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DIY Game's Indie GOTY Awards 55

Posted by CowboyNeal from the winners-and-losers dept.
Veryzon writes "DIY Games has posted their 2003 Game of the Year Awards in which they name the best independent games of 2003. In addition to the standard categories such as action GOTY, adventure GOTY, and so on they also have a few fairly unique awards going to leaders in such areas as 'Copyright Infringement,' 'Most Controversial,' and 'Most Overrated.' In the end they hand out 17 awards in various categories. Here's a quote on the most controversial category winner: '...Dada Stagnation In Blue. Technically, Dada is a brief freeware adventure game that will be over almost as soon as you finish it, but those 30 minutes in between are sure to stay with you for some time. True to its Dadaist theme, Dada can be very unsettling for those who might be unprepared to see suicide, domestic violence, and dead fetuses addressed in a game. And if that doesn't mess with your mind then the bizarre environments and disturbing Anne Sexton prose are sure to keep you up a little later at night.'"
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DIY Game's Indie GOTY Awards More

DIY Game's Indie GOTY Awards

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  • small games (Score:2, Interesting)

    by GerritHoll ( 70088 )
    this day, games are much less fun than they used to be. Most are giant commercial projects, without the real art of creating a nice-looking game in 16 colours with 320x200 resolution. With small opensource games, it does return a bit, though... P.S. first post?

    • Re:small games (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DrDoombender ( 681389 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:53AM (#8238884)
      I dissagree, there are lots of games made today that are just as fun as older games. Just because lots of games that are mediocre come out, doesn't mean the level of fun games is less. Some games are just remakes, and some are improvements. I mean, I really enjoyed the RE remake more so than the original. I can see your point in the idea, that its harder to put out an original idea.

      I agree with you though, that most games are giant commercial projects now. However, that's the gamers fault I think. Most companies noticed the trend that consumers would buy the games that looked the coolest, rather than the game that was the most fun (am I wrong?).

      Open source games is a cool concept because it lets programmers get a feel for how games should be coded. Game programming is hard, and lots of "tutorials" don't tell you all the stuff you have to put into a games engine.

      This DIY games idea of awarding the best independent games seems almost equivalent to the cannes film festival. Really, there should be something like that for gamers. Not only would it show off new talent, but also what can be done with a tiny budget.

      • Re:small games (Score:3, Interesting)

        by GerritHoll ( 70088 )
        I like it very much when I can see a bit how a game is made, even if it's closed source: I like a game that is "reachable", that could be made in a typical "basement room" where a nerd would spend 12 hours a night programming it: sure, it looks great when the movement of the characters was modelled after real people by high-tech technology, and that is what most people like indeed. However, I'm not like most people :-)

        I think this DIY idea is good, though. It reminds me of The Home of the Underdags [the-underdogs.org], a rea

      • Re:small games (Score:5, Informative)

        by neglige ( 641101 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @12:06PM (#8239044)
        IMHO the difference is that today many more games are produced than in the 8bit era. Back then, only a few games from every publisher came out each month (maybe with the exception of the C64 and huge companies like EA), so each game had to be "good" and "outstanding". If it wasn't, it simply wouldn't sell. And you couldn't really rip off ideas, because it would hurt the image of the company or the programmer. Plus, from the business perspective, licensing an engine never happened AFAIK.

        Today, this is no longer an issue. Many companies license a 3D engine for example - thus producing "yet another 3D shooter" (hopefully with a different flavour).

        The market has also grown, and the PC is reaching new customers which would have never used a 8bit machine, much less played games on it. As a result, games appealing to the casual gamer are created, which are "mediocre" in the eye of the typical gamer.

        • Re:small games (Score:3, Interesting)

          by johannesg ( 664142 )
          I'm not so sure about the actual number of games, but surely the number of types of games has diminished dramatically over the years. Sure, there are plenty of FPS'es and RTS'es, but where are things like The Sentinel, Marble Madness, Knightlore (wouldn't that look gorgeous with 24-bit hi-res graphics), Bubble Bobble, Space Harrier, R*Type, Xevious, or even Tetris? Where are the abstract games? The puzzle games? The 2D shooters? Platformers? etc...

          • Re:small games (Score:2, Insightful)

            by GerritHoll ( 70088 )
            I agree here. Almost all games are a sequal to a previous game. It is forgivable that the number of new ideas decreases - they're running out - but a little more creativity would be welcome.

