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2005 IGF Student Showcase Winners Announced

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-big-oops dept.

Alef writes "The winners of the 2005 Independent Game Festival Student Showcase have been announced. However, at least one entry appears to have been ignored by the judges. This makes me wonder whether the elaborate description of their judging process merely is empty words." Update: 01/28 22:45 GMT by Z : Goodman simoniker wrote in with an update to this story in the comments. Basically, miscommunication reigns.

22 comments

  1. Xbeowolf by wot.narg · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Wow, who would guessed that Xbeowolf would win!

    --
    Roses are red
    Violets are blue
    In Soviet Russia
    Poems write you!
  2. Seems like... by Alkaiser · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It'd be pretty lame of the judges to completely ignore an entry...although not altogether unexpected...

    --
    Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
  3. All I can say about Velox by Geoffreyerffoeg · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Where's the download link for Velox on LimeBird's site? Has anybody downloaded it?

    Perhaps they tried to download it, but couldn't find it?

    Does "will be displayed" mean not released yet? If so, then I can hardly fault the judges for not accepting it....

    1. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 4, Informative
      That's not the download link. The download link was given to them in the entry submission, and was a separate page that noone except the IGF knew about. There were no hits to that page.

      And they had our number. No missed calls, no emails, nothing.

      And yeah, the game is not publicly released.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    2. Re:All I can say about Velox by Jason+Scott · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I found a separate site which seems to provide a 0.2 beta for the game, possibly for the judges' use. This beta page has links to a ~limebird type account, which is what I assume they meant by a server they could see the logs of.

      If true, yes, it's troubling, since ostensibly anything that gets a successful entry in at least should be viewed, even if a few seconds of viewing reveal you've got a non-winner. You have to at least see it to dismiss it properly.

      Since LimeBird/Velox has a little bit of notoriety about this now, I would suggest moving on, and continuing to work on the game, since it's very easy to go from "That game made by those guys screwed over in the IGF" to "That game made by those guys who whine about how they get screwed over."

    3. Re:All I can say about Velox by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Was your card ever charged the $100?

      If not, that might have something to do with it...

    4. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 1
      That's actually the site for the previous beta mentioned on this page. It's old and obsolete, and as you might have noticed, the links are all dead.

      For our own sake, I don't find this a big deal. We've never stopped working on the game, and have no intention of doing so. However, for the sake of the IGF, and defenitely for the Student Showcase part of it, isn't it a bit troubling for the reputation of it that they don't even look at all the games entered? I'd think so.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    5. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 1

      It's a student showcase entry. No entry fee for those.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    6. Re:All I can say about Velox by Jason+Scott · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Well, we can go around and around on that. Obviously, if they have no entry fee and can take most anything shoved in, they're run kind of ad-hoc and probably rather arbitrarily. I would leave it at your essay and then move on, really. The world is full of podunk festivals, contests, "certifications", and other such constructions that end up being rather inside, arbitrary, or not-to-snuff. I'd let the game speak for itself. I'd also put some screenshots up on your site.

      All this said, however... you run the fuckin' MODARCHIVE. You RULE, and get bonus points beyond all reason for doing so. I run artscene.textfiles.com, which has a mod section, but really, I know where to bow down. And for you, I do. Let me know if I can be a mirror.

    7. Re:All I can say about Velox by simoniker · · Score: 5, Informative

      Long-time reader, first-time poster! Or something like that.

      I'm not directly involved in the IGF, although I do also work at CMP, which organizes the Festival, and I can assure everyone that the IGF tries its hardest to accommodate everybody on what is a major task for all concerned.

      I went and found someone at the IGF, and he showed me a copy of an email sent to the Velox creators at limebird.com on November 16th 2004, because their website was apparently down. They never replied to this email, and so it was presumed that they were not entering the competition any more.

      I appreciate that things like this are very upsetting, but I also find it upsetting that it has to be escalated to such a public forum before it's found out that there has been at least somewhat of a mix-up. There _has_ been some changing personnel on the IGF, which may have exarcebated matters, but nonetheless, this is a bit of a shame.

    8. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 1
      Of course the world is full of crap competitions and the like, but the IGF is run by the CMP Game Group (producer of Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra.com, and the Game Developers Conference), so I'd held it to higher standards. Yes, screenshots and more info is starting to seem like a good idea. They didn't at the time that page was written though - mainly because it looked like crap at the time :)

      Of course we always welcome mirrors, but that's offtopicness delux. Talk to someone in #modarchive on espernet (irc) if you feel like it. My new nick there's limestar.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    9. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 3, Informative
      We've sent several emails to CMP, from different domains, and none have been replied to. The most recent one was sent about this issue a week ago. Have you actually checked your servers and connection? www.mozilla.se and a few other sites run off that very same box - if it'd been down i'd have known.

