IGF bets?

#1 No opinions on the subject? Come on... live a little :)

#2 I find your lack of faith in your peers here in this community who have submitted entries into IGF disturbing, does that count?

#3 Whooaa. There's plenty of totally badass work here at GG. Of course there is! If you'd like some reasoning behind my post, here it is, but this was meant as a fun discussion, nothing else!

Darwinia has a huge amount of press behind it. Also, everyone loved Uplink (the company's previous game). It's also very innovative and has probably been the highest reviewed indie game this year and they spent 4 years on it and it shows. So I think that speaks for itself.

The notables mentions -- nothing screams GAME ART like Ocular Ink, but it's also quite polished and very funny. It's also DONE.

DROD is a personal choice of mine because I got terribly and I mean TERRIBLY hooked on it. It's a very enhanced version of the classic game Sokoban, and in that way its as timeless as Chess.

Trash has a very vocal following and is also DONE. I wouldn't be that surprised if Trash could pick up the Audience award, simply because of the devotion of its followers.

My panties are in enough of a bunch over trying to ship my game... but I certainly am not questioning the work of many of the folks working on Torque-engine games. But Torque IS just an engine, not a game. So don't take it personally that I didn't pick a title based on this engine as one of my favorites for the IGF awards.

#4 Dark horizons Lore, Flash Bios and Jugglin

#5 And my post was certainly not meant to piss off the DH: Lore guys. These are my guesses on who will win the IGF, not which is the best game. I tried to phrase that carefully so everyone would understand that.

#6 Hmmmm... Several of the games you mentioned were not listed in the IGF submissions.
Alter Ego, DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold, Trash area all not listed as entrys....

Am I missing something???

#7 Wow, my bad. I was doing some research on the competition this morning and I must have followed some links... long story short, I assumed they had entered and they didn't. Guess I have to revise my picks :) Like I said, ingorant picks are OK!

I haven't played many browser games lately, so I don't have a pick for that category anymore...

If I'm gonna add other notable mentions:
Dark Horizons: Lore def has a shot in the technical cat, if not others (it really does kick ass, no mea culpas here)
Mexican Motor Mafia will be nominated in the Audio category

I haven't played a lot of the others... so I'm not including them in my picks...

Too bad those others didn't enter that I thought had, they're pretty sharp!

#8 Dark Horizons Lore is in it again eh?

Well considering that DHL won some awards last year there's certainly potential to snag some more. I'm not quite sure if their 'innovation' pushing will knock DHL from winning again. I would think the IGF might be against repeat victories for the same game even if it's a complete sequel.

Mexican Motor Mafia should do well. I also think Darwinia (although wasn't that in last year too) might do well. Then I also think Wildlife Tycoon stands a chance to grab some attention at the very least because it's a little something different. Huh ... and I was going to say Tubetwist might get something but it was also in the IGF 2004 and snagged most innovative.

I really don't see a point to entering IGF more than once with the same game (especially if you already won an award). If you entered an early version of your game and didn't win I could see maybe (although I think you should wait until the game is done). Innovation is supposed to be the focus ... and it's also supposed to be to help indies with new ideas gain some attention. If you've already won the IGF then you're an indie with an old idea ... you've already gained the backing of the IGF why are you going for more with the same title?

#9 Darwinia wasn't in last year. Winners last year for the open cat, by the way, were:
Innovation in Audio: Steer Madness
Innovation in Visual Art: Alien Hominid
Innovation in Game Design: Gish
Technical Excellence: Alien Hominid
Audience Award: Alien Hominid
Grand Prize: Gish

Last year's matchup was a bit of a Shakespeare in Love vs. Saving Private Ryan. There was the more modest but more (design-wise) innovative Gish, and the over-the-top action and violence of Alien Hominid. And just like the Oscars, they split the two big ones, Director and Best Picture (if my memory serves me right).

#10 Maybe Lore was in 2 years ago? Tubetwist was also.

#11 Lore was last year, I believe it was a finalist, but it didn't win anything in the end.

#12 Oh I see. Well I think then that Lore should win something then!

I was thinking about it and if something hasn't won then I see no reason not to enter with a better version that could do it. It sounded like I was coming down on re-entering but I didn't mean to.

#13 If it's significantly improved, I don't think there's anything wrong with it either. I would suspect if it weren't significantly improved, the judges might overlook it. (I don't know what's changed about DHL since last year's submission, so I can't speak for it).

Oh, and I bet Tribal Trouble gets nominated in everything, but wins nothing.

#14 This is actually the first year TubeTwist has been submitted to IGF. The game won most innovative game at IndieGamesCon last year so people must be getting the two confused.

I vote for DH: Lore Invasions, Flash Bios, and of course TubeTwist ;)

#15 Don't forget about HackIT, it's a wildly fun TGE based puzzle game and its also entered into this years IGF competition.


@Andy, you didn't piss me off, just disappointed me that you took a lot of time to applaud a bunch of mass marketed games that really havent ever contributed to this community of ours. There are a record year for TGE based entries and I think that that is well worth celebrating here in this community, everyone who submitted a game worked incredibly hard to make it that far so lets give them a big thumbs up. Our community rarely gets the cudos it deserves so lets do our part to promote it from within. Plus if we can get the word out about them more maybe we can do our part to let the world outside our community know about these great TGE based games that have been entered.

#16 Again, I really was only trying to take bets on what would win, not what should win. Although I understand conversations like this can contribute or detract from the likelihood of someone's game being selected...

To be honest, I don't really like Darwinia that much. I stopped playing it fairly early on. I hated the control scheme, the gesture system, and it annoyed me that such a fresh game still used grenades and such. On the other hand, it's got a press machine behind it, so I bet it sweeps.

I haven't played some of the Torque games you guys are talking about yet, either.

I am a die hard Padres fan. They will make it to the playoffs this year. But would I put money on them winning the World Series? Not unless you gave me 5000 to 1 odds.

#17 Anyone have any bets on whether Luxor will be nominated for anything? (speaking of big commercial games)

#18 Cmon, people, don't forget Rumble Box :)

(I can't bet, because I have a game in)

#19 Don't overlook DOFUS with it's 1.2 million $us budget!

:-)

I don't pretend to have a clue who will win. I would hope no body does because the games have to be judged on merit...not whether we have all heard of them before.

- Paul

#20 I agree with Paul.

If finalists and winners are choosen based on the popularity of the developer or the game, the whole contest would be a farce.

-- Markus