            Actually, the only game for the PC that was ever really new was Tetris. The rest was, more or less, something of a genre which already existed on consoles or gameboys etc. When we look into a little more detail there have of course been a lot of new ideas, also by larger companies (civilization, worms, ...), but nothin

            • but nothing is as innovative as Tetris...

              Tetris isn't innovative. Addictive? Yes. Innovative? No. It's a simplification of Pentominoes. An old logic puzzle game.

          • Re:small games (Score:5, Informative)

            by *weasel ( 174362 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @12:46PM (#8239573)
            Where are the small games? the puzzle games and simple shooters? Here they are.

            Popcap [popcap.com]

            Wild Tangent [wildtangent.com]

            The browser has become the defacto platform for 'small' games. Wild Tangent's web driver in particular is available for license [wildtangent.com] as well. It's helping bring accessibility for designers back to where a couple guys in a garage could churn out something fun in less than 3 years.

            not a plug, just informational cuz everyone's asking.
          • Sure, there are plenty of FPS'es and RTS'es, but where are things like The Sentinel, Marble Madness

            I can't speak for some of the other games you mentioned, but Marble Madness is alive and well. It's now known as Super Monkey Ball, and you can find it on the gamecube.

            I believe Space Harrier's reincarnation would be Panzer Dragoon Orta on the xbox.
            • I believe Space Harrier's reincarnation would be Panzer Dragoon Orta on the xbox.

              Or more likely Rez on the Dreamcast and Playstation2. Both are classic, underrated games. Listening to the Rez soundtrack right this moment...

          • Re:small games (Score:3, Insightful)

            by neglige ( 641101 )
            I'd say that many of those games went from 'mainstream' to 'share-/freeware'. There are plenty Tetris games available for *nix, even multiplayer versions. And, as someone already mentioned, the web and Java are a popular platform for these games.

            IMHO, games today are more and more trying to tell a story, an element rarely found in older games (with famous exceptions, of course, Bards Tale e.g.) This is necessary to catch the average user who just wants to play for an hour every other evening.

            But I agr
        • I would further this point by saying that the main affliction of the indy game scene may be the how easy it is to actually make games in this day and age.

          There are whole programing languages that come with their own game engines like Dark Basic.

          When you put game programing into the reach of every kid who wants to make another "cool" game you end up with such a huge plathora of junk that it is hard to find anything half decent.

          What ends up happening is you get people like me who actually put the huge a

          • I would further this point by saying that the main affliction of the indy game scene may be the how easy it is to actually make games in this day and age.

            Good point. Plus, it has become a lot easier to distribute software over the internet. In "the old days", when the internet was virtually unknown and BBS ruled the world, making software known and distribute it without a publisher was much harder. Not impossible, but harder.

    • Re:small games (Score:2, Insightful)

      by code-e255 ( 670104 )
      If you think more creativity and artistic skill was required for games "back in the days", then I'm forced to believe that you don't have a clue about modern computer and video games. The amount of excellent artwork in games like WarCraft III, Max Payne 2, Quake 3 Arena, Call of Duty or whatever still make me sit back in awe infront of my monitor every time I play those games, even though I've seen it all often before. If you think that pixel graphics are so elite and that modern 3D graphics are evil, maybe

  • Hard road to follow. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Godeke ( 32895 ) * on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:49AM (#8238808)
    I appreciate the effort and dedication that these people have put into these games. I have thought about producing an independent game title myself, but the amount of effort that goes into doing so is much higher than that going into custom applications. In a custom application for a client I have the database, middeware and UI to worry about. In a game you have the underlying engine, UI and real time programming coupled with music and graphics production (2d and 3d) without the committment of payment on delivery. For some reason my wife is reluctant to let me spend six months with a potential big fat zero return on that time. Pitty really: I would much prefer to work on something that brings enjoyment to people rather than "productivity enhancements" and "better cost control".

  • Over as soon as you finish it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @11:57AM (#8238943)
    Yeah, they actually say this:
    brief freeware adventure game that will be over almost as soon as you finish it
    As opposed to what, those games that aren't over when you finish them?

  • the never ending march of technology (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @12:34PM (#8239424)
    I would have thought Starscape [moonpod.com] would have done better, it's a nice little game that is trying to do some different things i.e. mixing up some genres. Is it just the lack of real time 3D because the game still looks great without it IMO and it actually works for me (unlike some of the others). It should get an award just for that! The main reason I started looking at indie stuff is because I can't get most mainstream game to work. I don't even bother looklng if they don't have a demo - too risky.

