Nuovo finalists announced

[Michaël Samyn]

http://igf.com/2010/12/nuovo_award_finalists_revealed.html

Congratulations to Jeroen for the nomination of Dinner Date and to Thomas for the honorable mention of Amnesia!

Auriea and I were in the jury for this. It wasn't easy. Most other jury members were fun-loving rule-fanatics. We advocated for Kometen too but I guess it didn't help. Amnesia was quite difficult too because most jury members couldn't see past the traditional horror/adventure game layer. Which I guess is a good lesson for us all: that it may ultimately be easier to win gamers' hearts if you reject everything that is even remotely traditional!

Bohm is quite interesting in the context of notgames as well. Though I hope the developers continue working on it to make the interaction a bit smoother. And we had already noticed The Cat and the Coup when it was entered in IndieCade. It's an interesting way to tell a -factual- story.

Here's to Dinner Date beating Nidhogg! (won't be easy -Nidhogg is so perfectly suited to the tastes to the retroloving pixelhugging rulesobeying crowd).

[Erik Svedäng]

First, huge congratulations to you Jeroen, hope the nomination leads to many good things!

Secondly, yeah it's interesting to see what such a diverse group of judges came up with. (and nice to know that you suggested Kometen Michaël )

[racter]

My game "A House in California" is a finalist as well, which I'm super thrilled about!  I haven't been to GDC/IGF before so I'm looking forward to that experience.  I'd love to meet any folks on this board in person if you're attending!

'The Cat and the Coup' is great - I got to play it & meet Kurosh at the Meaningful Play conference a few months ago.  'Dinner Date' sounds quite interesting; on my list to buy soon

[badvibration]

My game "A House in California" is a finalist as well, which I'm super thrilled about!  I haven't been to GDC/IGF before so I'm looking forward to that experience.  I'd love to meet any folks on this board in person if you're attending!

Yeah! I remembered you were on this forum and i was going to congratulate you! Congratulations!! That's fantastic! Congrats to Jeroen as well!

[Jeroen D. Stout]

Thank you all!

I am very excited - this is all rather wonderful.
Congratulations to you too, Racter, will definitely see you at the GDC!

It is indeed a variety of games - 'The Cat and the Coup' seems very interesting to me thematically and I will absolutely play 'A House in California' soon! 'Bohm' is here in Utrecht so it should be interesting to meet them. NIDHOGG and BUTTON both look a bit scary, but the only game I could not see myself playing is BUTTON - I already (and I believe rightfully) feel a bit daft when waving a Wii around so a game centred around misbehaving is impossible to me. 'Hazard' could be very interesting, will be curious to see that too.

Quite a variety indeed - I am impressed you reached a verdict at all with all the jury members. You must have had some heartfelt discussions over this, it is rather startling. It is a true shame Amnesia only got honourable mention, I do secretly hope it will get into one of the other categories, it is the 1^st game I will buy when the new computer arrives.

Soit, I thought I had abused my Tchaikovsky ballet suites privileges this week but I cannot resist now!

[Michaël Samyn]

We had a private vote and trusted the chairman to tally up the votes. The jury members seemed to be pleased that the result was a correct reflection of the discussions that had taken place in advance.

[Thomas]

Congratulations to all nominees!

I did not actually see that we got a honorable mention! Amnesia's "artsy-fartsy" themes are kinda hidden under a commercial surface, so very happy about that!

Lots of games that I have not heard about, so will make sure to try them out. Will all be showed off at GDC?

[Jeroen D. Stout]

My game "A House in California" is a finalist as well, which I'm super thrilled about!  I haven't been to GDC/IGF before so I'm looking forward to that experience.  I'd love to meet any folks on this board in person if you're attending!

I finally got around playing A House in California - quite interesting.

I must upfront admit that the visual/audio form turned me off a bit, but I thought some of the reactions the character game were wittily thought of. I think that is what surprised me most about the game, it was not just a game with different verbs, some things, like cooking yourself, were witty rather than just 'cannae do that'. It is strange, it seems like it would be easy to think of using different verbs once you have played a game, but it was a clever design choice. I still ran stuck when the verbs and actions became somewhat unrelated, though.

