Thoughts on 2012 Independent Games Festival

Overview and thoughts on:

2012 Independent Games Festival 

Jeese if I got a little bit older and chunkier I think I would look just like the first guy. First impressions of the second presenter is that I do not like him. Feels that he is trying but not hitting the fun. O.K. he made me laugh at 08:13. At 35:40ish, so how they decide how people win industry people get a random bunch of games to see if they should be looked at then another bunch of people who are "experts" look at them. The Microsoft presenting the xbla game that won SuperTimeForce the actual game looks fun and the speech was good from STF but Microsoft, way to let the side down with your rad this and rad that. 

Overall a well polished show and very glad that Gamespot has the full video up for people to watch. The majority of these games I have heard of, approximately half of these I have played and less again I own. Hopefully I will be able to get a review out for them because the vast majority of these look very intresting (& good). This is last years for anyone who wants it LINKIES :D. BTW I love the student that won last year because I have basically done the same I am back to Uni at 23 and I really want to be part of the game programming environment.

Below this statement is just really a big spoiler from who got nominated and who won. No real opinions here.

08:20 - Unto the Nominees for Student Showcase Finalists:-

• The Bridge
• Dust
• The Floor Is Jelly (:D smiled at this one)
• Nous
• One and One Story
• Pixi
• The Snowfield
• Way

10:27 - The best student game & $3000 cash prize is:-

• Way

13:00 - Nominees for Technical Excellence:-

• Antichamber
• Fez
• Prom Week
• Realm of the Mad God
• Spelunky

 14:23 -And the winner for Technical Excellence:-

• Antichamber (& wow that is a loud suit)

19:13 - Nominees for Excellence in Design:-

• Atom Zombie Smasher
• English Country Tune
• Frozen Synapse
• Gunpoint
• Spelunky

 20:42 - And the winner for Excellence in Design:-

• Spelunky

23:58 - Nominees for Best Mobile Game:-

• Async Corp.
• Beat Sneak Bandit
• Faraway
• Rediculous Fishing
• Waking Mars

25:27 And the winner for Best Mobile Game:-

• Beat Sneak Bandit

28:23 - Nominees for Excellence In Visual Art:-

• Botanicula
• Dear Esther
• Lume
• Mirage
• Wonderputt

29:55 - And the winner for Excellence In Visual Art:-

• Dear Esther

32:18 - Nominees for Excellence In Audio:-

• Botanicula
• Dear Esther
• Pugs Luv Beats
• To The Moon
• Waking Mars

34:19 - And the winner for Excellence In Audio:-

• Botanicula

37:05 - And simply the winner of the Audience Award:-

• Frozen Synapse

43:56 - Nominees for the Nuovo Award:-

• At A Distance
• Dear Esther
• Fingle
• Girp
• Johann Sebastian Joust
• Proteus
• Storyteller
• Way

46:08 - And the winner for the Nuovo Award:-

• Storyteller

50:30- Nominees for the Seumas McNallyGrand Prize:-

• Dear Esther
• Fez
• Frozen Synapse
• Johann Sebastian Joust
• Spelunky

 52:05 -And the winner for the Seumas McNallyGrand Prize:-

• Fez

Another Buy List - Assorted Kit and Comp

Hello,

So people another list of buying stuff lol, I like doing these. It keeps my head straight on what I want. Generally I am able to put in any research if I feel that I will forget but so far hasn't been overly needed. Some of the below items are already purchased and I have given my view of them underneath. First up is the German Army Para Boots in a Size 10 (UK) - £29.95 (Update £36.95).

Well I finally went through my old boots, exactly this type of boots which I had since I was 13/14 years old. I have found them on Militarykit.com and I will need them on a UK size 10.
German Army Para Boot Link for £29.95.

So an update, I had put in my order and receive an email that they didn't have the product. No specification on which of the 2 products that I had purchased (the below bag I had bought and there is an update for that). After not receiving a reply of the back of me requesting some clarification, I called them and had a 30min discussion with a guy. This was meant to be resolved by them sending out the bag and refund for the boots. Received the bag but not the refund, also no boots so I am a bit upset but we will see what happens from now. Sent emails and will be trying to call them again.


Next is a new school bag which I will use for everything else as well was looking for at least water resistant and found this on the same website.

Kombat Small Molle Assault Pack - 28 litres Link for £24.95
























Defently get it in black.

