By TerryI’m back from the IGF! Er, actually, I’ve been back for ages. I’m still recovering.
Photo by Tembac, Left to Right: Daniel Benmergui, Martin Jonasson, me, Michael Todd, Erin Robinson, Pablo Weremczuk, and Petri Purho.
I’ve mentioned before on this site about feeling isolated from the rest of the indie community by living out here in Ireland – and after the IGF finalists were announced in January I really felt like I had no right going to this thing. Thankfully, I eventually realised how silly that was and went anyway. It was an amazing week. To finally meet so many people that have inspired me to do what I’m doing, that I’d only ever talked to online before, was incredible.
Unfortunately with it being so crazy there were a lot of other people that I was only able to have a very brief icebreaking chat with, or didn’t meet at all, but hopefully I can make up for that next year!
Near the end of the week I made a couple of short throwaway games, at the Glorious GDC Gameboree 2010 in a Hilton Hotel close to where I was staying, and at Noisebridge, a hackerspace in San Francisco. My games aren’t very good, but this one is possibly worth playing:
It’s inspired by a game I played at the amazing Gamma IV party.
The other two: this game, which is based on a random page from a random book, and this, which is a game of skill for four players!
I like N.O.T.T.U.B.
That’s a pretty funny game. =p
I’m glad you had fun at IGF.
I’ve always wanted to go, but never had the time.
I’d feel a little out of place as well since I havn’t produced any games worth mentioning.
I am working on one with a friend but currently it’s on hold what with schoolwork taking most of my time up.
Anyway, I’m excited to see what else you may be churning up now that you’re back home. =)
I’ll never understand why Kongregate seems to be the portal of choice for the TIGSource crowd. N.O.T.T.U.B. illustrates this perfectly: The reviewers on Newgrounds got it (partly anyway), almost unanimously. The comments on Kongregate amount to “this isn’t a real game, where is the high score table, go away”. It’s almost always like this, too. Kongregate’s purpose seems to be the conservative, ‘conventional’ bastion of flash portals, and the user base reflects that with their preferences. Why does it get so much love from the indies, which is never returned?
To clarify and summarize:
Kongregate likes to set itself out to be the flash portal with ‘higher’ standards, but I think it’s pretty clear by now that they ‘lifted’ their standards in the wrong direction.
What’s with the usage of old sounds? There’s BVP music and Maverick Bus.
@StephenM3: I know what you mean about Kongregate users, but Kongregate itself and the guys who run it have been pretty good to me in the past. If it wasn’t for their sponsorship of Don’t Look Back, I’d be back working some dull office job at this point. (And by the way, Newgrounds didn’t even send me a response when I approached them with Don’t Look Back.)
This game was originally flagged for deletion by the users on Kongregate for “not being a game” and automatically taken down, but as soon as Alison saw it she put it right back up.
@The Brass: That was kind of a recurring theme at GDC 🙂 (I reused the conga music in GDC 2010: The Game as well)
The comments are better on Newgrounds, sure, because the Newgrounds system encourages longer, more thoughtful comments and punishes you for making a “useless” review. But the ratings on Kongregate are actually better! 2.31 on Kongregate versus 2.15 on Newgrounds.
I’ve got to say.
I pulled this on my friends. it was amazing. asked them all to hold their finger over the spacebar and press it on three. They didn’t know what they were supposed to do. I sprinted. They caught on and sprinted. Through the halls of our school XD. (did i mention that we were yelling too?) It was quite possibly the most fun i’ve had in school.
:3
That is amazing, I’m so happy to hear someone actually played it properly 😀
that sounds awesome Daik. That does sound like fun.
Could be time for the beard to go. Weren’t you going to shave it off when VVVVVV came out?
N.O.T.T.U.B is amazing, haha. Too bad it’s 3am here and no one else is awake– the game has the potential to serve as better exercise than any DDR variant! :p
~Josiah