Judging usually means playing around with early builds of an eclectic mix of games from unheard of developers, some of whom go on to have a very profound impact on the industry.

Each year, as one of many, many judges, I play a dozen or so good, bad and ugly games. And each year I come across at least one that I fall deeply in love with.

This year that game is The Swapper. It's not without its bugs, but the heart of the game is deeply intriguing to me.

From the developer's site:

"The Swapper is about treating human beings as objects. It's also a puzzle and a platformer. And a piece of weirdness."

The game plays with the idea of cloning, lights and shadows and the ability to transfer control between copies of yourself. More interesting is the notion that an old copy of you, the original, the one that you used to control, is seemingly disposable. It's a little chilling on some level and makes me want to keep a close eye on The Swapper in the future.

The Swapper

Entries to the festival are due in both main and student showcase categories by November 2009. The finalists for the main competition will be announced on Jan. 4.

Games selected as finalists will available in playable form on the GDC show floor and will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Excellence in Design, Art, the Audience Award and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

"We're delighted to return for our twelfth year of the Independent Games Festival, and we're really looking forward to see what the independent game community comes up with this time around," said Simon Carless, Chairman of the IGF. "Good luck to all entrants!"

Independent Games Festival [IGF]

Since I'm doing it on an iPhone, it should be interesting.

The Digipen students walk away with first kudos for Tag: the Power of Paint. Possibly the first instance of a 4chan smiley on an awards show stage. First winner in the main competition is Cortex Command for technical excellence. That's $2500 in ya pocket!

Next up is excellence in visual art... which Machinarium wins. Go Czech Republic!

Excellence in design is nabbed by Musaic Box. The game's creator says spaceeba! Because he speaks Russian.

BrainPipe scores the excellence in audio award. That results in some on stage beard action and another lost opportunity for Q-games' PixelJunk Eden. Poor Baiyon.

Innovation goes to Jason Rohrer for Passage Between. He's more put together than I expected and leads us into a great joke. You had to be there, I suppose.

We break for a Mega 64. This one is "If you're not indie F**K YOU!" It was funny.

The Direct2Drive award is up. Osmos team just got PAID.

The audience award just went out, going to technical excellence award winner Cortex Command. The creator thanked everyone, then took his shirt off. Dude was about as ripped as any indie game developer ever.

For the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, we have the following to choose from: Blueberry Garden, CarneyVale: Showtime, Dyson, Night Game and Osmos.

Winner? Blueberry Garden! That's $30,000 in prize money, thanks to a little contribution from Mountain Dew. Pretty nice little payday. Shirts stay on.

That's it for the IGF awards portion. Go and play these games, because Brian Crecente voted on them and he probably picked all the good ones.

The IGF Room shows up in the App Store's Featured section. A large box on the top of the New section sends iPhone owners directly to the room where they can purchase and download ten winners and finalists.

The games included are:

Smiles
Fieldrunners
Edge
Galcon
Eliss
Dizzy Bee
Ruben & Lullaby
Radio Flare
Zen Bound
Frenzic

It's not the "something wonderful is about to happy!" message that has people talking, it's the tiny green A button stuck in the bottom right corner of the speech box.

Could it mean that the game is soon to appear on the Xbox 360's arcade? With the Game Developers Conference right around the corner, I imagine we won't have long to find out.

SOMETHING AWESOME THIS WAY COMES [Polytron, via infinite lives]

A panel of industry judges has narrowed down a list of 226 entries to 15 of the best independent games of last year, and now they want your votes to determine which of them goes home with the Audience Award at the 11th annual Independent Games Festival, held in conjunction with the Game Developers Conference laster this month in San Francisco. This year features quite a lovely selection of titles, with entries coming from Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Community Games, and the PlayStation Network, along with the usual PC suspects.

But who to vote for? Do you choose the charming platforming of Twisted Pixel's The Maw? Perhaps the simple complexity of Q-Games' PixelJunk Eden? I am leaning towards You Have To Burn the Rope from Kian Bashiri, but there are quite a few games on the list I've not tried yet. Luckily the official voting page contains links to download and try most of them out, so even if you have no opinion you suddenly have a slew of new games to try out.