O.K. so after a bit of hassle with this company I was able to receive my bag, in the biggest part of the bag it can hold at least 3 A4 files (but a ringbinder will not fit) lots of internal pockets in all the pouches which you can use, there is a hole for your headphones which can be handy but I am using a podcast player on my samsung SG2 which stays in my pocket. I am extremely happy with the purchase and was thinking of buying the next size up if I need an extra bag in the future.

 
So on a previous buy list I had bought this PSU for my new computer.
Xenta 800W Modular 13.5cm Fan PSU - 80plus Certified 6x SATA 4x PCI-E - £59.99
  
When I received this it seemed to be working fine, there was just one odd thing were I hit into my desk (which my tower sits on) and the computer blew out its fuse in the power cord. I then moved house and set up my P.C. and during October the PSU blew the fuse in the cable again, so changed that. Then straight away happened again, and again, and again. Thought it was something to do with my wall socket so I plugged in a lamp into it and it worked fine. So replaced the fuse again and then instead it blew both that fuse and the surge multi socket fuse as well. Did this again and I was going mental, looked at everything, didn't see a problem, and replaced the fuses again. Plugged it in and EVERYTHING IN THE HOUSE GOES DARK. It had blew a "breaker" or a 30A fuse for the house, also blew the surge and the plug as well. So sent it back to ebuyer, they didn't have any other ones so I have the credit to use on other things.

Well you will be seeing a lot of this sort of comment over the next 5 items, I have bought this before. This is the webcam that is very cheap and the quality is very good. No drivers needed and simple plug and play use, also has the built in lights and microphone if needed. Again it was good so will be getting another one of these.
Xenta 4 MegaPixel HD Video Webcam - £7.98     

 

This is just the ram that I already have in my machine. Seems to be going grand and looking just for a bit more power. I'll probably keep this up until I get some fancy ram. So again cheapo, bought before, working and getting another one.
Kingston 4GB DDR3 1333MHz Memory Module Non-ECC CL9 1.5V - £14.00     
 



Have one of these and I really liked the below card reader, does feel a bit flimsy but it just works. I currently use this for my micro sd cards with the SDHC adaptor. will be getting 4 more of these so I will a few lying about the house.
Xenta Single-slot USB2.0 Card Reader - Compatible With SD, SDHC    - £0.99     



 
Like I warned earlier this is another item that I have bought before. This headset is a cheap, comfortable and good quality headset. There is an adjustable volume on the headset itself which works very well but the only downside for this is I had lost my headphones that I would use on my travels. while a consent daily use of travelling approx 40 min on bus and 30min walking (not to mention all the walking around uni campus) the plastic where the wire splits into the 2 jacks started to break. Nothing has happened to the audio and the cable didn't break its just the outer plastic not even the second layer. will be getting another one and seeing if it does the same.
Cosonic CD-760MV Black Headphone with Microphone - 3.5mm Jack Connection - £4.99
 
Well didn't get this before but have micro sd cards from the same maker Transcend. Quality seems to be indifferent to other SD, I suppose I only really notice if the quality is bad like loss of data etc. Nothing has happened with these microSD so I will try this out on my phone.
Transcend 32GB Class 4 MicroSDHC Card - £16.98
 


So those are the things that I will be getting very soon. Next up is what I will want in the future. This will be in relation to getting my P.C. rig set up fully and any research what will applicable to well the time/date of publishing. What I need for the P.C. is a Graphics Card with DirectX11, RAM add-on then upgrade, Monitor and some more Hard Drives. Can't say no to additional USB ports

In regards to monitors I am not in the least bothered of the size but it has to be at least DVI and if I have the monies I could even get something like this:

 
 Acer P246HAqbd TFT LCD 24" Full HD DVI Monitor - £104.99
 This seems to be a very good size, good quality and a standard/nice looking monitor. 

Next up for the computer and last for this post is the Graphics Card.
At this time I am looking for an output for HDMI and DVI. Direct X 11 capability and is cheap. :D
The reason for this is just to get the machine working then I can upgrade different parts later on. This really is the main thing to get but because it is generally a lot more expensive it is hard to budget around it. I am thinking of keeping with nvidia for the moment and I am going with the 660 because it seems to be the most power without making another massive price jump.
Something like this would be quite nice:


 Gigabyte GTX 660 OC 
2GB GDDR5 Dual DVI HDMI DisplayPort PCI-E 
Graphics Card - £171.58



Hope that was ok for you and if you have any questions, looking for an update or want a video review email me either on moltile@hotmail.com or moltile@gmail.com.

Best wishes,
Moltile Jectivon.