In the latest postings over the last week, Gamasutra's jobs board plays host to roles across the world and in every major discipline, including opportunities at Rockstar North, Gazillion Entertainment, Tencent Boston, and more.
Wednesday, 22 December 2010
Round-Up: Gamasutra Network Jobs, Week Of December 10
Browser Game Pick: Time Pygmy (deepnight)
In Time Pygmy you play as a caveman who discovers a time portal inside his cave on a rainy day. Being rather inquisitive he decides to jump into the portal without thinking twice, and finds himself teleported to a cosy house sometime in the distant future. Our protagonist is also given only four minutes to make as many discoveries as he can, before he is forcefully returned to his own timeline to reflect on the amazing adventure he's just had.
Every new discovery that you make will light up a bulb at the bottom of the screen, although the first two discoveries are pretty much given to you as a gift during the tutorial sequence. Some puzzles are solved by placing two objects side by side, while others may require a certain amount of brute force before players can add them to their row of achievements.
The game is also rather short in length, but you'll need at least a couple of playthroughs to figure out every discovery there is to find in this Ludum Dare 19 competition submission.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/IndependentGaming/~3/QVXHeorzNU8/browser_game_pick_time_pygmy_d.html
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2011 Independent Games Festival Reveals Nuovo Award Finalists
The Independent Games Festival (IGF), the prestigious GDC-held video game industry event highlighting and awarding the talents of independent game developers, has announced the finalists for the 2011 Nuovo Award, which honors "abstract, short-form, and unconventional game development."
Some of this year's finalists include unconventional party game Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now (B.U.T.T.O.N.), first-person dinner simulation title Dinner Date, Messhof's chunky 2-player fencing title Nidhogg, and zen-like tree simulation title Bohm.
The Nuovo Award, the top video game art prize, is announcing an increase to $5,000 for this year's award winner, thanks to the quality of this year's entries. The winner of the award will be revealed at the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 2, 2011 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, during Game Developers Conference 2011. In addition, all Nuovo finalists will be playable in a special section of the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor from March 2nd to 4th.
Now in its third year, the Nuovo Award allows more esoteric art games from among the almost 400 IGF entries to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles, and has been newly expanded this year to include eight finalists.
The full list of this year's Nuovo Award finalists, with links to screenshots and videos of the titles on their official IGF.com entry pages, is as follows:
- Bohm, created by Monobanda - ("Gives you control over the life of a tree. It's a game based on slow gameplay and the act of creation.")
- A House in California, created by Cardboard Computer - ("A surreal, narrative game about four characters who bring a house to life... with environments and activities drawn from a combination of memory, research, poetry, and fantasy.")
- Nidhogg, created by Messhof - ("A 2 player fencing game with football & platforming elements".)
- Dinner Date, created by Stout Games - ("You play as the subconsciousness of Julian Luxemburg, waiting for his date to arrive. You listen in on his thoughts while tapping the table, looking at the clock and eventually reluctantly starting to eat...")
- Loop Raccord, created by Nicolai Troshinsky - ("Manipulate a series of video clips in order to create... continuous movement.")
- The Cat and the Coup, created by Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad - ("A documentary game in which you play the cat of Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh, the first democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran.")
- Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now (B.U.T.T.O.N.), created by Copenhagen Game Collective - ("A one-button party game for 2-8 players. ... rather than let the computer carry out all the rules, the players are themselves responsible for enforcing (or not enforcing) the rules.")
- Hazard: The Journey Of Life, created by Demruth - ("A philosophical first person single player environmental puzzle game. The game presents no goals directly to the player, but they create goals for themselves based on what they know of the world.")
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Tuesday, 21 December 2010
Hudson Launches TurboGrafx-16 GameBox Featuring Bonk, Gradius, and More
Veteran console games publisher Hudson has released TurboGrafx-16 GameBox, a free download featuring many of the classic NEC console’s greatest hits available as in-app purchases priced at $2.99 each. Known elsewhere in the world as the PC Engine, the TurboGrafx-16 was a not-quite-16-bit console that waged war with Sega’s Genesis and later Nintendo’s SNES in [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fingergaming/~3/7Bi8tgNC_FY/
GDC 2011 Announces Art, Audio Talks From Final Fantasy, Pixar, Gear Of War 3
Organizers of the 2011 Game Developers Conference have debuted initial lectures from the Art and Audio Tracks for the Main Conference, spanning Gears Of War 3, Pixar, Limbo, Final Fantasy and beyond.
As the overall session list for the event further expands, organizers are specially highlighting the initial Main Conference session announcements around these two areas.
