INDIE DEVS TO THE READY: SUBMISSIONS OPEN FOR 2010 INDIE GAMES FESTIVAL

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7.8.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Organizers of the Independent Games Festival have announced that submissions are now open for 2010’s main and student showcases, with a deadline of November 1st and 15th, respectively. Finalists will be announced on January 4th and 11th of 2010, and, as usual, the IGF will be awarding some $50,000 in cash prizes spread across its visual art, audio, design, technical, ‘nuovo’ (formerly ‘innovation’), and audience categories, alongside the Seumas McNally grand prize.

On a personal note, I’ll be returning as a judge in both categories, alongside some excellent first-time compatriots, and am very much looking forward to spending time with (and subsequently exhaustively covering) everyone’s submissions.

Submit Your Game [IGF]

ONE SHOT: CASTLE CRASHERS, IN LEGO

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7.8.2009

Brandon Boyer

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One more game-toy crossover, via Simon Parkin: an anonymously Tumbl’d Castle Crashers knight, expertly given the full Lego treatment.

ONE SHOT: L4D, VIA LBP

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7.8.2009

Brandon Boyer

2 Replies

Harmonix staffer Milo shows Kotaku his crocheted collection of the cast of Left 4 Dead rendered as LittleBigPlanet sack-horde.

GIMME INDIE GAME: WORLD OF GOO, HENRY HATSWORTH DEVS DEBUT NEW GAMES AT EXPERIMENTAL GAMEPLAY PROJECT

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7.7.2009

Brandon Boyer

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Back in the hazy days of my stint at Edge Online — before indie gaming had truly become a movement, certainly one fought over by console manufacturers, a time when Cave Story was still just a twinkle in Pixel’s eye — there was only one place I knew I could trust to feed me reliably worthwhile new games: Carnegie Mellon’s Experimental Gameplay Project.

It was there that the dual Kyles (co-founders Gabler and Gray, of World of Goo and Henry Hatsworth renown, respectively) and their classmates laid the rapid prototyping foundation that would influence the indie scene at large (notably Petri Purho, who credits the technique for spawning his Crayon Physics).

Now, with Gabler still spinning up for 2D Boy’s sophomore effort, and Gray recently departing EA for indie work, the two have relaunched the site and will be serving new, monthly seven-day challenges, with the first three games of the debut challenge just premiered.

The first, seen at top, is Gray’s Frobot: Fueled by Dancing: a Robotron/Smash TV-esque keyboard/mouse-controlled shooter in which the titular ‘bot is tasked with conquering salarymen with the power of funk, morphing them instantly into a series of ‘solid-gold dancers’, with a nicely unfolding power-up structure.

The second, above right, is Proto Shooter, an entirely mouse controlled classic 8-bit pixel shooter from EGP newcomer and World of Goo Wii programmer Allan Blomquist, and finally, below, is Gabler’s Egg Worm Generator.

Technically not at all a game (and apparently salvaged from a failed attempt at a Karl Sims-inspired evolutionary shooter), Egg Worm is a generative Darwinian simulation in which creatures are given one minute to live and crawl to the right toward a green pixel. Any creature that doesn’t make it is scrapped, any survivors breed their traits further and slowly grow more adept at walking rightward, a transformation surprisingly compelling to observe over time, for as entirely uninteractive as it is.

Purho and Shalin Shodan — another former EGP co-founder and participant and later Spore API developer — are listed as additional eventual participants in forthcoming challenges: watch the new EGP space for more information, and don’t miss the archives for original EGP works, including the towering roots of World of Goo.

ATTRACT MODE, JAMES HARVEY, SPACESICK TEASE OFFICIAL CAVE STORY T-SHIRTS

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7.7.2009

Brandon Boyer

4 Replies

Quietly revealed in the latest issue of Play Magazine, handily scanned in by James Harvey, and well spotted by Tiny Cartridge: this set of early sketches for official Attract Mode T-shirts based on Pixel’s landmark freeware indie hit Cave Story, the game currently, as previously mentioned, being ported to WiiWare by Nicalis.

The designs shown, Play says, are by the aforementioned James ‘Harvey James‘ Harvey (the same as behind the early and still heavily coveted Attract Mode Game Boy Girl design), and apparently by Mitch ‘Spacesick‘ Ansara (frequently featured here on Offworld), though all of the designs above appear more Harvey-ian and less Spacesick-ian to me.

Either way, hopefully we’ll see something more official soon, Play reports that the designs are just waiting for Pixel’s final sign off. [via Tiny Cartridge]

Joe ‘Cymon’ Larson finally reveals his upcoming text-only indie ‘de-make’ of Valve’s Portal, in ASCII (appropriately titled ASCIIpOrtal). If you’re thinking “eh, I’ve already seen it done in Flash“, or can’t even fathom how exactly it’d work, get revved up: its “through the portal” view is properly mind-bendingly good stuff.

To say nothing of its simple little ♥ companion cube. [via Erin Robinson]

ONE SHOT: A REXBOX TRIBUTE TO GUYBRUSH THREEPWOOD

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7.7.2009

Brandon Boyer

1 Reply

With the XBLA remake of the original Secret of Monkey Island just a week away, LittleBigPlanet and Grip Wrench artist Rex Crowle does up main hero Guybrush in his own inimitable style.

ONE SHOT: HELLO MARIO, HELLO LUIGI

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7.6.2009

Brandon Boyer

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C’mon, you know you love it. Look at their little mustaches. Just look at them. [via TinyCartridge]

And then more Atari developments ensued, as David Galloway released the ROM for his Atari 2600 re-make of Capcom’s Mega Man, curated by and compiled for the 2007 I Am 8-bit exhibit, and demonstrated above by Tiny Cartridge’s Eric Caoili. [via retronauts, via Daniel Rehn]