Sort of an announcement, I suppose, but I'm more interested in discussion regarding the entries. I did a quick count, and it looks like 76/110 entries were classified in the web/downloadable category. Some interesting casual/indie entries listed, as well.

I haven't gone through them all yet, but I'll post some feedback when I do.

http://www.igf.com/2004entrants.shtml

Excellent. There seems to be some familiar entries in the Web/Downloadable category, Action Solitaire from Goodsol, Rocknor's Donut Factory by Monolux. Aah, and Trash by Inhuman games. And a small entry from Mistaril as well .. :)

Please add yourself if you have an entry and hang out around here.

Interesting to compare development budgets and effort:
Rocknor's Donut Factory - $500 - 8 months
Space Station Manager - $10,000 - 1.5 years
Action Solitaire - $30,000 - 4.5 months
Trash - $100,000 - 3.5 years

Hanford and I have obviously not included the cost of lost income in the calculations. Thomas has outsourced and Trash is just big.

The competition looks like a great race. Good luck to all of you who participated! :)

And there is Milo with Starshatter in the Open category:

Starshatter - <$10000 - 6 Years

Milo hasn't included the cost of work either .. :)

I'm only about half way through the list, but I'm a bit surprised that most of the developers don't have very much (if any) info on their web sites. I know it's not a requirement for IGF submission, but surely the IGF listings are going to bring in a little bit of publicity. It would be handy to have a least a little bit of info about the game along with a few screenshots.

I understand that most of these games probably aren't finished, so no downloads are available. However, having more info than the 2-3 sentences (which don't tell much) on the IGF site would be a good way to get people interested. I just went and looked at probably the first 40 of those sites. I'm sure some of them have some cool games that might be of interest, but I don't really know about it so I'm more likely to just forget about the game. If they had something to grab my interest, I'm sure I'd try to keep a better eye out for the game and see how it turns out.

The hipsoft guy posts here on occasion
They have a game on the list..

Digby's Donuts
Budget: $10,000
Dev. Time: 3 months


Hey, and Hammu posts here a lot

Dr. Lunatic Supreme With Cheese
$5000
2 years.

Friendly Combatants from GLIPSE ent. (another forum member)
$2000
4 months

and lest we forget BongPig (who hasn't been around much lately)

Mutant Storm
Budget: £25000
Dev. Time: 12 months

the 21-6 guys post here on occasion,

Orbz
Shoestring budget
10 week dev time.

The above is a list of indie's from our boards who have games entered at the IGF. The responce below is to Lord K's comments has nothing to do with the above list of fellow indies. :)

------

And yes, every year the IGF blesses indie games with loads of publicity, and often there's no where for it to go. AIt just dead ends at a website with a one sentance description and a screenshot. I noticed that a good number of enteries didn't even have company names. It's almost laughable, but I guess everyone has different goals. I think many IGF entrants are hoping to score a retail publisher or get hired at a game company.

Originally posted by Dan MacDonald
It just dead ends at a website with a one sentance description and a screenshotIn the case of most of the current batch, I'd be happy just to see a screenshot, but it seems like most don't even have that.

but I guess everyone has different goals. I think many IGF entrants are hoping to score a retail publisher or get hired at a game company. Yes, that was also my first thought (not everyone wants to be a shareware mogul), but wouldn't it be a whole lot easier to attract a publisher or an employer if they could get a little bit more info about their project? As is, what they have is no better than a few sentences on a resume....it has no meaningful context.

I guess maybe most people's mindset is that the only way to benefit from the IGF is to make it to the finals and then win an award.

Beesly's Buzzwords (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=104) is our "actual" title; we're publishing the standalone version very soon through the usual casual channels. The URL on the entry only has the web version, but does have some screens/mp3s from the deluxe.

Budget: $5000
Dev. Time: 4 months

The budget represents the worth of the software we used. We didn't actually pay for it, we ended up doing a different technology demo for Virtools in exchange for the licenses we needed.

We submitted a slew of hobby projects at various stages this year, too:

I Hate Clowns (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=105) ($0, 4 days)
Rolling Assault (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=97) ($0, 2 weeks)
Smallball (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=102) ($0, 2 weeks)
Sprinky (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=101) ($0, 3 days...which is apparently the shortest dev time this year)

Most of these will have updates by the October 15th update deadline.

I'm a big fan of Chronic Logic--although I don't believe they post here--which submitted some new titles this year:

2048:Insurgency (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=90) ($5000, 3 years)
Gish (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=87) ($2000, 2 weeks)

In addition to some of their already-released products:

Triptych (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=81) ($2000, 1 month)
Word Peace (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=84) ($1000, 1 month)

Also of interest to me are the entries by Full Armor Studios:

Library of the Ages (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=111) (n/a, 3 months)
Manna Munchers (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=109) (n/a, 7 weeks)
The Walls of Jericho (http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entries.php?entry_id=106) (n/a, 5 weeks)

The 5 weeks of development time on Walls of Jericho is interesting, considering its success.

