2009 IGF Finalist Roundup


This article originally appeared in Dev.Mag Issue 29, released in February 2009.


Between

  • Developer: Jason Rohrer
  • Nominations: Innovation Award
  • Free to play
  • Dev.Mag played

Between is a particularly strange game, created by someone known for his particularly strange games. Like one of Jason Rohrer’s other creations, Passage, Between is an odd, brooding game, simultaneously a puzzle and an experiment in isolation – which is strange considering this is strictly a 2-player game. It may take a little bit of time to work it out, but that’s the point.

Blueberry Garden

  • Developer: Erik Svedang
  • Nominations: Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Audio
  • Under development

Blueberry Garden is a secretive game, an experiment about the player’s influence on a self-contained eco-system. While little is known about how the game will be played, it has already walked away with an award for innovation from the 2008 Swedish Game Awards, and this arty submission certainly appears to be a feast for the aural and visual senses as well.

Brainpipe

  • Developer: Digital Eel
  • Nominations: Excellence in Audio
  • Demo available
  • Dev.Mag played

With its vivid yet curiously surreal visual style and use of audio, Brainpipe is like riding a hypnotic rollercoaster – except you also need to steer it. Its simple controls and gradually increasing pace – peaking somewhere just beyond frenetic, assuming you can make it that far – instantly classify the game as one that attempts to be simultaneously casual yet challenging.

CarneyVale Showtime

  • Developer: Singapore-MIT Gambit Game Lab
  • Nominations: Seumas McNally Grand Prize
  • Demo available
  • Dev.Mag played

If CarneyVale Showtime sounds familiar, that’s because it is. Regular readers will recognise it as being the winner of Microsoft’s DreamBuildPlay competition, and it’s now pitting itself against games on platforms other than the Xbox360 in order to clinch grand prize here too. If you haven’t tried it yet, don’t forget to head over to the Community Games section of the Xbox Live Marketplace and give it a try.

Cletus Clay

  • Developer: TunaSnax
  • Nominations: Excellence in Visual Art

Clay animation, something familiar to movie buffs, is a term rarely used in the gaming industry. Cletus Clay hopes to change that with its unique graphical style: everything in the game is modelled out of real, physical clay. Clever use of stop-motion animation results in very smooth looking movements, an excellent complement to the comical nature of the game’s hillbilly main character.

Coil

  • Developer: From The Depths
  • Nominations: Innovation Award
  • Free to play
  • Dev.Mag played

A curious and unique art-game, Coil is a subtly dark attempt at something that is almost more of an experiment than a game; an experiment in the immersion that mystery and the forgoing of traditional instructions can create. The game treads into territory rarely ventured into, and the dual-story and thematic setting make for an interesting experience.

Cortex Command

  • Developer: Data Realms
  • Nominations: Technical Excellence
  • Demo Available
  • Under Development
  • Dev.Mag played

A familiar game to many followers of the indie scene, Cortex Command has been around for a very, very long time. Being under on-and-off development for up to seven years, Cortex Command has finally reached a state worthy of the IGF competition. Will its excellent physics engine and pixel-perfect collision detection be enough to net it the award for technical excellence?

Dyson

  • Developer: Rudolf Kremers and Alex May
  • Nominations: Seumas McNally Grand Prize
  • Free to play

While we were unfortunately unable to get this interesting-looking RTS game to run, [its persistent crashing on launch driving poor ol’ me to murder. Murder zombies, that is, in Left 4 Dead – Ed] it looks to be one to watch out for. The game puts the player in control of self-replicating machines manifested as trees and seedlings in order to try and conquer and colonise an asteroid belt – something often already occupied by rivals.

Feist

  • Developer: Filthy Grip
  • Nominations: Excellence in Visual Art

FEIST sets the player on a platforming journey through stunning locales and tricky obstacles. Featuring an artificial intelligence system that claims complete autonomy in enemy behaviour as well as an evolving and changing world, FEIST promises to be different and unique every time.

The Graveyard

  • Developer: Tale of Tales
  • Nominations: Innovation Award
  • Demo Available

Tale of Tales, a studio with a penchant for preceding all their game names with articles, is another familiar name in this year’s IGF. Familiar for two reasons, in fact: one being their unusual MMO, The Endless Forest, and the other their IGF entry from last year, The Path. The Graveyard appears to follow a similar trend to that first presented in The Path, once again being an experiment in interactive storytelling.

Incredibots

  • Developer: Grubby Games
  • Nominations: Technical Excellence
  • Free to play
  • Dev.Mag played

Incredibots is another of those browser-based physics construction sandbox games. What separates Incredibots from other similar games is its completeness. The game sports an initially complex user interface that is powerful enough (with familiarity) to allow for some really complex contrivances and visually impressive machines. Its simple tutorial and easy-to-use sharing system makes this a fun way to pass the time.

Machinarium

  • Developer: Amanita Design
  • Nominations: Excellence in Visual Art
  • Under Development

Machinarium is a full-scale point and click adventure game being developed by the creators of the famed Samorost web game series. Not much is known about the game yet – aside from information gleaned via interviews and screenshots – but the story of robo-drama combined with the charming hand-drawn artwork typical of these Czech developers has secured it a spot amongst the IGF finalists. The Samorost games have featured in previous IGF competitions and have left an impact on players due to their unique style and great visuals, so fans have high hopes for Machinarium – due for release later this year.

