IGF 2009 Entries Announced

A year in the making. A list of entries for the 2009 Independent Games Festival has finally been revealed. This year there are 226 entries in the Main Competition (last year there were 173 entries), and 145 Student Showcase entries (last year's was 125 entries). What a big jump in numbers! Now if only the IGF site can revamp their entry-browsing capability so users can actually navigate the list with ease...by we can always dream ;)

Joking aside, looking over the huge list of entries, first impression: there are a lot of good titles, but no "killer title" that stands above the rest...last year, there were a few games that were REALLY good and people somehow knew they were at least going to make it to the finalist round (like World of Goo or Noitu Love 2), there was that "spark" in them that made them shine. This year, while there are many fun games, nothing particularly stood out...or it could just be that the really good ones are still hiding in a sea of good-but-not-yet-there games. Or it could just be that I'm too ignorant to tell the good games from the bad ones, after all, a majority of the entries aren't even playable...which brings me to my second complaint (was there even a first complaint? lol)...

...games that do not have a playable demo by the time of the second round should at least have a gameplay video ready. If I was the guy running the show, I'd axe any game without a playable demo in the first round. It seriously is not fun when information on 90% of the finalists of an award show is scarce at best, with no playable demo years after entering the competition. Why enter the thing if you're not gonna have something to show? Or they can always add a new category in the competition called "Beta-that-likely-won't-come-out-in-god-knows-how-many-years."

With that out of the way...let's take a peek at some of the entries that look somewhat interesting...either in a good or bad way.

First comes one of my personal favorite, Dyson. Originally an entry to TIGSource's Procedural Generation competition, the game has since became a full-fledged beast of a game with beautiful visuals. It's a very unique real-tiome strategy game with an interesting atmosphere, although it didn't win the PGC, it wouldn't be surprising to see it make it to the next round in IGF.

Not to be outdone by its PGC cousin Dyson, Rescue: The Beagles, which beat Dyson to win the PGC competition, can also be found among the list of entries. The simple platformer is a great coffee break game easy to pick up, easy to put down. With its simple yet charming graphics and gameplay, this game have the potential to make it far in the competition. I'm crossing my fingers for these two games.

Next we have Blueberry Garden, this game received quite a bit of publicity a while back thanks to its uniqueness (probably in graphics), unfortunately no playable demos are available. Looking at the videos, the only thing I can say is that the art looks like it was taken straight from a children's story book... The game won the award for "Best Innovation" at Swedish Game Awards 2008, which I suppose is a good thing. The game was supposed to be released in summer 2008, which, as you might have guessed, did not happen.

Conflux is another game that sounds just like my type:

Conflux is an ecological action game. The player takes control of a peacock-like creature placed in a rich ecosystem. Every now and then, a new species is added to the mix. To succeed, the player must reach a symbiosis with the game world -- harvesting creatures for points, but also preserving a balance so that the world remains well populated.

But then again, I'm a bit skeptical, it takes more than a short description and two screenshots to sell a game.

Cortex Command, has, for the nth time, entered the competition. Hopefully it'll make it out of the first round with the addition of a campaign mode and more polished gameplay, go CC! Pixeljam's Dino Run is also in, and what a fun game it is, now if only there's a downloadable version so an Internet connection is not absolutely necessary to enjoy the game...Going down the list, there's DROD RPG Tendrys Tale, can't say much about it since I haven't played it, but it's got a pretty strong fan base so we'll have to see.

Another familiar face this year is Goo, which seems to have improved quite a lot, although I still can't figure out if PC gamers can play it without a XBox controller...maybe I'll just stick to good ol' Liquid War. On the subject of familiar faces, another game to watch out for is Harvest Massive Encounter, a good tower defense game for those tired of playing Immortal Defense and Desktop Tower Defense.

What kinds of Indie game award show would this be if there are no art games? While their enjoyability might be questionable, there's no doubt to someone, somewhere on this planet, these short games, with their next-to-nothing gameplay, somehow provokes a strong sense of emotional feeling...without getting too much into this, we have SoWN favorite I wish I were the Moon, weird but visually stunning The Graveyard, and the short but extremely popular You Have To Burn The Rope, which will probably win the award for "Most Awesome Ending Song."

As for RPGs, Laxius Force actually looks really good, and the supposed 80 hours of gameplay sure makes this an attractive buy, but I wonder how many of those 80 hours will be spent doing boring things like walking from town to town or leveling up.

Two other heavy hitters this year are Amanita Design's Machinarium and Nifflas' Night Game. Both games have been in development since eons ago, but very little info is available, so hopefully this year's IGF will shed some lights on them.

Noitu Love 2 creator Konjak has entered his latest game, Solar Plexus, to the competition. The graphics look less cartoony than NL2, which to me was what made NL2 really attractive. The gameplay is supposed to be slower than NL2 as well, focusing more on puzzle than straight-out beat 'em up.

There are also a bunch of platformers that all really really nice, with nice graphics and nice promises, but most of them have no demo to show. So, in no particular order:

• Boingo, the art of which reminds me of Gish.
• FEIST, with its silhouette graphics, seems to be a step closer to what Limbo would have been.
• The Fancy Pants Adventure World 2, popular Flash game, been out for a while, and very, very fun.
• Super Banana Nababa, no idea what this will be like, but the name sounds pretty cool, and the setting reminds me of Castlevania.
• Walkie Tonky, "Giant robot invasion! Smash, bash and crash your way through the city in the world's first walk'em up." Interesting concept, nice graphics, now if only its creator sheds some more info on the game! Ughhhhh!

Honorable mention goes to PixelJunk Eden and PixelJunk Monsters, both of which are PS3 only, which, in my narrow, shallow and cheap mind, equals fail (PC version plz plz plz please!!!!11).

Finally, I'd like to mention Ciellus, my most-watched game of the year that. Unfortunately, the game did not make it to this year's IGF. There's always next year! I'm sure you'll win something eventually!

It seems like this year there are a lot of 3D games, so either creators are getting better, richer, more collaborative, or all three, either way, Zero Gear is looking really impressive.

And so concludes my preliminary analysis of IGF 2009, time for sleep -_-zzZZ