TIGERSHUNGRY

I’m not a core gamer, I’m not a casual gamer I just like to play and so the Eurogamer Expo looked to me a lot like the above diagram for the second year running. Yet just like last year I found sanctuary in the fuzzy embrace of Mudlark’s Indie Games Arcade.

This year I mostly liked Hohokum, B.U.T.T.O.N,  Nidhogg (aka ‘Stabby Stabby Game’) and of course Frozen Synapse (yes I’m biased, but still it deserves it).

And to reiterate: Kinect is a bit rubs.

All good…? now take 6 steps back and touch the thighs of the person stood next to you….

Last stop was the Eurogamer Expo in London. I won’t go into a highlights list as I’m sure the diagram above does a good enough job of summing this up. I’ll admit that I’ve been a light weight this week and was on game/play overload at this point so I’m sure the expo wasn’t just the incomprehensible brown blur of boys, bombs, boobs, blood and guns that I remember. (more…)

And on the 3rd day Marie uprooted from the Midlands and journeyed down to London for Playful 09. And it was good.

Highlights (in order of how legible my notes where) (more…)

Highlights so far (in order of appearance)

+ Keita Takahashi acting like a naughty school kid by playing random videos of Boy George on the Jonathon Ross Show, an ice hockey game and someone cleaning a goldfish bowl at the end of the playground announcement (which reminded me of the Friend’s with You one from a few years back)

+ 3rd place in a Canabalt tournament (even if my score ’1800′ was still a bit shameful) resulting in some nifty over-sized shirts.

+ “Find something that allows you to build a game over a weekend or you’ll loose your mind. If its taking you any longer then whatever you’re doing, its too complicated.” – Adam Atomic on rapid prototyping and the origins of Canabalt. (coincidently it was announced elsewhere in the universe that Unity’s indie level software is now FREE… but also worth noting that Adam’s Flixel is also open source and free too)

+ Adam Atomic then explaining how he created the sound effects for ‘running on a crane’ using his macbook, a saucepan and some sneakers whilst his wife was out of the house.

+ Lord Puttnam commenting on how the game industry needs to be lead by the creatives and not the technology, and how he sees this coming from the independent and bedroom coders.

…bueller?

This week saw another fresh set of  indie game challenges cast upon a crowd of eager developers by the Experimental Gameplay Project and 2-Bee Games . And of course these two are not the only US based indie game projects which have popped up on my radar in the past year… (more…)