Another tribute to the final weekend of the Sportsfriends Kickstarter, this time from local fave comic artist Maré Odomo, with an illustrated breakdown of why you should definitely kick in.

The eagle-eyed will note that not only does Venus Patrol designer Cory Schmitz make a guest appearance, but also chipscene regulars Anamanaguchi (“in someone’s living room”), my Wild Rumpus cohorts from this year’s Wild Rumpus/One Life Left/Venus Patrol GDC party, and David Mauro’s “Babycastles no Fukushuu: Manhattan Fury” & Hilary Florido’s “Codependent No Moe” custom-painted arcade cabinets for NYC game-event group Babycastles.

As before, this is the last weekend to make a difference in bringing all of the Sportsfriends games to a wider audience: donate to the campaign at Kickstarter.

Artist, game-maker and our own resident TIGSource DevLog editor Dominique ‘Dom2D‘ Ferland does faux-anaglyph justice to Sportsfriends, the previously-featured four-game ultra-collection of local-multiplayer greatness, including Johann Sebastian Joust, BaraBariBall, Hokra and Super Pole Riders.

The collection is in the home stretch of its Kickstarter and still needs a lotta love — dig deep this weekend and help bring these games to the masses, before it’s too late!

And now, the news people have been asking for for over a year: Die Gute Fabrik, Noah Sasso, Ramiro Corbetta and Bennett Foddy have just announced Sportsfriends, a four game collection for PC, Mac and PlayStation 3 that will see the combined release of Hokra, BaraBariBall, an updated version of Foddy’s Pole Riders, and — finally! — a full-featured version of Johann Sebastian Joust.

The four developers have taken to Kickstarter to bring the games to PlayStation 3 (and help port each game around to the various platforms they don’t already exist on), where $15 will net you a copy of the collection on its release sometime in Autumn of 2013, along with a bonus copy of Tennnes, created by Vlambeer’s JW Nijman.

For twice that you get early beta access to all the games in the collection far sooner than the projected release date, and twice that will also get you bonus games from Sasso, Corbetta and Foddy. Higher-level backers can get a Joust ‘starter-kit’ with seven PlayStation Move controllers and custom “charms” (see above for an illustrated example of the Ink-It Labs product) to clasp to & identify your own set, a package of pre-configured Mega GIRP dance mats, or the ultra rare 18-player version of Joust.

At the highest level, you can even get two real-live actual trampolines to play Foddy’s Get On Top, recently featured at the Venus Patrol Training Facility, alongside, totally not-coincidentally, all of the Sportsfriends games. As you might have guessed, the Training Facility was my way to help introduce the games that would eventually make its way into this campaign to a wider audience.

Find more details about the campaign and all of the included games at Kickstarter — with Joust being an instrumental part of Venus Patrol’s own campaign, this is obviously one that I’m incredibly excited for & wholeheartedly endorse.

Now in its second year, the GameCity Prize is meant to do for the videogame world what British institution Tate does for the art world with their Turner Prize, by choosing a shortlist of “the most brilliant, interesting and meaningful” games from the prior year and having them judged by “cultural commentators” from outside the games industry — to give the broader world a perspective on what’s happening in games somewhat underneath the surface.

This year, the just-announced shortlist includes a number of familiar faces, including Polytron’s Fez, Ed Key & David Kanaga’s Proteus (at top), thatgamecompany’s Journey (above), and Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust, up alongside more mainstream entries like Catherine, Super Mario 3D Land, and Mass Effect 3.

This year the top prize will be chosen from the list by a jury chaired by the film maker Lord Puttnam and including Financial Times columnist Lucy Kellaway, comic artist David Gibbons, UK designer Wayne Hemingway, BBC journalist Samira Ahmed, writer Ekow Eshun, actress Louise Brealey, actor Charlie Higson and BBC Radio DJ Jo Whiley.

The winner will be announced on October 24th at a ceremony at GameCity, where Venus Patrol will be attending with AdamAtomic’s Capsule, as well as a few more surprises up our sleeves… Visit the GameCity Prize website to learn more about the Prize & its nominees and jury.

Another location-specific update: Portland-area readers will want to clear off their Friday nights for XOXO Fringe‘s arcade, a free-to-the-public event starting at 7PM at Union/Pine, as part of the recently Kickstarted XOXO arts and tech festival, created by Andy Baio & Andy McMillan.

This very website curated the selection of games available at the arcade, which will include Messhof’s Nidhogg, Ed Key & David Kanaga’s Proteus, Noah Sasso’s Barabariball, Terry Cavanagh’s Super Hexagon, Die Gute Fabrik’s Johann Sebastian Joust, the very first look at the new game from Big Bucket, the team behind the 2010 iPhone/iPad/Mac game The Incident, and more.

In addition to the games, there’ll also be a live performance from Disasterpeace, the musician behind the soundtrack to Polytron’s Fez, which I can say from experience is an unmissable show.

Below the fold, I’ll stick video of all of the above for the uninitiated, so you can see what you’re getting into. I unfortunately couldn’t make it out to the event, so take lots of pictures for us! See the official XOXO Fringe site for more information.

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