Effing Hail is a score-based action game where players attempt to damage as many buildings and airborne objects as they can under the strict time limit, using a hail storm and gusts of wind to create large hails of destruction. Hails grow in size the longer you keep them in the air, but for this to happen would need to position the cursor underneath a hail and hold the left mouse button to blow it in an upward direction. Hails which are too large will not be affected by the wind, but there is always an unending supply of hails to direct at anything that stands in your way of acquiring a top score.
"When Jacob brought up the idea and threw together a prototype I immediately set out to the library for research. After a bit, a book struck me and I got excited: 'weather diagrams!' I always loved those books growing up as a kid and science in general was my favorite subject in school. I rediscovered my passion for information graphics while studying graphic design in college and that probably had a something to do with the inspiration as well. Though, I think it had a lot more to do with the nostalgic feelings of laying in bed pouring over beautiful science diagram books when I was younger that was the real clincher. My best ideas always come from an initial and immediate feeling of 'this is awesome' as soon as it pops into my head.
So really, this game is a PSA for public libraries. Where else can you get that special brand of snotty, must covered book smell lit with dim tungsten? It all boils down to one big brain minding power up. The More You Know™." - Greg
UBM TechWeb (producer of Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra.com, and the Game Developers Conference) established the Independent Games Festival in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers.
The competition, now in its 13th year, awarded a total of nearly $50,000 in prizes to deserving indie creators in Main Competition and Student Competition categories at the IGF Awards Ceremony, held in March 2010 at the Moscone Center, San Francisco, CA, as one of the highlights of the Game Developers Conference.
The Independent Games Festival will return in March 2011 at GDC in San Francisco - look for more information soon. [More information...]
About The IGS
Featuring lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators around, the Independent Games Summit is a yearly event, with iterations thus far taking place in March 2007, February 2008, March 2009 and March 2010 at Game Developers Conference.
UBM TechWeb (which curates the IGF and runs GDC) plans to continue and grow the Independent Games Summit in subsequent years. [More information...]