The Art and Audio Tracks take place from Wednesday March 2nd to Friday March 4th, 2011 during the pre-eminent, San Francisco-based event, alongside other discipline-specific Tracks dedicated to programming, design, business and management, and production.
All of the above Track sessions are open to those with a Main Conference or All-Access Pass, with a special Audio Pass also available, and some of the top sessions debuting in the Art and Audio Tracks are as follows:
Art Track
One of the notable Art Track reveals at this early stage is 'Fast and Efficient Facial Rigging in Gears Of War 3' by Epic Games' Jeremy Ernst, showcasing the methodology used for the much-awaited action title.
The lecture is designed to "show developers of any level how to create and think in a way that leads to faster and more efficient ways of building not only face rigs, but any kind of rig or tool."
Zynga's CityVille is boom town
"CityVille" is the fastest growing Facebook game ever with more than 17 million people playing it during its first 12 days on the social network. The game's creators at Zynga say a new strategy at the company has helped make it a booming success.
Sony To Launch Official App Store App For iPhone, Android
Smartphones have fast become a major arena for video game industry players, and now Sony is looking to get on board with a free PlayStation app for iPhone, iPod Touch and Android, which it plans to release in the near future. Sony’s official PlayStation mobile app will be primarily geared at enabling users to access [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/fingergaming/~3/qftnk7UNruo/
2011 IGF Nuovo Awards: Jury Statement About Finalists
Following the announcement of the eight finalists for the 2011 Independent Games Festival Nuovo award, which is intended to "honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games", the IGF Nuovo Jury has released an official statement explaining and expanding upon the reasoning behind this year's picks.
The Nuovo Jury's finalist statement discussing and justifying their picks - also adding a number of 'honorable mentions' for games that were just outside the finalist selection, but had fascinating characteristics - reads as follows:
"Thanks to everyone who submitted their games to the Independent Games Festival this year, all of whom were in consideration for this award. Our larger body of Main Competition judges nominated nearly 75 games for this year's Nuovo award, all of which represented an enormous breadth of boundary-pushing ideas, concepts, mechanics and viewpoints.
This year, the Nuovo Jury discussion focused on celebrating games that not only embody a strong authorial voice, but "open the eyes of the audience (and other developers), that provoke discussion... not for the sake of being contrary, but for the sake of expanding the form, of treading on unexplored terrain."
The jury also felt Nuovo finalists should make the player "feel lost at the beginning because they've never experienced such a language before, but then should feel delight when they manage to 'understand' it, and feel eager to build on it," and should "have some obscure magic that transcends analysis and picking apart of individual design choices."
Keeping these criteria in mind, the discussion focused on the games that were most-recommended by Main Competition judges, as well as our own picks from IGF entrants. We have decided (via online discussion and jury voting) on the following finalists for the 2011 IGF Nuovo Award, each of which will receive All-Access GDC 2011 tickets and the opportunity to exhibit their game in the conference's IGF Pavilion:
Finalists
- A House in California (Cardboard Computer)
As a retro-styled point-and-click adventure, A House in California was praised for taking the mechanics of that classic genre and repurposing them "in strange and touching ways to create a game that's about stuff that games are rarely about (memory, childhood, generations, and the importance of physical places to all of these things)."
- Bohm (Monobanda)
Monobanda's reflective, zen-like tree-growing experience surprised the jury with the "audio/visual follow through" to its straightforward and ambitious concept, with one juror noting how quickly they became "immersed, despite my generally cynical attitude towards games that proclaim poetic beauty."
- Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now (B.U.T.T.O.N.) (Copenhagen Game Collective)
B.U.T.T.O.N.'s raucous approach to essentially controller-less play (bar its titular set of buttons) was praised for going "programmatically in the opposite direction" of the wider industry's take on motion controls like Kinect, Move and the Wii, which "aspire to control and discipline your movement," and was called "one of the few titles here that potentially introduce a new kind of gameplay instead of adding a new twist to existing forms."
- The Cat and the Coup (Peter Brinson and Kurosh ValaNejad)
This "documentary" game of the first democratically-elected Prime Minister of Iran, told from the vantage point of his cat, was called out both for how "the physics system functions as a broad metaphor for instability," and its unique mix of "Islamic art and dada collage," and for perfectly embodying the Nuovo Award's various "abstract, shortform, authorial, unconventionally fun, meaningful" criteria.
- Dinner Date (Stout Games)
Stout's first-person/internal-monologue of a would-be romantic-encounter was noted not just for being "about something totally untouched by games", but for being a game that symbiotically manipulates both the protagonist's subconsciousness and that of the player as well, and was praised for being more "play as in theater or instrument than it is play as in sports."
