March & April are filled with CHEAP CLONES

March 8th, 2011

A lot of game developers don’t seem to get the credit they deserve.  You know the ones – poor souls toiling away at making the next great original iDevice title that just happens to greatly rip off an existing mechanic down to the very look and feel of the game.  Sometimes they’re even original enough to use the original assets from the game they’re inspired by!

In honor of these great game making pioneers, we’ve decided it was a great time to flood the market with CHEAP CLONES of existing titles.  Just take your favorite game and make the most horrible B-rated version you can – points for including a link to the original game so we can see how far you’ve gone.

 
And because making cloned games is hard, we’re giving you two months to do it.  With that much time you could even clone your own game!
 

63 Comments | In: News, Theme | tags: Cheap Clone, Theme | #

Neverending IGF Nominees

February 13th, 2011

Above: Fat Tony performing in front of NEND, one of the NeverEnding Baby Castles winners

Apologies for the late, late nature of this post all, but we just got our greedy little hands on some awesome images of the Neverending Show at Baby Castles held last October in Manhattan. For those of you who aren’t aware, Baby Castles is one of the few places in the world you’ll get the chance to play with indie-games in an arcade style environment replete with live performances, custom art (including arcade cabinets) and absurd amounts of alcohol.

From Left to Right: Pilot Crash Course, Clock, Astro Odyssey, and Auto-Cannibalism caught in the wild!

Also of note, a German television program was covering the opening of the EGP show. Most of the show is in English with German subtitles, but it’s really worth a watch to see the games in action, and hear two girls pontificating on the game Auto-Cannbalism. Do give it a watch HERE.

CONGRATS NUOVO NOMINEES!

One last bit of congratulations should also go out to EGP participants: Mr. Troshinsky for his crazy video mash-up, Loop Raccord, and to Jake Elliott for A House in California. Both games are entrants in the IGF this year and are nominees for the Nuovo Award. EGPers will remember Mr. Troshinsky for games like UFO on Tape, A Game for Two, and Shoot ‘em Art and Mr. Elliott for Beuhla and the Hundred Birds, and I Can Hold My Breath Forever.

2 Comments | In: News | tags: Baby Castles, NeverEnding | #

ASCII in February

February 1st, 2011

In celebration of February being a cold and lonely month, your goal is to make a game around the theme: ASCII. No graphics allowed, other than the text you find in the ASCII Table. Any font is allowed. Make some beautiful art, lonely game developers, and good luck!

60 Comments | In: News, Theme | tags: ASCII, Theme | #

December DRAWING

December 6th, 2010

Remember when you were a kid and it used to snow and reindeers got on your chimney and your tummy was filled with tiny sparkles and you wore a sweater with an animal sewn on it and you could see your breath in the air like thousands of tiny wishes and you just knew that anything could happen, because this was a special time, and now you’re old and you spend every day pressing F5 on your social website at work and then you go home and stream netflix into your sad old face?

This month, the possibilities are back! The theme for December is DRAWING. You have 7 days out of the month to make a game that somehow incorporates the theme DRAWING. “Good luck!”, say all the reindeer friends.

36 Comments | In: News, Theme | tags: Drawing, Theme | #

Neverending Winners!

October 13th, 2010

 
After a lot of careful consideration and multiple never-ending game sessions, the fine folks at Baby Castles have chosen Mocke’s Goblin-stomping entry: Pilot Crash Course as the winner! Congratulations Mocke!

RUNNER-UPS
Additionally, organizers have determined a number of runner-ups whose work will also be shown at Baby Castle’s new, swanky, Manhattan setup. The Runner-ups include:

Untitled, by Martin Gonzalez

A platforming game where you create platforms to explore in an endless environment that changes the longer you’re in it.

Clock, by Luke O’Connor

Press any button to jump to the opposite side of the screen to avoid touching the red lines.

Asterodyssey, by Gametron Studios

Move the Earth out of the path of oncoming asteroids in this mouse-only arcade game. Good use of sounds & the hand-drawn art is nice.

Mines 4 Ever, by PYRONIMOUS

The easiest comparisson here is Minesweep with a Lumines-like time component that you can speed up at will.

 
BONUS-ADDITIONAL GAME SHOWN

Last, but not least, Baby Castles would also like to show a game from April’s REPEAT theme, none other than Krimelo’s twisted, twisted game:

 
Auto Cannibalism, by Krimelo

Features RepEating uses of the theme. The low-bit aesthetic, music, and dialog combine to make a hilarious experience. Plus, when was the last time games explored the delicious theme of cannibalism?

 
When can I see the games in person?

The winners will make their public debut on Friday, October 22nd with live musical guests : Fat Tony & Tom Cruz, Ava Luna, and a special game history talk/performance by Blue Leader.

The games will be up through Saturday, October 30th, so if you’re in Manhattan do stop on by and check them out!

Yay, I won! Now what?

In order to make sure your work is properly shown, please email your contact information to contact at experimentalgameplay dot com. Make sure to include your email, full name, and of course the name of your winning entry. Congratulations, everyone!

15 Comments | In: News | tags: Baby Castles, NeverEnding | #

BOYS AND GIRLS in October

October 1st, 2010

Now that games are officially art, we can think of games as windows into our culture, just like film and music are windows into our culture. An anthropologist thousands of years from now can go to the floating public library in the sky and load up “video games from 2010″ on the microfiche and learn all about our culture way back in 2010. And they would learn that thousands of years ago, there used to be TWO genders, BOYS and GIRLS, instead of the green glowing orb of energy that everyone is now, and that according to “game designers” back then, boys and girls both had a lot in common! They both had arms and legs and inability to communicate with the other, but they were also really different! Games made for boys indicated that boys liked stealing cars and murdering and being lonely, and girls liked being pretty, and making themselves sad because they will never be a princess.

With that in mind, your challenge this month is different depending who you are:

• Boys: Make a game for girls.
• Girls: Make a game for boys.
• Other/Green glowing orb: Surprise everyone!

If you need inspiration, read about how Pac-Man was created over on Eurogamer. And consider this our official request to inspire more folks other than boys to make games, in a classic friendly battle of boys vs. girls vs. other. Good luck!

45 Comments | In: News, Theme | tags: Boys and Girls, Theme | #