      Still, very interesting that someone actually reacted somehow at all, that's the first time. If something blocks our communication (and since the IGF forums are broken, that's the only channel for communication), that really needs to be fixed.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    10. Re:All I can say about Velox by Sheetrock · · Score: 1
      That's a pity about what happened; as a reader of Game Developer I guess I'd expect them to have things a little more together for a game competition as well. E-mail can be dodgy, though, especially if somebody puts a silent spam/virus filter on your account for you or your system administrator inadvertently wipes part or all of a spool file.

      If it's any consolation, the game sounds interesting and I've bookmarked the website which is more than I've done for any in the competition (admittedly, I haven't checked them out yet). And modarchive is excellent.

      --

      Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
      -- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.




    11. Re:All I can say about Velox by Stary · · Score: 1
      I agree with the email problems. As I am the sysadm of the box that runs our email, i doubt that'd happen... and as for the cmp people (who run igf) I really did expect that they'd have better check on their systems.

      Anyway, thanks for the support. I'll see about putting up screenshots and possibly a downloadable version soon.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
    12. Re:All I can say about Velox by madsax · · Score: 1

      Hey Stary,

      I'm one of the IGF judges, though I wasn't involved in judging the student entries this year. I apologize to you on behalf of the judging body that this has happened. It seems that the IGF as an organization tried to be in touch about not being able to access your demo (for whatever reason), but was unsuccessful. We're committed to being clear in our communications and holding a festival that honors all the participants, but in this case we've failed, and I apologize profusely for that.

      As another posted alluded to, Alex Dunne, who has run the festival since its inception, recently left CMP Media. I've emailed several other people in the game group, including the GDC director and the person who will be taking over the IGF, and I hope that we can do something to make the situation right. -- oop, I just got a reply back indicating that they're looking to be in touch with you via telephone to have a chat about it.

      If you have suggestions for ways we can prevent this from happening in the future, I can assure you as well that we're all ears.

      Feel free to drop me an email at madsax <at> satori.org to talk about this further, if you like.
      Best regards,
      ---Mark DeLoura

    13. Re:All I can say about Velox by justins · · Score: 1
      I went and found someone at the IGF, and he showed me a copy of an email sent to the Velox creators at limebird.com on November 16th 2004, because their website was apparently down. They never replied to this email, and so it was presumed that they were not entering the competition any more.

      Why presume? Why not just call them on the telephone, or mail a different member of the team? Emails are lost all the time.

      I appreciate that things like this are very upsetting, but I also find it upsetting that it has to be escalated to such a public forum before it's found out that there has been at least somewhat of a mix-up.

      Sounds more like a "fuck-up", although the hyphen seems pretty redundant in either case. :p
      --
      Now before I get modded down, I be to remind whoever might read this that what I am saying is FACT. - bogaboga
  4. Trying to find Velox information by pnice · · Score: 2, Interesting

    When I click on the links that made the final 10 I can see screen shots, detailed information, downloads for the files, etc. When I try to find anything on Velox I get thrown into a loop around web pages that all end up going to the same thing. If Velox would have made it into the final 10 would more information have been included on the page for the game?

    --
    My Xbox Live Gamer Card
    1. Re:Trying to find Velox information by Stary · · Score: 2, Interesting
      The pages you get access to via the links on the IGF site are made by the teams themselves. We've opted to not offer any public downloads of Velox ATM. If we'd won, that'd possibly have been reconsidered.

      The judges had a lot of additional information, as well as a separate link to actually download the game, of course.

      --
      Tomorrow will be cancelled due to lack of interest
  5. Exhibit Bugs? by ghmh · · Score: 1

    http://www.igf.com/judging.htm, paragraph 4:

    High execution scores go to games that run well, don't crash, exhibit bugs and are well thought out from a player's perspective.

    If they're asking authors to intentionally exhibit bugs in their programs, sounds like a pretty stupid competition to me anyway....

    1. Re:Exhibit Bugs? by lachlan76 · · Score: 1

      Must have been updated, ATM it says "don't exhibit bugs"

  6. LOL-Soccer Ref by CrazyJim1 · · Score: 1

    That sounds like such a funny title, be the excitement of the referee. They should quickly corner the market on all the sports titles. Maybe make a deal with EA sports to have Madden with 3 players so one guy could be the ref. I don't know about you, but one reason I like video games over real sports is that the referees are always on the mark, unless the game is coded to be lame like that.

    --
    God spoke to me.
  7. I call shenanigans... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Update 2005-01-29:
    In a phonecall, Paul Perreault from CMP apologized that this happened and explained some more. Apparently, Alex Dunne who has been running the competition for several years now has recently left CMP. His email address has remained as the contact information on the IGF web site, however, and it seems that all emails sent have gone missing. This seems to be a major part in the communication failure that has occured.

    More information should be available early next week.

    Does anyone really accept this as a reason? The e-mails did not bounce? They only tried contacting one individual? What do you mean "...listed as the conatct information on the IGF site." Is it not convenient when "...emails sent of gone missing?" Is that like "the check is in the mail?" That is one of the lamest excuses I have ever heard. Do you not have a submission form from them, or do you not use those? This is just plain dumb.