark (Grubby Games)

Starting off, Klei Entertainment's Jamie Cheng (Eets: Chowdown) revealed that he's working with Nexon to make a free-to-play, pay for items title - but only with 5 or 6 employees.

He pointed out of the indie scene:"The opportunities that have come around have made us kind of come full circle" - from bedroom programmers in the '80s back to simple bedroom programmers. He suggested indie developers can, if they choose, make mass-market games that aren't quirky.

Following on, Noel Llopis of Power Of Two Games tried defining the independent genre: "Indie games are like porn... you know it when you see it", he quipped at one point.

More photos in the extended. (Ookibloks interview)

Ookibloks booth

Blackwell Series Developer to Produce Adventure Game for Playfirst: PlayFirst, Inc., the leading publisher focused exclusively on casual games, today announced a publishing deal with Wadjet Eye Games, an independent game developer that was nominated for "Best New Studio" at the 2007 Game Developer's Conference. Under the terms of the agreement, Wadjet Eye will develop a new casual adventure title to be published by PlayFirst.

PlayFirst will fund Wadjet Eye's game development and take the lead over the sales and marketing of the game, allowing Wadjet Eye to focus on game development.

Press Release

A new gameplay video of Fez, nominated for IGF's Design Innovation Award and Excellence in Visual Arts.

Arthouse Games interviews Fez designer, Phil Fish
Arthouse Games' Fez preview

From Gamasutra: In an Independent Games Summit talk on Tuesday, Metanet's Mare Sheppard and Slick Entertainment's Nick Waanders discussed the making of N+ for Xbox Live Arcade, debuting on XBLA tomorrow, taking a great in-depth nuts and bolts view of making a downloadable console game, and estimating a $125,000 minimum cost to make an Xbox Live Arcade game.

Starting out, Sheppard commented from a console starting-point: "A well-developed prototype is worth its weight in gold." She also noted it was important to prove to your distributor the game could work, commenting: "Microsoft was [initially] concerned that they wouldn't translate to HD in a very... exciting manner" - but an HD demo version convinced them otherwise.

More photos in the extended. (Konjak interview)

Joakim (IGF finalist Noitu Love 2), inside GDC

A superb three part tutorial by Richard Grillotti of Pixeljam Games, in which Photoshop users are given the rare chance to be schooled in the Way of the Pixel. (part three coming soon)

Creating Pixel Art with Photoshop, Part 1
Creating Pixel Art with Photoshop, Part 2

A gameplay video taken from Q-Games' upcoming release, PixelJunk Eden.

From Gamasutra (excerpt): In the final Independent Games Summit lecture of Monday, Japan-based Q Games' Dylan Cuthbert discussed the PixelJunk series for the PS3's PlayStation Network, some of the only true 'indie' titles not funded by Sony on the service.

He revealed the four games in the series - PixelJunk Racers, PixelJunk Monsters, both already released - and coming soon, and confirmed for the first time - PixelJunk Eden and PixelJunk Dungeons.

In this PC adaptation of Games Workshop's popular board game, players take control of a Space Marines squad by issuing battle commands to counter the threat posed by Genestealers, a dangerous alien race bent on preventing your soldiers from completion their given mission.

This Space Hulk project was created using the Allegro Gaming Library, and should run on both XP and Vista operating systems. Edit the resolution.sh file value from 1 to 2 for a larger game window. This temporary workaround is only applicable for desktops with high resolution, so if the program crashes then change this number back to 1 to get it working again.

Name: Space Hulk
Developers: Niklas Åstrand and Jörgen Nilsson
Category: Strategy
Type: Freeware
Size: 20MB
Direct download link: Click here

From Gamasutra: "Wizards of the Coast revealed its plans today to publish two new games based on its popular collectible card game, Magic: The Gathering. The two titles will supplement Magic: The Gathering Online, an online edition of the franchise which already boasts over 350,000 active accounts.

UK studio Stainless Games has partnered with Wizards of the Coast to develop one of the games for the PC and XBOX Live Arcade. Mind Control Software will also work with the publisher on another Magic: The Gathering title for the PC and Mac."

With extensive experience in development of turn-based strategy games such as Oasis and Stomping Grounds, a partnership with Wizards of the Coast can only mean good tidings for past IGF winner Mind Control Software.

WotC are also awarding three of the seven selected IGF finalists cash prizes to the sum of $10,000 in total (with an opportunity to sign distribution agreements worth at least $50,000) for the Gleemie Awards as well.

