IGF + Onlive

The Independent Games Festival has partnered with Onive to offer 30 minute demos of 16 IGF games. This is only going to be available for a two-week window.

Article: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/1...

TheGameGuru, in a thread about Origin, stated how he saw the potential for Origin to carve out a market in working with the indie games community. It was a good idea, though I mentioned I see more potential in working with Onlive—which is why I’m excited to see IGF and Onlive work towards this end.

Not having to worry about un-optimized games or downloading, installing, and attempting to run games that may not be compatible with my system—not having some of the work associated with indie games does make them more approachable. Even if they only make them more approachable to lazy know-nothings like me, I am a demographic—so good for them. Not sure if anything will come of it, but I found the potential interesting.

Given that one of the largest criticism of IGF entrants is the shaky technical state of many games, I think having Onlive machines all patched up and running IGF contentenders is a BRILLIANT idea, and in fact, I'd argue it might make sense for something like this to be MANDATORY for judges. It would mean IGF judges can spend their time playing, rather than installing and troubleshooting, new fun stuff.

Silly thing to worry about but I wonder if some IGF entrants wouldn't take umbrage with their game being mandatorily tied to a platform like Onlive? I agree with you that it'd be a great way to ensure user stability and misalign many technical problems.

Also, Mountain Dew is a sponsor so I don't know how much people could actually bellow about this.

I hope GWJers take advantage of this as well. It's free, a way to show support in interest for indie games and the IGF, and it gives Onlive an indication that this partnership makes sense for them to continue pursuing.

Yeah, I get how it's a bit counter to the IGF mandate. Still, if it lets the games get PLAYED ...

That is a sweet idea. Glad to see them doing this.

rabbit wrote:

Given that one of the largest criticism of IGF entrants is the shaky technical state of many games, I think having Onlive machines all patched up and running IGF contentenders is a BRILLIANT idea, and in fact, I'd argue it might make sense for something like this to be MANDATORY for judges. It would mean IGF judges can spend their time playing, rather than installing and troubleshooting, new fun stuff.

I'd actually argue that the biggest issue with the IGF is that they are focused on the people making games instead of the games that are finished. They allow nominees that aren't "released"(i.e. available to anyone that isn't a developer or IGF judge) yet, which is, quite frankly, stupid. If you're going to celebrate indie games, you should give out the awards to released projects, not projects that are just a bunch of art and ideas. For example: Fez, which won the award for visual excellence in 2008 still isn't out, and it's up for an award again this year.

This is a great idea, because it forces the IGF nominees to actually finish the game for consumption, rather than just creating a bunch of ideas.

Played two games last night- Dustforce and Botanicula.

Glad I played Dustforce. Dustforce really isn't for me. It requires the same controller agility found in a game like Super Meat Boy (which I loved), just different. Seemed to be more going with the flow then SMB in an odd way that just didn't appeal to me as much. Also, I didn't feel the slight looseness that SMB had- which I would have liked back. I think it was a good game, just a different game than I was expecting by a bit-- and it was enough of a difference that I'm not going to buy it. Glad I played it.

Also, I am dumb- so that's fine. But because of the way the interface is designed while I saw the key to start World 1 I didn't realize it wanted me to hit it to activate it. So, instead, I played the tutorial stage 3 times.

Botanicula is interesting. It's a point and click adventure that I didn't dislike but I'm not sure I really liked. It was worth 30 minutes.

Played Be Good, a Digipen project entry. I did not care for Be Good. I guess it's more interactive fiction, maybe, than a video game. The game is short, you make small decisions (who to talk to, whether to smile or frown) and the story unfolds differently based on your choice. The game ends, death asks if it's the life you're happy about, and then the experience begins.

The idea is interesting and I was, at times, surprised how much a story could change from one play through to the next based on small choices. My problem is that I wanted more opportunities to make choices and generally was bored with how long I'd have to go before making a choice again. I didn't end up using the full 30 minute trial after playing through 4 times. The art style is unique- claymation- and it was made by a single dude.

I'm only posting here about meh or ok experiences at this point- if the game is good I'll just post in a thread dedicated to it.

I would recommend the DigiPen game I played last night, a driving game called Nitronic Rush, which I enjoyed quite a bit: http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/1...

Posted about the game Way in its own thread, but as a reminder this ends this week. Some of the games available offer some really great experiences (Atom Zombie Smasher, Nitronic Rush, Way, Dear Esther).

I'm going to have to bite the OnLive bullet.

Tomorrow is the last day these games are going to be offered (some may go on sale, but many surely won't be up at all after Saturday I would imagine).

As long as you're not in Canada (or somewhere else with restrictive limits to net usage) no reason not to give it a whirl.