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Far Cry 3 And The Stranger In A Strange Land I stumbled across this “review” of World of Goo courtesy the boys at Rock, Paper, Shotgun and nearly ruined my laptop while reading, as I spewed my morning cup of coffee all over the screen. Andrew Doull, IT manager and occasional GameSetWatch columnist, wrote an homage to the game in the form of EA CEO John Riccitiello fan fiction. Yes, fan fiction. Which includes ninjas, an evil plot against our own Brian Crecente, and much raving about those damn ‘little guys’ who keep managing to pull out big hits:
He knew the capabilities were there. The early iterations of Spore in the EA Advanced Weapons Labs had showed the way. But the cost… they’d had to nuke an escaped Brian Crecente on the corner of 4th Avenue and Broadway. Only a clumsy Gawker clone and a Sims expansion pack which wiped the knowledge of that intersection from the public mind had ensured the cover up. His favourite noodle house had been on that corner. Really great noodles ….
He wondered if he should arrange another attempt on Stephen Totilo – the wounds from the Desktop Tower Defense debacle were still fresh. But it was the little guys who were causing the real problems: penetration attacks from TIGSource were getting more common every day and Stallman still lived, protected by the Dckx mafia, despite that outrageous price on his head. He could feel the sand slipping through his fingers like goo through a pipe. How could he identify the next big thing if he couldn’t even see the potential in his own staff?
As Doull says in a comment below the ‘review,’ “Despite what I wrote, this isn’t a specific dig at EA or the game industry. It was more a ‘isn’t it a great opportunity to be an independent developer, because the tools are now out there to not have to worry about the low level stuff anymore’.” It’s worth a read just for the mental image of a clone Crecente and a destroyed corner in New York City. Long live the indie game.
Review: World of Goo [Ascii Dreams via Rock, Paper, Shotgun]
IndieCade cordially invites folks who’ll be in or around Bellevue, Washington in October to come celebrate independent gaming as they launch their first stand-alone international independent gaming event. Running October 10th through the 17th, IndieCade kicks off with a two-day preview event leading into a week-long exhibition open to the public. The launch event features talks from speakers such as Jenova Chen of flOw fame and Jeep Barnett from the Portal team, who’ll be discussing the path from indie to mainstream, along with master classes, preview screenings of upcoming titles, and an awards ceremony where five top games will be selected from a field of 26 finalists. Once the show opens to the public it’ll be hands-on all week long. Yum.
The festival takes place at Open Satellite in Bellevue, Washington. Hit the jump for more details on this much-deserved showcase for independent game developers.
The results of the inauguaral PAX 10 indie games showcase are in and the audience has spoken. 10 games won spots on display at the 2008 Penny Arcade Expo, where convention goers were asked to cast secret ballots selecting their favourite of the lot, and Twisted Pixel’s XBLA action platformer The Maw came out on top. “The intense sense of purpose and camaraderie amongst The PAX 10 was astonishing,” commented Michael Wilford of Twisted Pixel. “We feel extremely lucky to have been chosen from such an august group and grateful to have been a part of the PAX experience.”
Great news for fans of independent game development! World of Goo, the game created by former Maxis and EA employees Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, has gone gold. We’ve been following World of Goo for quite some time now, from early gameplay clips to its stint as an Independent Games Festival award nominee, which earned the title awards for Technical Excellence and Design Innovation. Start looking for the lovely PC box art on store shelves in November.
There is also a WiiWare version of the game, which has just been submitted to Nintendo for approval and is expected to hit shortly before the PC retail release, along with a downloadable version for PC gamers who could do without the box. We congratulate Kyle and Ron and wish them the best of luck with what looks to be an extremely unique game!
Pretty big news… [2D Boy Blog]
The Independent Games Festival has proven itself a breeding ground for innovative new ideas, some of which end up changing the paradigm for the larger commercial industry. Now it looks like the Tokyo Game Show is getting its own version of the IGF, called the Sense of Wonder Night 2008, to be held on October 10th.
Ten titles will be selected for consideration, with the finalists’ list to be revealed on September 16th. According to Wired, the committee has warned potential applicants against showing up with more of the same – they want technological and storytelling innovation that directly impacts gameplay. In with the new, then!
Should be interesting to see what turns up – by the by, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi is one of the people on the selection committee, aptly. Tokyo Game Show Throws Party for Innovative Games [Wired via GameSetWatch]
Here’s one person’s take on the best of the indy/browser-based games scene, which made me happy since I never complain about getting easy access to a variety of sometimes intriguing, sometimes ‘Well, that was interesting, and not in a good way’ games in one fell swoop. Some on the list aren’t terrible surprising – Orsinal has long been one of my favourite spots for soothing and well produced little games to while away an hour or two with – while I’m wondering how I missed others for so long (Pac-Mondrian? “Pac-Mondrian closes the perceptual distance between fine art and video games by combining Piet Mondrian’s Modernist masterpiece ‘Broadway Boogie Woogie’ with Toru Iwatani’s classic video game Pac-Man.” I’m totally in). An interesting list and some of them are a good way to spend an overcast Sunday. [via Independent Gaming]
