While not actively engaged in being an evil video game empire, Activision engages in a little independent game developer philanthropy in the form of the Activision Independent Games Competition, the first and second prize winners of which just received a massive influx of development capital. Meet Dstroyd and Rigonauts: Broadside.
Activision Publishing created the Activision Independent Games Competition in order to foster creativity and innovation from the growing independent game development community, and nothing fosters creativity and innovation quite like large amounts of cash. Over the course of the competition $500,000 will be doled out to the winning developers, half of which just got snagged by the first and second prize winners.
First prize goes to Peter Angstadt and his game Dstroyd, a combination real-time strategy and ballistics game, sort of like Scorched Earth or Gunbound, only instead of taking turns you're frantically trying to get defenses built while your opponent is shelling the hell out of your mans.
It's a little rough at this stage, but it should improve quickly thanks to the $175,000 Angstadt now has to help with development.
Second place honors go to Rigonauts: Broadside, a war engine building game from developer Engient, co-founded by former Capcom developer Ian Slutz and Jason Earp. The game was inspired by the amazing sculptures of Theo Jansen, which definitely comes out in the gameplay.
As the second place winner, Engient now has $75,000 to help polish what's shaping up to be one compelling little game.
Looks like the judges may have picked a pair of winners. Check out the official page for more information on the Activision Independent Games Competition.
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