IGF 2009: Finalists for Excellence in Visual Art
The finalists for this years visual art award are a surprisingly balanced mix of different visual styles and unique designs. After covering the finalists for innovation intensively, I thought this award would have its disappointments and although at first I was disappointed by the lack of different genres and innovation, I was truly amazed by their visual art.
New Year, New Look
I redid the theme of my blog, finally! A bit late, but I wanted a new look for the new year and update some stuff. I’m going to add another page to the blog about games and what they are exactly and I’m working on setting up a company, Platform B7 (which also desperately needs a website). But for now, I’m downloading World of Warcraft again (don’t hate) and playing some lovely independent games. I’ll post something fun soon.
IGF 2009: finalists for the innovation award
My recent posts on the IGF finalists for the innovation award have been a really fun experience. I really appreciate the reactions of the designers and readers. Next to being inspired by the games, I also noticed that these designers have loads of other interesting games that I’m fascinated about. And I can’t wait to take a closer look at the other finalists. I do have some critical remarks to say about the innovation category in general.
Although the games all had innovative elements, I wouldn’t call all of them innovative. Innovation within games means – for me personally – to totally redefine the medium and to break with gaming traditions. I was clear about You Have To Burn The Rope, I still think it’s weird that it’s a finalist in this category, I enjoyed playing it, yet I don’t see anything innovative about it. I had loads of fun playing Mightier, yet – apart from a few elements – it was just a mix if different genres, but in essence it’s just a puzzle/action/platform game. The same goes for Between.
When it comes down to innovation Coil and The Graveyard rule. Both have a very emotional impact on the player and they redefine the medium, each in it’s own way. Both have a lot of similarities when it comes to passivity and simplicity. Yet both offer a very different gameplay experience.
Next I’ll be taking a closer look at the finalists for visual art! For an overview of my articles on the IGF 2009 go here.
Mightier
This game pleasantly surprised me. I thought it was a really cool combination of player creativity and puzzle solving. The puzzle solving didn’t get too hard, yet the different challenges kept me interested. All in all, Mightier entertained me for quite some time.
Coil
At my first attempt at this game, I couldn’t get past the second level. Now I’m a pro and I’ve become a big fan of coil. I like the fact that it takes you through an emotional rollercoaster and combines fun, playful mini-games with sometimes grim peaces of text. It’s definitely an interesting contester for the innovation award at the IGF 2009.
Between
Once I got over the fact that I needed another player for this game and after I forced Daan to play it with me, I actually started to enjoy it! It’s a really cool mix of puzzle and collaboration. It gave me a Tetris-vibe at first, but then I realised it was much more complex.
Internet Explorer/Word bugs
If you’re viewing this site in Internet Explorer (instead of the way cooler Firefox), then you’re probably noticing the following sentence in some of my posts: “!–[if gte mso 9]> Normal 0 21 MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 <![endif]–”
I’ve contacted WordPress about it and they’ve said that it’s caused by Word. If you copy paste stuff from Word into WordPress, it’ll cause this bug and these sentences will appear. They say you can remove it manually, but that’s not the case for me. If I want it removed, I’d have to remove all the posts, put them in Notebook and copy paste them again in a new entry. Needless to say, I’m not doing that. From now on I’ll be posting my stuff directly from Notebook though. The only thing you can do, if you’re experiencing the same problem is to stop using Word!
The Graveyard
The games by Tale of Tales have fascinated me ever since I met Auriea and Michaël at the Innovative Game Design Symposium in 2005. I participated in their Drama Princess workshop and I organised an event during the KunstTour 2006 for which they created a beautiful Abiogenesis performance. So I have to admit, I’m a bit biased when playing their games. Yet even though I’m such a big fan of their work, I didn’t enjoy playing The Graveyard!
Fluffy Animals vs. Juicy Meat
Today I watched an Oprah show about meat. Being an animal lover, a vegetarian and someone who speaks her mind about things, I love to give my view on this subject. For me personally it’s crystal clear: don’t eat meat. I hate the idea of treating animals like products, I think people don’t need to eat meat anymore, I’m disgusted by the taste of meat and during the last election I voted for the Animal Party. Like Kent Brockman, I’ll give my two cents on the subject in this entry.
Human beings come first: een mentaliteitsverandering rondom speciesisme
Mensen komen eerst, dat is hoe wij denken. Dat wij dit denken, heeft ernstige gevolgen voor onze behandeling van dieren. Het kan zo niet langer en we zijn nodig toe aan een mentaliteitsverandering. Voordat ik echter mijn mening kan geven over speciesisme en je ervan kan proberen te overtuigen dat het zo niet langer kan, moet ik eerst uitleggen wat het inhoudt.
