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Independent Games Festival Winners Announced
aheitner writes "The winning games at the first ever Independent Games Festival have been announced.
The Grand Prize and Audience Choice awards both went to Fire and Darkness, one of the two Linux games among the finalists.
Other winners were:
Visual Art:
Crime Cities,
Game Design:
Resurrection,
and Audio and Programming:
Terminus
"
umm, don't you mean TNT2? voodoo image "quality" sucks.
As a friend of one of the creators of fire and darkness, I think it's very cool to see them win this. I remember when he first told me about it a year or so ago, and I wanted to play it. Then, as now, my hardware was insufficient to handle what they had to offer :) .. maybe someday.
Despite that, I did get to hear regular updates on the progress of the game, and the trials of finding a publisher. They've put a lot of work into it. Way to go, guys!
Looks lame.
It's true, TJ and TJ Alums rock.
R.R., TJHSST '95
A lot of money goes in, too :) .. while some Fairfax County Public School students rot away in roach infested classrooms, and suffer through teachers "duh... um.. computer? what that?" .. but I suppose that's a common situation across the country. Bitter? Heck no :)
Seriously, though..
It's absolutely true that very intelligent people graduate from TJ, and they produce awesome things, like this. This has a lot to do with the students themselves, but it's nice to see a learning environment that at least supports technology and students who want to create things with it. It leaves me to wish that FCPS in particular, and school systems in general, would take the initiative to create more schools on a similar concept.
Will
jhgfzguz
I was sitting in Bellacqua's (sp?) Calc class. I thought the gag was funny, though Adam Sandler is usually just cheesy, eh? I don't remember who pulled it off, but I heard that they used a nearly-forgotten PA in Okazaki's art classroom.
One cool thing is how involved TJ people have been in spiffy things like Linux and the Web since the very beginning. I remember seeing Craig Metzler's (systems lab guy) name in the credits of Linux v0.99pl5 or something...
R.R.
Hey,
You guys have worked hard to get this far, keep up the good work. I saw a pre-alpha version of the game way back, and it was totally kicking ass for its time. Hey Ari, say hi to ethan for me. Ian Dale's graphics totally are killer in this game. I'll be sure to buy one of the first copies of this game when it is out!
Shellx, Class '01 of TJHSST
Yet another TJ alum shows his face. (Jiunwei Chen from the class of '97) I remember some of you guys testing and *playing* Fire and Darkness in the computer lab. (Wasn't there the rule: cannot play games in the lab, unless you made it yourself?)
:)
I spread word of your achievements to many TJ folk here at Virginia Tech. They send out their congratulations and amazement.
-- Jiunwei Chen (who wishes he could make games for a living, but I'm currently stuck as a database programmer, heh)
http://www.acm.vt.edu/~jchen/
Great job guys! I saw your game about a year ago when a copy found its way onto a school computer and it was pretty cool even back then. I'll definetly get it when it comes out.
A.B.
Wow, I guess it's good that I actually have a 3D accelerator. I checked out that Fire and Darkness demo -- pretty sweet (although it's limited to Mesa3D's 640x480, IIRC). /me wonders if he'll have any money after more games are running on Linux. Eek -- I need a bigger HD, too ;-)
What's the second Linux game? I couldn't quite figure that out.
and you can't even get the alpha unless you're somebody deemed important enough to be given a login/password to the download area for it. the rest of us have to settle for the demo i guess.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Posted by FascDot Killed My Previous Use:
Who won in the "Originality" category?
Posted by scarter:
I am not a lover of Linux, but I might just install it for these games....
Posted by Ian Dale:
We're still calling it an alpha (6.5 to be exact), but it is and always has been fully playable. The one we currently release on the page has had the playability removed (sorry), but eventually we will have some sort of playable demo (don't ask me when). The version at the IGF was the playable version, so we were judged on it. Hope this clarifies things a bit.
Posted by Ian Dale:
As for the alpha testing thing, as far as I know, Dave Scherer has been really busy preparing for the festival, so he never got around to setting up any alpha testers online. Hopefully now we'll have more time. Sorry for the inconvenience.
Posted by Ian Dale:
Thanks.
Posted by Ian Dale:
You can play it in Windows too.
Posted by Ian Dale:
Thanks alot. I think you deserve a free copy.
that game looks sweet as hell
Now wait a second.. I'm NOT trying to sound like a dink here, and I CAN say that the Linux demo ROCKS, but it's NOT a GAME yet.. It HASN'T been released as one, JUST a DEMO..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
The second Linux game was BFRIS.
--
The Linux Game Tome
Maybe you should do some research before you make generalizations on TJ. TJ receives the exact same funding as every other FCPS high school from the county. The only difference is the senior tech labs, which are funded by the state.
TJ gets recognized alot because its students are intelligent people. They're all grouped together, so their acheivements are noted as "TJ achievements." Every other school in the county has intelligent people who have great achievements, just not as many so you don't hear about, say, South Lakes winning so and so award, you hear of Student X winning so and so award.
IAN DALE RULES
:)
I'll add to Ian's comment above by quoting our FAQ:
:)
"If you send us enough money, we might send you a full alpha. Or we might just keep the money. It would be a tough call."
So you're welcome to try it, but caveat emptor
The demo that I downloaded this morning uses Glide. It ran really smoothly at 800x600 on my Voodoo2 board under Linux. Very nice...
Hope they sign with a publisher soon. I need to buy this.
Somebody correct me, please, but isn't this game alpha right now? How can you win anything if you don't exist? Not to take away from the graphics....
- Dan
Uh...
I don't know about us rocking, but it's true that a lot of smart people come out of there. There always neat projects coming out of the senior tech labs.
Incidentally, since you were in my class, did you get to hear the "severe beating" senior prank on the PA?
Andrew Bunner and Haley Fiske were the culpable ones. With a little help from Adam Crock (we used his amp), Eric Leidman (he got us into the dark room) and a few others.
:)
... Taylor Beam et al in the systems lab were early fanatics as I recall. I was a Mac guy in those days.
Apparently, the signal wasn't strong enough to reach the entire school, but enough people heard it to get Haley and I suspended for a couple days.
We were originally going to play "The Vice-Principal's Big Day" but eventually decided against it
Re: TJ and Linux
Will-
The scary thing is that according to some authoratitive survey FCPS was ranked the 2nd best school system in the country. I don't know what factors were weighted how, but I do remember reading about this study.
It's really sad. Looking back on the state of West Potomac and some other schools near my old neighborhoods, it's flat-out depressing to think this is the best the United States has to offer.
Re: other magenet schools... I went to UIUC and I know Illinois had a TJ-esque boarding school for smart kids in grades 9-12. The problem with them is that they breed a sort of elitist culture. People like you, who may have been qualified, but weren't accepted (or didn't apply) end up with less opportunities than the kids who get in. Ugly.
Not to be rude, but TJ receives a lot of money that other schools don't get to see. Lots of tech companies in the Northern VA area dump money and equipment in there. I'm not saying it's good or bad, but it's undeniably true.
They may get the same amount from the state as other schools, but that doesn't mean they're working with the same budget.
http://www.singularity-software.com/shots.html
Ummm, why is the Crime Cities link pointing to an ISP?
iSKUNK!
Looks like someone forgot to pay their web-hosting fees. Oh well.
iSKUNK!
Congrats Dave and crew! Now, just make sure you get F&D to run on the Voodoo 3 quickly. Then again, if you do that I might be forced to buy a 21" monitor.
makes me wish I got a Voodoo2 card.
- nr