--

Congratulations to Thomas on a triple nomination! Very good to see Amnesia got into the other categories.

It shows a strange thing in this competition, however - the only thing Amnesia and Nidhogg have in common is that they are interactive - you may as well compare a electronic 80s band with a chamber orchestra. Yet they are pitched for the main prize. In judging them surely taste in type is more important than a comparative taste in excellence.

It makes me wonder a little bit about how this prize can last in current form when there are more notgames. Which I would rather see than indie games being tied with low-res cheap chiptune one-concept-tried pixel games, as is happening a little.

It is good to see The Dream Machine, it is a game I thought quite pretty. I quite like texture in games so a claymation game is very intriguing.

[Thomas]

I was quite surprised as I was sure they'd contact the nominees in advance, but apparently they do not Very thrilled by the nominations!

[Michaël Samyn]

It shows a strange thing in this competition, however - the only thing Amnesia and Nidhogg have in common is that they are interactive - you may as well compare a electronic 80s band with a chamber orchestra. Yet they are pitched for the main prize. In judging them surely taste in type is more important than a comparative taste in excellence.

It makes me wonder a little bit about how this prize can last in current form when there are more notgames. Which I would rather see than indie games being tied with low-res cheap chiptune one-concept-tried pixel games, as is happening a little.

We were not involved in the selection of the finalists for the main prize, nor in any of the other categories. I've been decrying the lack of recognition of Frictional by the IGF for ages. It's not a recent phenomena that IGF seems to be more about retro games and big pixels (which I feel is an insult to its own name). I'm happy to see a little bit of recognition for different types of games this year. But this is far from a revolution. With Spy Party, Nidhogg, Bit.Trip, Minecraft, Faraway, etc. the "Old School" is still very dominant.

Though I am hopeful. With Amnesia as a finalist in three categories, it stands a good chance to win at least one. I think that would be very encouraging for the types of developers who are truly exploring the potential of this medium (rather than refining old formats over and over again). And if Dinner Date manages to win Nuovo on top of that, maybe an opening will have been created.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

[Michaël Samyn]

I was quite surprised as I was sure they'd contact the nominees in advance, but apparently they do not Very thrilled by the nominations!

FINALLY!!

[racter]

I must upfront admit that the visual/audio form turned me off a bit, but I thought some of the reactions the character game were wittily thought of.

Hey thanks for checking it out & sharing your thoughts, Jeroen   Incidentally, I picked up Dinner Date a few weeks ago and very much enjoyed it.  I was surprised by how much I identified with the character -- not in the sense that I felt sympathetic to him or that his thinking matched my own, but in the sense that I had the feeling of being very much "in his head" -- and it being an uncomfortably crowded place for our two subjectivities to process the evening alongside one another.  Also, as an experiment in storytelling the combination of stream-of-consciousness and the magnification (or celebration) of mundane gestures (lighting a cigarette, playing with a piece of bread in soup) is a rich combination and again an immersive experience.  So, well done & the attention it's getting is well deserved!

It shows a strange thing in this competition, however - the only thing Amnesia and Nidhogg have in common is that they are interactive - you may as well compare a electronic 80s band with a chamber orchestra. Yet they are pitched for the main prize. In judging them surely taste in type is more important than a comparative taste in excellence.

Yeah, it's hard for me to understand what kind of claim a jury would be making by awarding one of these games over the other.  Perhaps, as in any committee, it's more like a bunch of individual claims being made at cross-purposes & then aggregated

Oh and congrats Thomas on all the Amnesia nominations!

[Michaël Samyn]

Yeah, it's hard for me to understand what kind of claim a jury would be making by awarding one of these games over the other. 

Actually, considering the people in the juries, it's a miracle games like Amnesia get selected at all. I would be very surprised if Nidhogg or Spy Party would not win. They are just made for the retro-loving gameplay-obsessed majority of jury members in the IGF.