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Domain: s2games.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to s2games.com.
Stories · 7
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On The IGF Awards And Defining 'Indie' Gaming
Thanks to GameTunnel for its editorial discussing the outcome of last week's Independent Game Festival awards, as previously covered on Slashdot Games, and part of a comprehensive GameTunnel IGF section. The writer is particularly concerned that the relatively high-budget, but still publisher-less Savage: The Battle For Newerth won major awards: "IGF has this year shown that a team's ability to raise money is as important as innovation itself. Consider this, if Savage was done on a $50,000 budget instead of a $1.5 million dollar budget, how would it be different? Would things that are in the game have been left out? I believe that the clear answer to this question is yes." What defines an 'indie' game for you, and should there be a maximum budget for IGF-entered games? -
HK-47, Puzzle Pirates - Big Hits at GDC Awards
Thanks to Frictionless Insight for its article recounting the proceedings of the 2004 Game Developers Choice and Independent Games Festival Awards, which were held last night in San Jose. Multiple GDC Award winners included Call Of Duty and Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time, and Savage: The Battle for Newerth won the IGF independent game award, with Oasis triumphing in the Web/downloadable category. Among the highlights: "When the Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates team moved to the stage to accept the [IGF Web/Downloadable Audience Choice] award, dressed as buccaneers, they basked in the most thunderous applause of the night", and the piece also notes that "...the audience was [almost equally] vocal when HK-47 (from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) took the award for [GDC] Original Game Character of the Year." There's further coverage of the events over at GameSpy. -
Savage Gets Extensive Patch, Publisher Unwell?
0xBulbizarre writes "The long awaited patch to V2.0 for FPS/RTS hybrid Savage is now here, in both Windows and Linux flavors. It's also worth taking the time to read the amazing 2.0 ChangeLog for a list of all the additions, fixes, etc in the new Savage patch, since they've made new units, new visual effects, and plenty of other changes besides - lets support good Linux game makers." We've previously covered this reasonably well-received 'acquired taste' of a title, and elsewhere, HomeLan Fed is reporting on unconfirmed rumors from "highly placed sources" that Savage publisher iGames may be closing its doors, but that "[Savage developer] S2 Games is still in operation and will continue to support and add onto Savage as planned." Update: 01/22 00:15 GMT by S : A follow-up at HomeLan Fed has the CEO claiming "rumor of [iGames'] closing was started by an innocent miscommunication [with the company's] former COO." -
Independent Games Festival Nominees Announced
Thanks to the IGF website for revealing their list of nominees for the 2004 Independent Games Festival awards, which have been running since 1998 "to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers." The finalists in the 'Open Category' include everything from "blend of puzzle and action" Fuzzee Teevee, budgeted at a mere $10,000, to the $1-1.5 million "FPS and RTS [hybrid]" Savage: The Battle For Newerth. The 'Web/Downloadable' category also has some interesting entries, from seeing "two possessed cue-balls duke it out in realtime battle" courtesy of Kung-Fu Chess follow-up Billiard Boxing, to recently-featured "puzzle-based massively multi-player online roleplaying game" Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates. -
Approaches To Teamwork In Online Games Surveyed
Thanks to GamersWithJobs for their piece discussing a new study about teamwork in online games. The study homepage has a PDF download of the student-authored paper, which is based on a survey interviewing "a total of 4,712 people" about their team-based gaming experiences online. In terms of improving and evolving teamwork, a variety of options are discussed: "A central commander role like in [Half-Life mod] Natural Selection supports the team aspect... and received positive feedback. However, an unskilled commander might destroy the team experience, as indicated by the votes for S2's Savage." -
Savage Demo Lets You FPS/RTS On Linux & Windows
Ant writes "According to Blue's News, there's a playable demo for S2Games' FPS/RTS hybrid, Savage: The Battle for Newerth now available, providing the chance to sample multiplayer under either Windows (143 MB) or Linux (155 MB)." There are also BitTorrents of the Windows demo and the Linux demo, courtesy GameTab, for this welcome Linux-friendly title, recently cause for controversy when GameSpot pulled a review of it after "...allegations by the game's developers that the reviewer of the product did not play it for a sufficient length of time." -
Savage Demo Lets You FPS/RTS On Linux & Windows
Ant writes "According to Blue's News, there's a playable demo for S2Games' FPS/RTS hybrid, Savage: The Battle for Newerth now available, providing the chance to sample multiplayer under either Windows (143 MB) or Linux (155 MB)." There are also BitTorrents of the Windows demo and the Linux demo, courtesy GameTab, for this welcome Linux-friendly title, recently cause for controversy when GameSpot pulled a review of it after "...allegations by the game's developers that the reviewer of the product did not play it for a sufficient length of time."