Old News

Independent Game Conference update

The Independent Game Conference in Austin is returning this month, Thursday and Friday November 29-30th. Keynote speakers include Richard Garriott. Gamasutra has an interview with directors Stephen Farrer and Mark Chuberka about the conference.
As well, IGDA Indie SIG Co-coordinator Michael Lubker will conduct informal roundtables before, throughout, and after the conference discussing the Indie SIG's issues and initiatives. Contact him at <zratchet at gmail dot com> for more information.

Independent Game Conference

In further conference news, the Independent Game Conference in Austin Texas, is coming up. It will be running on November 29 & 30, 2007 at the Austin Convention Center. Keynote speakers include Mike Wilson and Harry Miller of Gamecock Media, and NCsoft's Richard Garriott. Registration is USD $125.

Toronto Independent Games Conference Returns!

The Toronto Independent Games Conference is returning, running from Thursday January 17 to Saturday January 19, 2008. Pre-registrations are open until December 14, 2007 and the call for submissions are open until November 30. If you want to expand your knowledge of game development, or want to help out others who are trying to break into the industry, check us out and register today!

The 9th Annual IGF Competition

The IGF Competition is upon us again. Last year was great, this year we are expecting it to be even better.

- The IGF Main Competition has received a few minor tweaks (slight category name changes, a demo is mandatory to enter the Audience Award if a finalist), but continues with the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and multiple $2,500 awards for innovative design, audio, technical, art, and best web game. The deadline this year is September 8, 2006 at 11:59pm PDT.

- The IGF Mod Competition, a big hit in its first year, is going even more freeform this year, and allowing mods from any game to compete - from Thief to Half-Life 2 to Oblivion to The Sims and beyond, all mods are eligible. The categories this year are Best Singleplayer FPS Mod, Best Multiplayer FPS Mod, Best RPG Mod, and Best 'Other' Mod. Each finalist will recieve a $500 prize, and those winners will show at the 2007 GDC, competing for an overall $5,000 Best Mod prize. Deadline for entrants is October 13, 2006 at 11:59pm PDT.

- The IGF Student Showcase, which continues to be one of the most hotly contested parts of the Festival, is continuing to honor the ten Student Showcase Winners with $500 travel stipends and a chance to show their game at GDC 2007. But we're also adding a $2,500 Best Student Game award, honoring the absolute best student game submitted to the IGF this year. Deadline for entrants this year is November 10, 2006 at 11.59pm PDT

Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition

Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition is an expansion of the Slamdance Film Festival. The festival is dedicated to emerging games artists and their vision. The Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition is the only game design competition based on the film festival model, and is still one of only two large competitions specifically for independent games, the other being IGF. Because the Slamdance GGC aims for innovative, experimental, and emergent gameplay we program under-exposed work, and continue to discover untapped talent. Last year�s competition was a coming out party for games such as Cloud, Fa�ade, and Rumble Box, and featured gamemakers such as Ian Bogost and Gerard LaFond of Persuasive Games. The GGC is a venue to expose new ideas in game design and game play, and a venue to provide student game designers exposure and feedback on their game projects.

Game submissions have an early-postmarked deadline of September 1, 2006 and a final postmarked deadline of September 29, 2006. Extensions may be provided, dependent on circumstance. The entrance fee is $30 for games that meet the early deadline, and $40 for others. Students receive a $10 discount. Accomodations will be made for students who cannot manage this financial burden. Entrants must submit 3 hard copies of their game and provide a URL for the game site. Entry forms and application information are available through the Slamdance website at www.slamdance.com

Best of luck to all who are entering and plan to enter this year.

Manifesto Games Launches!

Greg Costikyan, a man who has dedicated quite a bit of time into the independent game community has finially launched Manifisto Games. Manifisto Games is a new indie game publisher dedicated to unifying independent games and delivering the best of the independent community to the public. We at the IGDA highly encourage all of you to check out and join manifisto games.

Who wants to be an Indie Superstar?

A new webcast on www.indiesuperstar.com is overviewing the lives and efforts of indie developers. They want you to tell them about how you create games. They want to hear about your past, present and future projects. Check out IndieSuperstar.com for more information or contact Dejobaan Games for more information.

Toronto Independent Games Conference

Indie developers are invited to attend the Toronto Independent Games Conference in Toronto Ontario, on August 31st - September 2, 2006. Our focus is on how to get your games out to the people who will play them. For details on the conference, please visit the website at TorontoIGC.com.

Player Driven Cause and Effect

Dave Calabrese, of 21-6 productions has given us a great article focused on design, and the subtleties that can enhance the player experience. I highly reccomend this article and it is a fairly quick read. You can read it here.

Texas independent Game Conference 2006

Come join us at the Texas independent Game conference in Austin Texas July 22nd/23rd 2006. Greg Costikyan and Warren Spector will be delivering very interesting Keynotes. All are invited to attend...from verterans to visionarys.
You can check the website here. TxIndieGameCon.com
For registration please
Register Here
You can read the full press release here.
If you plan on attending please take a moment to fill out the survey here.

8th Annual IGF awards - GDC

This year's GDC was a blast. We hope those of that you were able to come did. Some of the games on the showcase for this year's IGF awards were simple spectacular. Blind seems to be a favorite among many people due to the innovative ideas that the creator's came up with dealing with time. Another major contestest this year was the ever popular Darwinia which is the first Indie Game to be released on Valve's digital distribution system, "Steam". There were of course many many other great entrants including Dofus, Professer Futzwizzle, TubeTwist, Colermental, Rumble Box and Cloud. A particularly interesting feature of this year's awards were the new category of best mods, including mods for Half-Life, Doom 3 and Quake. We here at the Indie-SIG would like to congradulate all the entrants and winner's of this years IGF award. Congradulations and best of luck to you.

You can read more about this year's IGF award winners here.

Host An Online Seminar!

The Game Institute wants Indie developers to show off their talents in a new online seminar series. They�ll give you an hour of airtime as host of a seminar topic of your choice. You�ll lead an interactive discussion with others interested in the same topic and receive a generous cash stipend for your effort.

They are looking for a broad range of topics such as programming, graphic arts, design, music and sound effects, networking, open source and proprietary APIs and engines, and anything else related to game development.

This program is meant to give talented developers a platform to influence the industry and a chance to add their knowledge and experience to the already great lineup of game development material offered by the Game Institute. Contact Drew Sikora for details. His email is gaiiden@gamedev.net

Indie Legal Advice

Tom, "The Game Attorney", Buscaglia has been gracious enough to supply us with some basic legal advice regarding independent game devolopment and submission to publishers. We highly reccomend that you take the time to read these articles as they are incredibly insightful. You can check out Tom's site here