Originally posted by LordKronos
I'm only about half way through the list, but I'm a bit surprised that most of the developers don't have very much (if any) info on their web sites. I know it's not a requirement for IGF submission, but surely the IGF listings are going to bring in a little bit of publicity. It would be handy to have a least a little bit of info about the game along with a few screenshots.

When I saw that the entries were posted I told my boss at work I had an emergency and had to go home. So far there's some great stuff on there. And as usual it's pathetic that a lot of the teams didn't even take time to throw up a placeholder page with minimal info. I ws really surprised that the Chronic Logic guys have a page but it has zero info.

Anyway, the guy that handles judging says we should be recieving our games very soon, so I'll be sure to let y'all know which ones I get. Hopefully they're good :)

Gregory,
I didn't realize you were going to be a judge (if you mentioned it before, I must have missed it). So I went to take a look at the list of judge, and I must say I love your mug shot...I guess that falls under the category of guerilla marketing :)

Paul,
I noticed you are also a judge...and I think I recognize that background from the Made In Michigan Demo :)

I was just curious...how are the judges selected? Does the IGF approach you? Do you volunteer?

Originally posted by LordKronos
I didn't realize you were going to be a judge (if you mentioned it before, I must have missed it). So I went to take a look at the list of judge, and I must say I love your mug shot...I guess that falls under the category of guerilla marketing :)

Hehehe, thanks! I had one shot where it looked like I had a tat saying "DIY Games" in old english lettering on my neck, but it didn't come out that great, ahhh well.

As far as being a judge goes, there was a call for judges on Gamasutra about a month or two back. I'm sure a few of the guys have been asked to be judges, but I think most volunteered.

Oh yeah, make sure y'all check out the Sponsors page to see the neat-0 banner that Sparky whipped up so many months ago.

Yikes, I guess I made a wrong call for the IGF. I looked at the deadline and said there's no way I'm going to get out of beta by then, so I didn't submit. Call me naive. :rolleyes:

They Judging list looks like a roll call for a developer dinner. Very impressive, would be heaps interesting to have your game "reviewed" by any of those in the list. I wonder if the entrants get to see the judges review ....

Wow I am quite impressed by some budget/dev times.
For example the game of Kai-Peter!
Surely you have a part-time job or you are young and don't need to work :) because spending 1.5 year to develop a title without any other source of income would be impossible for me :rolleyes:
Also the budget impressed me a lot... if I may ask, those 10.000$ are for the software you had to buy, for the ppl that helped you (artists, testers, etc) or something else...?

For my game I made all by myself except for testing, some friends of mine helped me to debug (but was for 1-2 days only).
Took me 5 months, working on it part-time (ex. about 2-3 hours a day), so I am quite proud of it, considering the complexity of the game itself :P

Anyway good luck to all partecipants! ;)

Originally posted by Kai-Peter
And there is Milo with Starshatter in the Open category
Yeah. Probably a waste of money for me to even enter. You just know that something like acmi {{ park }} or Facade is going to win just for being weird. Er, I mean "original".

Facade seems to be like simulearn ( http://www.simulearn.net )
You have to interact in the story in real time else you'll ruin the meeting! ( no new coffee machine ! duh! )


pat.

Originally posted by milo
Yeah. Probably a waste of money for me to even enter. You just know that something like acmi {{ park }} or Facade is going to win just for being weird. Er, I mean "original".

No doubt huh? That's something that's always disturbed me about the competition, it's whole idea is to reward original games, not good games. They should have a seperate category for good games, so to make me happy.

This year will be interesting because Savage is in the running. It's independent given the competitions relatively lax guidelines, but it certainly fodder for one of those "is it really independent?" discussions. It's pretty innovative, and very technically advanced. While one of last years winners, Pontifex 2, wasn't really that innovative when you consider the fact that it's the third game in the series.

You mean Savage from S3 games?
I was beta-tester... well, good idea, but bad implementation. I don't think it could win anything from the gameplay point of view! :)

Savage is misclassified as a web/downloadable game, too. In fact, a few other titles seems to be in a gray zone and should probably be open (one-level demo is <15mb, but the complete game would obviously be over, etc).

Two donut-themed games!I hope they add a separate Baked Goods category next year, so we can enter Apple Strudel: Apocalypse and Eclair Tournament 2004.

How does that Cartoon Network Teen Titans game count as an indie? I'm sure the company that developed it is, technically, an independent contractor, but I don't think games with big licenses (DC Comics!) like that should count. Sheesh.