    Finding a 3D game that looks good and actually runs ok on my PC is quite a challenge. Add to that getting it working on my laptop and you are really struggling. I want more 2D and 3D games that:

    1.look good
    2.work on my 2year old PC (Athlon1700, 32MB Radeon7000)
    3.work on my 1year old laptop (Celeron1600, 16MB GeForce4MX)

    I think a huge number of people have this kind of hardware and have just given up trying to play games. Maybe this is why PopCap make millions with their puzzle games i.e. people can actually get them to work properly :)
    • "can't get them to work properly"?

      uh, okay...
    • ????

      I have a 800 P3 that runs every game that I played recently with no problems at all.(MOH, Warlords4, Call of Duty, ET, NWN, WarCraft 3)

      They all look and play good.

      How can you not get it to work?

      I'm confused.

      • Absolutely, my other pc is a PII 350, GF2 MX. And MOH, Warcraft 3 run without problems, I also played AvP2, Mafia, GTA3, Hitman 2, RTCW, SoF, Ground Control, Max Payne (the first one) and many others in 1024x768, mostly with medium details. Even UT2003 was playable on smaller maps (but slowed down on November).
      • I allowed my friend to have an extended loan of my nVidia Ti4200 after I bought a Radeon 9800 Pro. This friend is interested in designing video games, is a programmer and computer literate. It was updating an old nVidia TNT.

        He came to me a few days later and said it wasn't working. Hmmm I thought, what could the problem be? So I went ahead and asked the obvious: did you download and install the right drivers? "No," he said, "I just plugged it in, shouldn't it work? The old card was an nVidia."

        Sigh.

  • Adventure GOTY, where to get... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Thornae ( 53316 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @01:35PM (#8240119)
    Their Adventure Game of the Year [diygames.com] is The Adventures of Fatman. Unfortunately, the link to the developer [socko-entertainment.com] they provide doesn't tell you where to get it, only that it's been released as abandonware.
    Naturally, HOTU [the-underdogs.org] has it, unfortunately minus the voices.

    If someone managed to get the full (with voices) version, I'm sure HOTU would be grateful for a rip...
  • OK, ive been playing this game for an hour and a half now and i cant get past the 6th bloody screen let alone see anything disturbing!

    Please slashdotters Where do i go? im not going to spoil anything but i found the diamonds to pay the boatman but cant get past the screen he takes me to. its also impossible to pass the sad woman in the screen to the left of the bridge. Its frustrating to see an intriguing game go so sour. does anyone know where to go from here?

    • Re:Broken Game? (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You take the water in the boatman scene and show it to the sad woman. :P

    • Re:Broken Game? (Score:4, Informative)

      by hiroshi912681 ( 589840 ) on Tuesday February 10, 2004 @03:57PM (#8241678)
      forget it, the game is a mess... it's just plain awful.

      it's just overhyped by the person who posted the article. it's not really controversial, and it's not a decent adventure game by any standard. it's not even an interesting experience. the author of the game should have at least made SOME effort in selecting better images to steal.

      the game would have made a much better text adventure. even then, it'd still just be a really cheesy game done by some goth wannabe.

      maybe next year if they group together another bunch of bad games, and have a category named "most controversial"... maybe a pokemon game will win for being the most violent

      this game sucks, don't download it, don't touch it... it's not worth your "30 minutes"
      • heh...30 minutes...more like 5 the game definitely feels more like a collage than a game. i'm still trying to figure out if there was a point to it.
      • Yeah. I gotta agree. I mean, I've read more controversial subject matter on the sides of cereal boxes...I mean, gee, have you SEEN what kind of ingredients those companies use? Wow!
  • Given that the vast majority of the games listed require Windows, how "independent" should any of them be considered? I saw one that had Linux support, which I consider odd because they didn't bother with Mac OS X support (i.e., the secondary commercial/desktop market vs. the primary free/server market). They also didn't give any hardware/software requirements, so I have to do a massive hunt for each one to find out if I can even play it before I start a 300+ demo download. Not cool.

  • "Dada" (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    True to its Dadaist theme, Dada can be very unsettling for those who might be unprepared to see suicide, domestic violence, and dead fetuses addressed in a game.
    Except none of that is really particularly "Dada," particularly in the context of a wannabe-edgy horror adventure game. Silent Hill has about as much claim to "Dada" as this game.

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