- Hazard: The Journey of Life (Demruth)
Built on top of the Unreal engine but employing "abstract pseudo vector graphics", Hazard was said to be a textbook example of a 'Nuovo' game for using all the "storming through corridors" conventions of the first person shooter to create a deeper examination of personal philosophy.
- Loop Raccord (Nicolai Troshinsky)
A 'video editing game' involving synchronizing video clips, Loop Raccord was specifically noted for being a work that "would NEVER have been made by a commercial studio," and for taking on the Nuovo Award's challenge of "advancing the medium and the way we think about games" by dealing with aspects "more related to fine art than the gaming world."
- Nidhogg (Messhof)
Variously praised as "stylish, perverse, incredibly deep, elegant, compelling and joyful", Messhof's tug-of-war swordplay was most often called out for its "hip, lo-fi, punk" aesthetic, but more importantly, for "supporting players in expressing themselves in a variety of ways" and "creating a social space and a spectacle through its play."
Honorable Mentions
There were many titles that were recommended or advocated for by judges and received multiple votes in our final tally, but did not make the Finalist list due to insufficient votes. Nonetheless, we're happy to mention and recommend these titles as Nuovo 'honorable mentions', that those interested in alternative independent games should certainly check out:
- Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games) A deeply psychological, unique take on the first-person/immersive horror game.
- Choice Of Broadsides (Choice Of Games) A Royal Navy text adventure with deep consequences.
- Faraway (Steph Thirion) A fantastically stylish, joy-provoking arcade game of constellation creation.
- Feign (Ian Snyder) An "exploration of the metaphysics of virtual space."
- Spy Party (Chris Hecker) Like a Turing-test in reverse, a game of "acting as artificial intelligence," and a thrilling one-on-one battle of wits.
Thanks,
Daniel Benmergui, Ian Bogost, Auriea Harvey, Clint Hocking, Rod Humble, Jesper Juul, Frank Lantz, Paolo Pedercini, Jason Rohrer, Michael Samyn, Justin Smith, Eddo Stern, Eric Zimmerman [IGF 2011 Nuovo Jury]."
The Nuovo Award, which was previously won by Jason Rohrer's acclaimed abstract multiplayer title Between in 2009 and Tuning, the perception-warping platformer from Swedish indie developer Cactus, allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles.
As in 2010, a panel of notable game and art world figures -- spanning previous Nuovo award winners and finalists like Ian Bogost, Daniel Benmergui, Justin Smith and Rohrer, Molleindustria's Paolo Pedercini, Area/Code's Frank Lantz and more, have decided the finalists (and will decide the winner) for the Nuovo Award in discussion-based, juried form -- mirroring similar, artistically important awards in other industries.
All eight Nuovo finalists will exhibit their games at Game Developers Conference 2011 in San Francisco in the IGF Pavilion, and a Nuovo Award winner, alongside an increased prize of $5,000, will be revealed at the IGF Awards Ceremony on the evening of March 2, 2011.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/W8swPdO2UIE/2011_igf_nuovo_awards_jury_sta.php
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GDC China 2010 Sees Record Attendance, Show To Return In 2011
Now that 2010's Game Developers Conference China has concluded, organizers are revealing that the three-day event saw a record 3,300 attendees from China, Asia, and worldwide -- and will make its return to Shanghai in 2011.
GDC China 2010 hosted nearly 40 international speakers and over 50 exhibitors and sponsors for the December 5th-7th event, and also was the stage for the second annual Independent Games Festival China.
Overall, the show focused on global game development as well as the development and business of online games. Along the way, GDC China also held special summits for social games, independent games, serious games and mobile games.
Among the conference highlights were keynote talks from Square Enix senior VP Hiromichi Tanaka and from Cryptic Studios chief creative officer Bill Roper, plus a wide variety of talks from developers and producers from League of Legends' Riot Games, Angry Birds creator Rovio, CCP's EVE Online and many, many more.
IGF China saw 12 representatives of the region's best independent creators invited to the show and awards ceremony, with South Korea's Turtle Cream taking Best Game overall with Sugar Cube, among other major award winners showcasing their titles on the GDC China show floor.
A number of high-profile talks from the event were covered by Gamasutra -- part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is GDC -- and are available to view in the website's archives. In addition, video recordings of numerous GDC China lectures will be available to GDC Vault subscribers in the near future, with selected videos and slides available for free soon.
"We are very proud to continue to produce a strong and valuable forum for developers in the region with the 3rd annual GDC China," said Meggan Scavio, GDC China event director. "The energy and spirit of the Game Developers Conference was demonstrated here in Shanghai through the excitement experienced by all of our participants."