2009 Independent Games Festival Games: Main Competition Audience Award [IGF]

So it's worth checking out which games have piqued the interest of the judges for this year's festival. The list of finalists includes five games that I've already played a bit of and 17 others that I can't wait to sink my teeth into as a judge.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize
* Blueberry Garden
* CarneyVale Showtime
* Dyson
* Night Game
* Osmos

Excellence in Visual Art
* Cletus Clay
* FEIST
* Machinarium
* PixelJunk Eden
* Zeno Clash

Excellence in Audio
* Blueberry Garden
* BrainPipe
* Musaic Box
* PixelJunk Eden
* Retro/Grade

Excellence in Design
* Musaic Box
* Night Game
* Osmos
* Retro/Grade
* Snapshot

Innovation Award
* Between
* Coil
* The Graveyard
* Mightier
* You Have To Burn The Rope

Technical Excellence
* Cortex Command
* IncrediBots
* The Maw
* Osmos
* PixelJunk Eden

Full descriptions and links to the games can be found over on the Independent Games Festival site. Congratulations to all of the finalists.

The Finalists [IGF]

A true indie developer, Purho only entered his whimsical game in the Independent Games Festival so he could get a free pass to the Game Developers Conference.

Now Purho is taking pre-orders for the title, which runs about $20, on his website.

Cryaon Physics Deluxe

Submissions to the contest are due by this November with finalists expected to be announced in January.

In addition to the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the awards the festival already gives out for audio, art direction, design and technology, this time around the IGF will also be presenting a new Innovation Award. The award is "intended to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development."

As always, I expect to see a slew of interesting titles as I help judge the competition. Previous years have seen such greats as Everyday Shooter, Audiosurf and World of Goo.

IGF

During the course of the handing out of awards at last week's Independent Games Festival, audiences were treated to exclusive Mega64 produced videos between acceptance speeches. They weren't the typical game parodies played out in real life, but clips that spoke to the audience on hand. The production above, shown after the intro after the jump, was my personal favorite.

For a somewhat startling, volume lowering surprise from artist Dan Paladin of Alien Hominid fame, make the jump. Just make sure the kids are out of the room.

Yeah. It certainly got everyone's attention. One more video, featuring some of Mega64's trademark public stunts, is available at the official site.

Mega64

The 2008 Independent Games Festival finalists for the main competition have been named and it doesn't look like a single one of the games I helped judge in the initial round made it to round two. Fortunately, now I, along with all of the other judges, get to play the finalists, something I'm quite looking forward to. Hit the jump for the breakdown of finalists.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:
* Audiosurf
* Crayon Physics Deluxe
* Hammerfall
* Noitu Love 2: Devolution
* World of Goo

Best Web Browser Game:
* Globulos.com
* Iron Dukes
* Tri-Achnid

Design Innovation Award:
* Battleships Forever
* Fez
* Fret Nice
* Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
* World Of Goo

Excellence in Visual Art:
* Clean Asia!
* Fez
* Hammerfall
* Synaesthete
* The Path

Excellence in Audio:
* Cinnamon Beats
* Fret Nice
* Audiosurf
* Clean Asia!
* OokiBloks

Technical Excellence:
* World of Goo
* Goo!
* Audiosurf
* Axiom: Overdrive
* Gumboy Tournament

Sounds like I have some fun judging in store for me over the coming weeks.

IGF Finalists

IGF Entries [Independent Games Festival]

More than 173 games are competing in next year's Independent Games Festival, the 10th annual, and the full list just hit the web. GDC 08 will see $50,000 in prizes handed out to indie game developers, many of whom will end up landing publishing deals. It's all very exciting.

Once again, I am among the growing list of IGF judges this year, meaning I get to play a bunch of exciting new games and then give my impressions to both the festival organizers and the developers. Hit up the link to see the full list, or the jump to see the list of the game's I've been asked to take an early look at.

Independent Games Festival

My Assigned Games

Invader
GYM!
Supernova Shootout
Discs of Mayhem
Artisan
Venture Arctic
Regnum Online
Polychromatic Funk Monkey
Gate

Each of the games need to be scored based on innovation in design, excellence in audio, excellence in visual art, technical excellence and an overall rating.

Once the votes are tallied, the finalists are selected the judges play all of the finalists and vote for the winner.