The Maw

  • Developer: Twisted Pixel
  • Nominations: Technical Excellence

A cute and interesting little offering, The Maw is an action/adventure 3D title centred around the adventures of an alien named Frank and a blob called Maw – also known as The Deadliest Organism In The Universe. The Maw uses the basic “you are what you eat” philosophy, granting the player abilities based on the types of creatures consumed. Some have cited the game as being too short and easy, but its technical presentation is beyond reproach. The Maw is available on the Xbox Live Arcade.

Mightier

  • Developer: Ratloop
  • Nominations: Innovation Award
  • Free to play
  • Dev.Mag played

Mightier is an innovative title which encourages players to think out of the box – or at least, out of the computer screen. The crowd-winning feature of this title is its use of scanners and printers to present players with pen and paper puzzles that actually affect what occurs in the game. Instead of solving challenges within the game, a map of each level can be physically printed out and changed by drawing on the physical sheet of paper, which is then fed back to the game with a scanner. The game features a fairly high level of customisation (you can even draw your own versions of the avatar and equipment) and for those who aren’t within reach of a printer or any spare paper, less adventurous ways to solve the puzzles exist through the mouse draw options. This game is free and pretty fun to play – go check it out!

Musaic Box

  • Developer: KranX Productions
  • Nominations: Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Design
  • Demo Available

Musaic Box is an aurally-based puzzle game which has you solving geometric puzzles by listening to musical melodies and gathering the puzzle pieces in such a way that you construct the full audio sample. Those who struggle with sound, however, can still attempt to solve the puzzle visually. A free 1-hour trial enables you to try before you buy – available from Big Fish Games and similar casual portals.

Night Game

  • Developer: Nicalis
  • Nominations: Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Design
  • Under Development

Night Game is a new offering from game development veteran Nicklas “Nifflas” Nygren, the man responsible for platforming gems such as Knytt and Within a Deep Forest. Night Game is a physics-based puzzle game which focuses on navigating a ball through ambient and engaging worlds. The game is slated to be a relaxing – yet challenging – experience that will appeal to a broad base of gamers.

Osmos

  • Developer: Hemisphere Games
  • Nominations: Seumas McNally Grand Prize, Excellence in Design, Technical Excellence
  • Under Development
  • Demo Available
  • Dev.Mag Played

Osmos has the player taking the role of an organism that needs to grow by absorbing similar organisms (or motes) whenever you collide with them. It sounds simple enough at first, but when you consider that your only means of propulsion is by losing mass ( and that larger motes will absorb you on contact) you quickly find yourself trying to maintain that delicate balance between size and mobility to achieve superiority. Although only an alpha version is available, players get to preview the basic game dynamic and a few interesting mote types which exhibit cute AI and some intriguing behaviours.

Pixeljunk Eden

  • Developer: Q-Games Ltd.
  • Nominations: Excellence in Visual Arts, Excellence in Audio, Technical Excellence
  • Demo Available

Several titles have already been churned out under the PixelJunk moniker, and now Eden looks set to outshine them all with a nomination for three separate awards under the IGF judgement criteria. PixelJunk Eden has you hopping around simulated alien plantlife, with up to three players controlling little … er … things which can collect helpful objects and get more plants to grow. It looks charming, and hopefully has a strong co-op element. Available for purchase through the PlayStation Network.

Retro/Grade

  • Developer: 24 Caret Games
  • Nominations: Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Design

Retro/Grade may at first appear to be a simple shooter, but it soon turns out to be a cunningly-disguised rhythm game that surprises players by playing through an entire space battle in reverse. Players need to dodge lasers returning to enemies and “catch” their own gunfire to preserve the integrity of the temporal anomaly that’s forcing time to go backwards, assisted by audio cues and the regularity of game events.

Snapshot

  • Developer: Kyle Pulver and Peter Jones
  • Nominations: Excellence in Design
  • Under Development

The ability to take snapshots of a level and use them later to actively affect the environment may sound quite ambitious – even crazy – but Snapshot promises to pull that off. In this game, the player controls a character called Pic who can capture scenery, objects and even enemies using his camera. The game is still in its early stages of development, but it looks like an intriguing offer.

You Have to Burn the Rope

  • Developer: Kian Bashiri
  • Nominations: Innovation Award
  • Free to Play
  • Dev.Mag Played

Every once in a while, some bored (or creative) game developer decides to create a tongue-in-cheek title to either make a point or simply poke fun at gaming as a whole. You Have To Burn The Rope is described as “a game about interactivity and false choices” and (more importantly) “a joke”. The name pretty much gives you your objective, and the cuteness of the concept is sure to entertain players – even if the game itself is ultimately very short. An interesting and rather unexpected addition to the IGF lineup – you’d have to play it to understand.

Zeno Clash

  • Developer: ACE Team Software
  • Nominations: Excellence in Visual Arts

Zeno Clash describes itself as having a “beautiful, disturbing, unprecedented” art style wrapped around a raw close-combat system in a punk fantasy world. Judging by the screenshots and gameplay videos (as well as IGF’s seal of approval), it looks like ACE Team may be able to back up these strong words with a proud indie offering featuring brutal melee combat in an interesting and colourful environment.


About Claudio de Sa

Code cruncher, word wrangler, gamer and hobby designer, Claudio likes to crush zombies, shoot zombies, slash zombies, and otherwise effect the lamentable lynching of the less-than-living legions. When his time isn't dominated by dealing with the deceased, he'll be experimenting with crazy game ideas, or be otherwise crafting things. [Articles]