Monday, 20 December 2010
Street Music: Isle of Tune
London-based interactive developer Jim Hall has created Isle of Tune, an awesome music sequencer that's more than a little like Toshio Iwai's 1996 PC game SimTunes, allowing you to create/edit a song while laying out a street.
Basically, you direct cars around an isometric neighborhood, and they play different noises as they pass tress, lamp posts, and houses. You can easily set it up so that a separated car will replay a loop to create a basic beat for your song.
It's coming to iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad soon, but you can play with the super fun app online right now for free! Some user-created "islands" that you need to check out: Michael Jackson's "Beat It", MGMT's "Kids", and Dr. Dre's "The Next Episode".
[Via Kottke]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/g_6WpT2YyKU/street_music_isle_of_tune.php
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Section 8: Prejudice To Be Full Featured, Digital Only Release
Timegate Studios have announced that Section 8: Prejudice, a sequel to the retail release a couple of years ago, will get a strictly digital release for PSN and XBLA, and at the affordable price of $14.99.
The developers promise a 5-hour, story-driven single-player campaign as well as multiplayer for up to 32 players, as well as a new "Swarm" based cooperative mode for up to 4 players.
Timegame initially went the digital route with the original game on PSN, but went through so many fluctuations of price that hopefully now they've figured out the digital realm a little bit more.
Prejudice will be released in Q1, 2011.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamerbytes/~3/UteF-AZvcHg/section_8_prejudice_to_be_full.php
Nintendo Points To Fitness Game, Real Fitness Correlation
Nintendo's Wii owes at least some of the credit for its big marketshare to the promise of fitness and physical activity through motion controls. Now, a new survey finds that health games can help lead players to do more real-world exercise, too. The American Heart Association says that 58 percent of people who play "active-play" video games have started a new activity, like jogging or a sport, in the real world since they picked up ...
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/SeriousGamesSourceNews/~3/4DJmMrUSlG0/item.php
Minimal Mario As Playable NES Game
By now, you've likely seen someone's mock-ups of a "minimal Mario" or other famous video game characters -- reducing their designs to a few pixels -- but indie developer Jaeden Amero actually created a playable "minimal" version of Super Mario Bros., allowing you to run through the classic NES games' worlds with Goombas, coin blocks, and turtle shells all transformed into a single block.
It's an NES ROM hack, so I'm not sure if there's a way to play it through any shady practices. Amero suggests you somehow make a dump of your Super Mario Bros. cart, apply his IPS patch (requires an IPS patcher), and play it with an emulator. As you'll notice in the screenshot above, you won't see the menu text for obvious reasons, so just hit start or select-start (2-payer) to begin playing.
[Via 4 Color Rebellion]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gamesetwatch/~3/Ik-sD_9_gws/minimal_mario_as_playable_nes.php
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DeNA To Launch Global Social Gaming Network, Partners With Samsung
Tokyo-based DeNA announced plans to launch a global social gaming network for smartphones in April 2011, as well as a partnership to integrate the platform on Samsung's Android handsets.
The planned service is called Mobage -- similar to DeNA's Mobage-town platform in Japan, which has 20.5 million registered users -- and will feature a catalog of social games. Mobage will offer "social entertainment" and networking features, such as sharing status updates and communicating with other players, too.
Ahead of the network's launch, DeNA has initiated a private beta for its Open Mobage Smartphone SDK with 50 partners, including Hudson, Square Enix, Take-Two Interactive, Nexon, SGN, Gamevil, RockYou, PlayFirst, Mochi Media, Gameview Studios, Flipside 5, Nimblebit, Lumos Labs, Playforge, Ricochet Labs, and Bolt Creative.
The SDK promises access to and monetization of DeNA's Mobage-town and plus+ audience. DeNA also unveiled ngCore, created by recently-acquired subsidiary Ngmoco, which serves as Mobage's technology layer and allows developers to deploy games across devices (Android, iOS, and web) globally with "minimum modification".
"With ngCore, we are providing a technology framework that allows for the rapid development, deployment and iteration of optimized native quality applications that can be deployed globally, across platforms, and across devices," says Ngmoco's CEO Neil Young.
Samsung will work with DeNA to offer Mobage on its Android handsets in most of the world "in several months." Ngmoco says this deal will accelerate the social gaming network's global market growth, and that it will continue to expand the service with more global relationships throughout the coming year.
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WorldsInMotion/~3/b4y7UZrfqrE/dena_to_launch_global_social_g.php
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