Originally posted by SparkyTCFH

How does that Cartoon Network Teen Titans game count as an indie? I'm sure the company that developed it is, technically, an independent contractor, but I don't think games with big licenses (DC Comics!) like that should count. Sheesh.

Basically, games are ineligable if they were developed on big-publisher dollar. Last year, this meant IDSA member companies. This year, rules are:


As the Festival is designed to recognize independent game developers, game entries at the time they are entered into the Festival must not be in any way affiliated with or sponsored by any member firm of the Entertainment Software Association (a list of member firms can be found at http://www.theesa.com/members.html) nor ELSPA (a list of member firms can be found at http://www.elspa.com), nor subsidiaries of any of these firms (henceforth called "Ineligible Publishers"). Game Entries that have been developed, financed, or in any way assisted by Ineligible Publishers (or their subsidiaries) are ineligible for the IGF and will be disqualified.

I know that a few titles last year had huge amounts ($500k) of funding from Hong Kong-based publishers. This year, Savage was funded by iGames, which isn't a member of either organization. I haven't given the open category entries a good solid look, yet, but I expect other titles have similiar funding.

Frankly, I think they should disallow any publisher funding and focus on self-funded studios.

Originally posted by Matthew
Frankly, I think they should disallow any publisher funding and focus on self-funded studios.

Yeah, it's a strange rule with so many potential holes in it. But, it's easy to enforce, so I think that's a big reason for going with it. Otherwise they get bogged down in the same questions we've raised here before. "If someone gets a bunch of money from a meat packing company to make their game, are they independent?" You could go back and forth on a discussion like that all day and not come to an agreement. I'm sure that trying to work something like that into legally binding rules would just be a headache. So I'm sure the organizers are left hoping that a studio like id Software doesn't enter, because they could throw something together in a month that would blow everything out of the water (on a technical level at least). And what about a company like Slitherine who entered Spartan. Sure, they're independent in the sense that they're creating the with their own money, but I would bet my life that they're going to sign a publishing agreement with CDV, just like they have done with their last three games.

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
For example the game of Kai-Peter!
Surely you have a part-time job or you are young and don't need to work :) because spending 1.5 year to develop a title without any other source of income would be impossible for me :rolleyes:
Also the budget impressed me a lot... if I may ask, those 10.000$ are for the software you had to buy, for the ppl that helped you (artists, testers, etc) or something else...?


The 1.5 years include the period since February this year when the game was released, so the game has provided income for its development since then (remember that I have this "release weekly" development method)

The budget includes a part of the tools that were bought to make the game, and some of the salary. Many expenses are divided over a longer period of time to account for the fact that many of the tools are still usable in a year or two.

We now have information on our entry, Digby's Donuts, up on our site. We were asked to hold off on releasing information about the game because it won the RealArcade contest (but now the news is out so we were able to update our site).

For those interested, you can check it out at:
http://www.hipsoft.com/dd.html

Good luck to everyone that entered!
-Scorpio

I'm just chiming in with my entry into the igf... it's called
Crystal Wizard and you can check it out at
http://www.tatescolony.com/games/games.php

I just discovered these forums..have to say there's lots of good information in here.

"And what about a company like Slitherine who entered Spartan. Sure, they're independent in the sense that they're creating the with their own money, but I would bet my life that they're going to sign a publishing agreement with CDV, just like they have done with their last three games."

Just saw this and its a bit late :)

Slitherine have never worked with CDV, though we did approach them a couple of times and got knowcked back ;). We have to find a publisher in each country for our games, just like anyone else. We do not have any long running deals with any publishers & each game is a new deal & has different publishers. We are completely independent.

E.g. In Germany for example
Legion was published by Modern Games
CoW was published by Koch Media
Spartan is being published by Just Play

USA
Legion was Strategy First
CoW was SF as well
Spartan is Graphsim

Poland
Legion was CD Projekt
CoW is Play
Spartan is probably going to be Play too

We receive no money up front from these people & have to completely self fund. Sometimes we work with a publisher on more than one game, but sometimes we move on.

We do not borrow from banks, publishers or anyone else. Nobody has any shares in us, except the 5 people that work for Slitherine full time. I dont see how this makes us any different from other indie developers, except we have stuck our necks out and taken bigger risks to produce bigger games by investing more of our time & money up front!

If anyone has any further questions feel free to come to our forum as I dont check in here too regularly :)

http://www.slitherine.co.uk

Hello, can you PM me or send an email to info@studior4.com, I'd like to ask you some things about some of the publishers you mentioned (if you have time).

Thanks in advance.

To dex forum members: it's nothing secret, I just need some advice. If I'll ever make a deal be sure that I'll post info here as well, unless I sign a NDA :)