The Independent Games Festival has announced the ten winners in the Student Showcase portion of their annual competition. Each winner will receive a $500 prize from the CMP Game Group to help fund their trip to the Game Developers Conference where they can show off their wares and compete for the title of Best Student Game and a $2500 prize. The winners, taken from the IGF website, are as follows:

• TU Wien's paper cut-out 2D rotation-based title ...And Yet It Moves.
• Koln International School Of Design's extremely Gilliam-esque Flash soccer mini-game pastiche Ball Of Bastards.
• DigiPen's ingenious action-oriented cartoon strategy game Base Invaders.
• Stanford University's touchscreen and voice-controlled multiplayer abstract strategic romp Euclidean Crisis.
• DigiPen's 2D innovative color-absorbing platform action title Gelatin Joe.
• Guildhall at SMU's stylized vertical shooter meets puzzle game Invalid Tangram.
• Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy's interactive singing game vs. action title Opera Slinger.
• SungKyunKwan University's extremely original puzzle-sliding platform game Rooms.
• Hogeschool van de Kunsten, Utrecht's city color-painting roll-around extravaganza The Blob.
• DigiPen's clever 3D block-manipulating shooter Toblo. (pictured)

There are some really amazing looking games in there and I wouldn't be surprised if we see one or two of these in some form on the next gen consoles. Look what happened to Portal. Flynn De Marco

2007 IGF Student Competition Finalists Announced [Independent Games Festival]
[via: Gamasutra]

Earlier this week Microsoft opened the gates to indie development on the Xbox 360 with the launch of the XNA Creator's Club.

While the free Game Studio Express development tool first hit the Internet in August, the key to getting games developed for the 360 onto the actual console didn't hit until this week with the launch of the club.

The club allows designers to push their games to the Xbox 360 and download free tutorials and starter kits to help them along the way.

I had a chance to speak with Chris Satchell, general manager of Microsoft's Game Developer's Group, about Microsoft's plans for buying user-created games and mods, Nintendo and Sony's version of the service and what this means for the Independent Games Festival.

Satchell explained that the club will come with access to a lot more than just the ability to test yours and other's games. You will also get access to forums, tutorials and even game development starter kits.

" We had this idea for starter kits," Satchell said. "Let's say you want to build a racing game but don't want to start from scratch, you can download a racing starter kit and mod it for yourself. It's lowering the barriers to making your own games."

But won't this, I asked, lead to a stream of cookie-cutter games, each based on these modular starter kits? Isn't that the exact opposite of what Microsoft is trying to do with the Creator's Club?

"I don't think it will stifle creativity at all," he said. "It will get more people started in it."

"Maybe their first game won't be groundbreaking, but it will get them into game design. Every time we see a roadblock we try to remove it."

Another thing that could help stoke interest in the development tools and creator's club is news that starting in January Microsoft will host a contest to find the best game created using the Game Studio Express.

But what the announcement doesn't say is what the developer will get out of having his or her game placed on Xbox Live.

Satchell said that's something they're still trying to work out.

"We still haven't announced how that side of it will work," he said. "What we will do, we will take the best entry and work with them to get their game on Xbox Live."

While I love the concept of the Creator's Club, I think the biggest hurdle it faces is making sure that the work budding developers put into a game is rewarded in a meaningful way.

I don't think it would be a very positive experience to create the next Geometry Wars and be rewarded with a handshake or free Xbox 360.

Satchell said his team understands that concern.

"We want to make (budding developers) successful," he said. "We aren't talking yet about details on the financial side, how we can get some revenue and flow it back to the creator."

One possibility, of course, is that third-party publishers could get involved, Satchell said. It's something that is, it seems, integral to Microsoft's plan for the service.

Satchell was as full of analogies as he was exuberance for the new service. He likened the service to Project Greenlight, Live Arcade to premium cable TV and the Creator's Club creations to the stuff that pops up on YouTube.

"What we are working on next year is creating the YouTube of games," he said. "We need to figure out how people who aren't in the development community, aren't in the Creator's Club, can get to these games."

"We need to create the community arcade. Give people tools so they can communicate on it."

But before they can open the floodgates to all of that original content, Microsoft has to figure out a way to allow people to sort through what will likely be a wealth of information. They will also have to figure out a way to make sure they can maintain security on the system while allowing for this free flow of user created content.

