I'm secretly hoping it will be ignored by the jury. I don't feel comfortable in the IGF context. But submitted it anyway just for those few people who might be browsing the entries for something different.

I wished you could somehow reap the benefits of winning an award without having to win it. Most IGF awards have no prestige left in them, if they ever had it to begin with. Like indie games themselves, the entire initiative seems to be stagnating instead of trying to transcend its known comfort zones. When you begin to notice patterns, you know the system is merely running in circles and not in a forward thrust.

Let's do it next week, shall we? You bring the wine, I'll take the cigarettes.

To this day I haven't found anyone online with whom I could play.

Thank you, I had forgotten about Dropbox. Those interested in receiving a link please contact me in private, as I don't think it would be proper to post download links of any kind in this forum.

Hard to say, I did reach him some years ago. I suppose I could try to upload a disc image for all those interested if I knew where to store a 700mb+ file. At the time, I was given permission to share the game if I did so privately. Any suggestions?

Welcome, Kasper. Thanks for sharing your story with us. I was looking at the trailer for your work in progress and was favorably impressed with what you've done so far. Please keep up the great work!

Sounds very reasonable, Michaël. Could be the start of something different for the future of Tale of Tales.

I only disagree with your interpretation of Ueda's design method.

My evaluation was subjective, based on my own education and how I developed my skill - or lack of - and intuition throughout the years. Although I've been using computer interfaces for almost as long as I've been taught how to hold a pencil, I feel more comfortable drawing than I do programming. I do very little of both, for some reason.

Much could be said about what it means to draw well: it's a very tricky issue, that one!

I've long been interested in hearing what game designers think about the crafts. There appear to be many vital similarities between the work of a game developer and that of an artisan, even if this is very seldom mentioned or debated. It's refreshing to hear someone like you harmonizing both concepts in a single sentence.

I believe this is why I never got into game development myself. I look at all this software and I see a great barrier between my ideas and being able to make something out of it all by myself. It doesn't seem natural, somehow, like making a drawing, writing, photographing something or playing an instrument. And I'm well aware that we've come a long way in this regard. And yet I fear that my mind may eventually become formatted by these interfaces and their never ending menus, functions and floating windows. The same thing happened to me when I dabbled in web design years ago.

Which is why I respect you all so very much.

On the whole it doesn't really seem to be a huge step up unless I'm missing something (presumably I am).

I don't think you are. Especially if we take games like Fraction into consideration, where terrain deformation occurs in a much more complex environment - although losing some of the detail boasted here, for obvious reasons.

I will extend him an invitation.

I don't know if this has been published here already. I've been interested in this game ever since it was first announced and I'm quite glad to know it is still alive. In fact it was mentioned briefly on E3 yesterday, in the midst of all the glitz and glamour of Sony's triple-A productions.

Papo & Yo seems to address some interesting subjects which we wouldn't normally associate with games: a blend of childhood nostalgia and the creation of a fantasy world as an escape from the reality of the Brazilian favela. In this video { http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oowHCwOUgk }, the designer Vander Caballero speaks candidly about what he intends to achieve with his creation. I think it to be a very heartening and unassuming developer diary and I invite all readers to give it a look.

The most fundamental biological game is highly repetative, but players rarely seem to get bored of that - at least, not quickly.

Well said.

I believe that this repetition takes place not only within the same game, but in between games - especially to those who seem to favor a restricted amount of genres. An FPS aficionado, for instance, spends hours resuming a same cycle of basic actions: picking up ammo, aiming, shooting, running for cover. Respawn. Pick up ammo, aim, shoot, run for cover, etc. As Erik mentioned, sometimes the small variations (levels, maps, weapons, opponents) are enough a difference to make it enjoyable for most.

Collectively speaking, perhaps we're not as averse to repetition as we may think at first. We may even enjoy being bored as an essential part of that which we look for in games. There's something extremely comfortable about repetition in the creation of a safe environment where the player knows what to expect, often unlike the unpredictability of real life. In general, we only enjoy surprises if they don't imply great changes, though small adjustments seem to be welcome at times, mainly when we have control over when and how these changes takes place. We enjoy when we're given a vacation for we may choose what to do with the free time. On the other hand we dread being fired even though that implies having all the time in the world to do whatever we please.

For the most part, we descend from a long line of people who spent their lives repeating the same actions most every day as the basis of an identity. Advertisement, for instance, often appeals to change because this pattern is also applicable to our consumer habits - we stick to the same brands in the strangest ways as if they became a part of us. But for our ancient ancestors who sold shoes, raised livestock, copied manuscripts or worked the fields, change was not even imaginable. It's hard to reverse that inheritance or to expect games not to reflect that fundamental aspect of our condition as human beings.

(I'm not too sure of this myself but I'll post it anyway.)

I've played Child of Eden some months ago, after an extended period of reticence. It was very pleasurable. At times it was truly remarkable, even. Far from being my favorite Mizuguchi but still very respectable in the way it adhered to a distinctive J-Pop aesthetic. Some levels were overly demanding, I agree with you. Still, the dying "gamer" in me didn't give me peace until I saw the end of it. I wished he hadn't tried to appeal to Rez fans so much, or at least not so directly.

PixelJunk games are always too gamey, don't you think? Even Eden, in spite of the wonderful visual design, was too desperate to embody that indie revivalist ideal. I played it for a few levels but eventually gave up. 4am has no difficulty, no challenges, nothing. It's just the player, the audience, and a set of sounds that can be manipulated to create music and light up the screen!  I hope you enjoy it!