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The Indie Game Jam

Rich Carlson writes "The Indie Game Jam is a yearly game design and programming event designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry."

27 of 87 comments (clear)

  1. Here's an innovation I'd like to see... by corebreech · · Score: 2

    Why not let me win JUST ONCE!!!

  2. just what we need... by blastedtokyo · · Score: 2, Funny

    more indiana jones games.

  3. Gaming Nerds Fasion by alien_tracking_devic · · Score: 4, Funny

    Let's see:

    black shirt, blue jeans
    black shirt, blue jeans
    black shirt, blue jeans
    black shirt, tan jeans
    grey shirt, blue jeans
    grey shirt, black shirt, white shirt
    (that guy in the back has a red shirt--must be gay)

    1. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by dimator · · Score: 2

      I don't know about you, but I don't like black t shirts one bit. Maybe it's all in my head, but lighter colors make me feel cooler (temperature). Kind of a shame that most cool geek prints are done on black (or really dark) shirts. What's wrong with white?

      --
      python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
    2. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by Naysayer · · Score: 2, Funny

      Actually... the guy with the red shirt is me. And I'm not gay.

      It's actually because I was working on computer vision apps, and needed to wear brightly colored clothing since that makes it easier for cheesy webcams to construct a good image.

      Usually... I wear a lot of black.

      -J.

    3. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by ChiPHeaD23 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Black is "slimming". Nerds are not.

      You do the math... :P

    4. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by Graspee_Leemoor · · Score: 2

      White clothes reflect more and absorb less heat than black clothes. True Story.

      graspee

    5. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by Uller-RM · · Score: 2

      You're right - ironically, most of the nomadic tribes in desert zones wear loose black robes. The change in temperature causes convection, and you get a breeze underneath. It actually feels cooler than wearing light colors.

    6. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by Zathrus · · Score: 3, Funny

      that guy in the back has a red shirt--must be gay

      I thought he was just the obligatory soon-to-be-dead crew member.

    7. Re:Gaming Nerds Fasion by rark · · Score: 2

      White always makes me feel like I'm wearing my undershirt on the outside. Okay at home, maybe out grocery shopping, but makes me feel underdressed for work or general public stuff.

      That's just my own particular neurosis, though.

  4. Experimentation?? by Qrlx · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "The Indie Game Jam is a yearly game design and programming event designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry."

    Here's some real innovation and experimentation:
    Dani Bunten Berry

    Pardon me while I feel nostalgiac...every game that comes out lately (esp. in the arcade) is either two guys beating the stuffing out of each other, or some sort of Exxxtreme Simulation, be it piloting a helicopter, shooting a gun, or pushing a shopping cart full of your worldly possesions down the street while being chased by cops and skinheads.

    Okay, that last one doesn't really exist but WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH ALL THE SIMULATIONS??? You wanna be Deer Avenger Mega XL? Why not actually go hunt a deer. There are millions of 'em out there. You want to drive real fast? Go to the local racetrack and ACTUALLY DO IT.

    I miss the quality games like Rampart, which was extremely playable as a multiplayer or single player endeavor...must stop ranting...trying to stay on topic:

    A lot of the games on that web page are very, very cool ideas, and I'm really glad to see the big vendors (read: Intel) getting behind the local community. I would love to play Dueling Machine, because it sounds totally cool, and many of the others seem utterly hilarious.

    God, I miss the good games. I think everyone fell in love with the "rich story line" after Wing Commander II and forgot about playability and the intense PLEASURE that comes from battling it out with a game like Lemmings. I bet the current crop of mainstream game designers has watched a lot more TV and action adventure movies and spent a hell of a lot less time playing lunar lander, drag racer, and Adventure on the mainframe.

    100,000 sprites? You had to do something crafty with interrupts to get more than 7 sprites on my old C64. And yet, I have a game of MULE scheduled for right after I hit the submit button...

    I light a candle for Infocom

  5. This is so cool - they use the GPL! by allanj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    The code is released under GPL, and is available on sourceforge for everyone to play with. I've always wanted to develop games, so looking at *actual* game code is really exciting. I know I can do that elsewhere too, but these are (supposed to be, anyway) top-of-the-line game developers doing their stuff. I'll be downloading the source for sure :-)

    --
    Black holes are where God divided by zero
  6. Neat yes, but innovation on demand? by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The term innovation seems to becoming more and more overused. As much as I'm
    sure that code will be created through this that will be very interesting to see
    and see run, isn't innovation something rare enough to not be expected? What's so wrong nowadays with being proud to have simply made something of quality, even if it's not some earth shattering revelation.

    Sometimes it just seems to me Microsoft's proclamations of their so called
    'innovations' have lowered the bar considerably. I'm about to go make a bowl of
    ramen noodles, and I'll be throwing in some pieces of broccoli. By todays
    standards would that be considered an innovation in the world of everyday
    nutrition?

    --
    Everything will be taken away from you.
  7. interesting by thanjee · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, the concept behind the indiegamejam seems to be very interesting, but what are the games actually like? I would like to download some of them and give them a go, and see what you can actually do over a 4 day period.
    The sreen shots don't give that much away. Just 100000s of people everywhere to kill. How complete was the base sourcecode they were working from?

    --
    I guess everyones attention is on AOTC, so perhaps it would be wise to have a /. discussion in a comments on AOTC news item rather than posting all over the place.

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  8. Hmm, this sounds familiar... by evilviper · · Score: 2
    designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry.