Mind Control Software Press Release

2D Boy's Ron Carmel was recently interviewed by Wii Fanboy. In the article, Ron has revealed that the Wii port will have cooperative multi-player mode (unlike the PC version), while it's release date is set to be announced during GDC.

Interview: World of Goo's Ron Carmel

From Gamasutra: The Flash games panel at the Independent Games Summit on GDC at Monday showed an interesting dichotomy of different approaches to making money from Web browser-based games - though it's clear that the monetization angle is still being explored.

The panelists for the session were Chris Hughes (FlashGameLicense.com), Chris Pasley (Kongregate), Joseph Lieberman (Arcadetown), Josh Williams (GarageGames/InstantAction), and they discussed the state of the Flash game business in terms of both real and potential revenue.

The state of the industry right now is that sponsorship and in-game ads can help fund already-developed titles - if only in a minor way. For developers, ArcadeTown.com pay out $500 to $6,000 per game up front for use on their Flash game portal sites - and it's a non-exclusive deal.

For FlashGameLicense.com, one-off sponsor licenses could range up to $10,000 to $20,000 at the absolute maximum, with more smaller non-exclusive deals possible.

Overall, it's suggested that it's difficult to find an audience if you put your own game on your own site - and there are a lot of distribution channels for developers through external websites, so it's possible to make good money as a hobbyist, but it's not yet clear you can completely make a living making Flash games and then

New technology and the lure of the Web is a particular theme - with Kongregate experimenting with 'Premium' games that they are funding to the tune of $50,000 to $100,000, including multiplayer elements and microtransactions.

InstantAction indicated that its funding for its 3D browser plugin titles can run anything from $250,000 to $1 million, and may be funded through microtransactions or even subscriptions.

GarageGames is using a plugin on InstantAction.com that has a single, 'download-once' plugin that will allow any engine to run through it - from Flash through Torque Engine even all the way to Unreal Engine, which GarageGames is testing using in web browsers.

In fact, GarageGames' Williams ended the panel on an optimistic note: "GDC 2013 will be mostly web games."

IGS: The State Of Flash Games (source article)

From Gamasutra: In an afternoon Independent Games Summit talk, Metanet's Raigan Burns (N+) discussed creativity and the making of unique technology to make unique gameplay, starting out by admitting: "We don't like programming... but it really is the only way to do some things."

Burns compared the evolution of using 'unique knobs' in indie games to the evolution of the Beatles from the buttoned-down George Martin years to the odd and more flowing experiments later in the group's life. He suggested that home made technology is less powerful and less reusable, but is quirkier and has more 'flava'.

In other words, the Canadian game creator suggested, even though some games have unique technology, very few of those games have technology that is the core of the game.

From Gamasutra: In a well-received Independent Games Summit lecture, Derek Yu and Alec Holowka from Bit-Blot discussed Aquaria, the IGF Grand Prize winner from last year, presenting a postmortem of their critically acclaimed 2D underwater action title.

They discussed the early days of the company, making the I'm OK parody game about Jack Thompson, and actually started off with a game called Eminent Kingdoms, which they demonstrated in prototype form at the IGS, and which "...randomly generated a new Final Fantasy every time you play the game."

Cat's out of the proverbial bag: N+ will be available for download this Wednesday, February 20th, at 9am PST to be exact. 450 stages, new graphics, a level editor, plus online cooperative and competitive multiplayer for only 800 points. There's the free version if you haven't tried that out and still need a little more convincing before parting with your precious MS points. (Gamasutra article)

metablog announcement

Destructoid's Anthony Burch finally mentions Pixel's masterpiece on his regular weekly column, Indie Nation - in which the author of the article calls Cave Story 'the perfect game'. Deserving?

Indie Nation no. 6: Cave Story

Matt Thorson has announced that his first shareware game, An Untitled Story, will be released as freeware in the coming weeks. Several screenshots from his new project (Flail, due out soon) were also posted in his development journal over at EO.

An email interview of Jonathan Blow conducted by Jeff Lindsay a few weeks ago can be found on GameHelper's web site.

In it, the developer of Braid discusses about his decision to release the latest project on the XBLA platform, marketing an indie game, innovation in game design, some of his favorite indie games, and more.

If you're at GDC, don't miss out on the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and Nuances of Design (22nd February, Friday) - a session in which audiences are given the chance to play the games while allowing presenters to guide them through the experience. (source: Braid's official site)

Jonathan Blow interview