"Those are a lot of the problems we need to solve to allow effective sharing," he said. "Not only are we learning on the technical sides, but we are also learning how do you let people search a lot of content."

Once those problems are solved and user created games are available on Live, why not other user created content, like mods?

"At a platform level, I think modding could be interesting on the 360," Satchell said. "Certainly a technology like Game Studio Express points the way. So I think its interesting idea."

Developers too, it seems, are interested in the potential and possibilities of the new development tools, and not just for headhunting.

Some developers, Satchell said, like the idea of creating quick, easy, fun games using the tools, instead of just working on a game for a year with a team.

Even famed UK developer Peter Molyneux seems caught up in the excitement. He plans to make an appearance in the UK this week to talk about the development kit and its potential.

And in a few years, Satchell thinks that some of the games created using their tools could become the stuff of Independent Games Festival entries.

"It will be really interesting to work with the IGF in the future," he said.

While Microsoft was certainly the first out of the gate with this idea, they weren't the last. Both Sony and Nintendo have announced similar plans.

But Satchell says he isn't worried because neither Sony nor Nintendo have the same level of experience creating development tools.

"I think they are going to be really challenged to do it," he said. "From everything I hear from developers, I'd say (Sony and Nintendo) struggle to make compelling development environments for professional studios let alone for hobbyists and students."

For this to work, Satchell says, the development tools need to be easy and compelling.

"That's part of what we are good at doing, making great development tools,' he said. "I'm not too worried about our competitors' ability to produce that."

Here's another Game awards show, but this time it's actually interesting. On Wednesday, On March 7th 2007 at Game Developers Conference, The Independent Games Festival will hold it's 9th annual awards show. Much like films, indie game title as are often more creative and interesting than the big company games and there are definitely those out there that deserve some attention. Categories include Best Web Browser Game,
Design Innovation Award, Excellence In Visual Art, Excellence In Audio, Technical Excellence, Audience Award and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. (If you don't know who he is, go here)

To see the full list of all finalists, make the jump.

2007 IGF Main Competition Finalists Announced [IGF]

Seumas McNally Grand Prize: Aquaria - Bit Blot; Armadillo Run - Peter Stock; Bang! Howdy - Three Rings Design; RoboBlitz - Naked Sky Entertainment; Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games.

Best Web Browser Game: Bubble Islands - dot-invasion; Gamma Bros - Pixeljam; Samorost 2 - Amanita Design.

Design Innovation Award: Armadillo Run - Peter Stock; Aquaria - Bit Blot ; Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games; Toblo - Digipen Institute of Technology; Toribash - NABI Software .

Excellence In Visual Art: Castle Crashers - The Behemoth; Golf? - Luke Hetherington, Alex Austin, Josiah Pisciotta, and Andrew Laing; Aquaria - Bit Blot; RoboBlitz - Naked Sky Entertainment; Samorost 2 - Amanita Design.

Excellence In Audio: Bone: The Great Cow Race - Telltale Games; Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games; FizzBall - Grubby Games; Aquaria - Bit Blot; Racing Pitch - Skinflake.

Technical Excellence: Arcane Legions: The Rising Shadow - Slitherine Software; Armada Online - EvStream; Bang! Howdy - Three Rings Design; Blast Miner - Cryptic Sea; Bugs Of War - NinjaBee.

Simon Carless, who is, I'm sure, even busier than I am, just announced that he's moving GameSetWatch from the daily post-a-thon model to the thoughtful post occasionally model. Not that the two can't ever meet, they do, I believe, meet quite a bit on Kotaku. But trying to maintain a daily site with a lot of quantity and quality can be overwhelming at times and knowing what Carless does in his non-existent free time, I understand the decision.

For those of you who don't know Carless, he also oversees Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra and the upcoming and annual IGF/Independent Games Summit. I'm sure right about how, with GDC quickly approaching, his brain is about to asplode.

What he says he wants to do is shift to a "Merc News" game-blog level. That's interesting, because I've long felt that Dean and Nooch's approach to blogging is the perfect model for a newspaper blog. I'm always pointing their site out to my editor's at the Rocky because it proves my theory that what newspapers are good at is original, longer content, not short bursts of information, aggregation and meme. Brian Crecente

The Future of the Future [GSW]