    Hmm, sounds familiar. Is it similar to the way patents & trademarks are designed to encourage innovation?
    --
    Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
  9. New games huh? by phunhippy · · Score: 2

    I'd love to see a game where i can be a person who walks around with big guns and shoots things.. like pain in the but moderators for examples.. or just bad guys too :)

  10. Re:Neat yes, but innovation on demand? by Qrlx · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When you put broccoli in your ramen, that's called *synthesizing*.

    The ramen noodles are the *framework*. Nutrition is a *functional requirement*. Dumping leftover veggies into your kibble *adds value* and *lowers your TCO*.

    I could keep going except I agree with you too much. Innovation is dead, or at least becoming increasingly more stultified as we approach the "McCultural singularity"

    Democracy is a registered trademark of the America Corporation.

  11. New a bit too late? by Diabolical · · Score: 2

    This took place in March.. how come we hear it just now?

    1. Re:New a bit too late? by phunhippy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This took place in March.. how come we hear it just now?

      Two words: Slashdot Editors

  12. Bungie, are you listening? by Ilan+Volow · · Score: 2

    This is what I want for Myth IV, Mr. Jason Jones. Billyuns and Billyuns of sprites.

    --
    Ergonomica Auctorita Illico!
  13. Re:Slashdot - Welcome To The New Age Of Adverticle by Bowie+J.+Poag · · Score: 2



    No kidding.

    Its just so sad to watch, sometimes.. The whole Linux movement started off being so kind, and generous, and genuinely altruistic....then turned into a steaming pile of bullshit. And disingenuine bullshit, at that. I fought, and fought, and fought to try to get people to realize what was happening, because back then, I still cared. I walked out in disgust, issued a very public fuck-you to VA and the horse they rode in on, and encouraged others to do the same. Nobody listened. Infact, the opposite happened. I got ridiculed and made a pariah for doing so. I'm seriously beginning to think there is no real Linux community left. The people who were there pre-VA, pre-Andover, they've all moved on, and away from this sort of carpetbagging crap.. Myself included.. It seems the only ones left are the people who cant bare to admit its over.

    Makes you wonder what the "next big thing" will be. QNX? BSD? Hurd?...OS X? Sure as hell wont be Linux, unfortunately. As much as we all tried, we're in a situation now where VA has monopolized such a massive amount of mindshare that VA's imminent bankruptcy will drag the Linux movement down the tubes with it. VA is irrevocably linked with the Linux movement. Their demise translates to "See? Linux failed." in the minds of everyone outside the Linux community.

    So.. Doesn't matter if you had dreams. Doesn't matter if you gave everything you had and did everything you could to help. You're an obstacle sitting firmly between Company X and the mean green.

    Welcome to the Golden age of Adverticles, kids.

    Cheers,

    --
    Bowie J. Poag

  14. Re:Neat yes, but innovation on demand? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I think the premise of "innovative" is that all possible games and ways to play games haven't been discovered, and that they want to try to find some of them.

    So, they provide a new gimmick (100,000 sprites), and ask the developers to try to discover new games for the gimmick. The gimmick exists to help kick the developers out of any rut they may be in -- to be the impetus for them to exploit their creativity.

    Quality is something we all want. And there are plenty of groups producing games of quality.

    But innovation, while perhaps hard to force, also isn't something that just falls from the sky. You have to keep at it and keep at it, and hopefully finally out of the 100's and 1000's of tries, something is actually new and interesting.

    Or maybe we should be working toward a top quality abacus, nevermind all those new-fangled tran-sis-tors. Translation: if they try hard enough, they may eventually find something that changes everything, that becomes the foundation for everything else. A lofty goal, for certain; but, they've got to start somewhere, and they may develop lots of other cool stuff along the way.

  15. Angry God Bowling. by torpor · · Score: 2

    Fuck, that's just excellent. Angry God Bowling. I think that just may have to be one of the best concepts for a video game I've seen in a long time ... sorta B&W'ish.

    What I think these folks should do is take all 12 games that were made, and combine them into one big mega-one - you can't get to the next map until you win the existing one.

    Package 'em up, slap 'em in a box called "Angry God Bowling" and sell.

    --
    ; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
  16. More indy's and insaniquarium by enrico_suave · · Score: 2

    Another Independent game festival and a pretty addictive java based browser based game insaniquarium
    (it starts off slow, is a simple game, and carpal tunnel inducing, but stick with it, it gets better)

    e.

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    Build Your Own PVR/HTPC news, reviews, &
  17. Re:Neat yes, but innovation on demand? by Junks+Jerzey · · Score: 2

    What's so wrong nowadays with being proud to have simply made something of quality, even if it's not some earth shattering revelation.

    Yes, true. The trouble is that most game developers set out from day one to write a game "like popular game X." So they follow all the cliches that are laid out before them, and they write a game effectively by the numbers. And that's exactly what people hate in music: bands that are obviously trying to sound like some other band. But when it comes to games, people just accept this--even game critics--and revel in the cliches.

  18. Download link? by Grape+Shasta · · Score: 2
    pushing a shopping cart full of your worldly possesions down the street while being chased by cops and skinheads.

    Whoa, cool... anyone have a link to the demo?

    --

    "I am a cipher, a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, smothered in secret sauce" -Jimmy James
  19. Re:Gaming Nerds Fashion by 56ker · · Score: 2

    Strange you never see anyone walking around these game shows with a replica phaser do you?