I think it would be nigh unforgivable to skip out on mentioning the recent IGF awards, even if such a mention is a little later than most. After finally getting a chance to sit down and watch some juicy bits of the awesome video, I decided to post a quick summary of the facts:

The Seumas McNally grand prize went to Monaco, a co-op stealth game in which four players have to pool their resources to pull off a heist. Developer Andy Schatz is, from what we understand, quite pleased with this.

Other prize winners were Limbo (Excellence in Visual Art, Technical Excellence), Closure (Excellence in Audio), Tuning (Nuovo Award, with a totally awesome acceptance speech from the dev) and Continuity (student showcase winner).

Check out the TIGSource write-up for a more detailed whassisname of the proceedings!

-Nandrew

I don't think that the roguelike genre is particularly renowned for its storytelling. This isn't to say that roguelikes are particularly crappy at this sort of thing, it's just that designers tend to focus on other things which players usually appreciate more — providing games which are praised for their elegance, balance and depth in terms of rulesets rather than narrative.

Where We Remain has the trappings of a roguelike, but removes emphasis on combat and instead puts almost all of its focus on story. You're still placed inside a procedurally-generated world full of danger and obstacles and whatnot, but you'll generally need to avoid (or simply run away from) most problem situations. This is a particularly harrowing concept considering that the game runs in realtime and — in true roguelike fashion — delivers death rather swiftly to clumsy or cocky players.

This general "avoidance" system can be satisfying enough on its own, but it really only serves as a foundation for the game's more important dynamics: story development. Fresh players are presented with a top-down view of the mysterious island upon which they're trapped, and they're given a single goal: find the protagonist's lover and escape the island. Like any good roguelike, it gets deeper over multiple play sessions: not only do veterans begin to learn more about raw survival and the like, but they also learn far more about the world that these characters populate and gradually understand how it comes to be the way it is.

The game is not without its flaws, and more critical players will be able to point out the perpetuation of some classic gender stereotypes within the arguably all-important narrative, but anybody who gets totally hung up on these issues at the cost of appreciating the game's more powerful moments will basically be robbing themselves and their audience of a completely enthralling game experience.

Approach this one with a semblance of maturity, an open mind and an enthusiasm for the marriage of story and roguelikes, and you'll end up striking some gaming gold.

-Nandrew

Our local homies at Luma Arcade (swell buncha folks) have recently been up at GDC along with everybody else in the industry, and Microsoft has just showcased one of their projects, The Harvest as part of an announcement about XNA-based game made for ... well, the new ASUS Windows Phone prototype.

Needless to say, seeing a phone-based game demo of such promising caliber is probably going to send all of the XNA fans out there into one great big excitable tizz. At least, it will if the proposed new platform lives up to expectations. And despite Engadget's coverage mentioning that some of the scenery in The Harvest was pre-rendered (a claim which is now being popularly referred to on several other sites), Luma's Dale Best insists that the whole game is in full, real-time 3D.

Either way, more chunks of information (and hopefully some nice 'n proper videos and stuff) are due to be unveiled at MIX next week, so the rest of us mere mortals will be able to get our answers then. In the meantime, here's a cool little showreel of the stuff Luma's done over the past three years:

Look! More stuff comin' from sunny SA. Bounty Arms is a side-scrolling platformer thingum, made with the recently released Unreal Development Kit, and has been under development for quite some time. But just today, the developers have just released a playable demo. It's quite a hefty download, be warned, and the game is in no way complete just yet, but the video below gives you a good idea of what you can expect so far:

Over the course of the final game you gather power-ups that hugely alter your character and weapon arsenal, travel across the galaxy to many different worlds, unlock hidden doors to secrets, join with new comrades, fight the multitude of varying enemies that each world will bring, and defeat the bosses that rule them.

In addition to the above description, the developers even provide a game manual for you to review, though it'll likely change a lot as development progresses. Go on ahead and give it a shot, it's free! Oh, you'll probably want to have an Xbox 360 controller plugged in for this. (280mb)

- Chippit

So I was poking around on Twitter today (Digsby, thank you for making the Internet tidy again!) when I saw mention of an IGF student entry called Continuity. Armed with a decent Internet connection and high spirits, I decided that now was the time to spread my wings and get into the habit of clicking on random links once more.

Turns out that this is quite the gem. Continuity distinguishes itself from other platformers in the way that the various "building blocks" which make up a level can be rearranged while you're moving through them. And so, while half of the game may just be about runnin' and jumpin' and gettin' keys to open various red doors, it turns into quite a fiendish puzzler later on when you have to keep zooming out and sliding bits of the level about to make sure you can get from A to B via C and — somehow — D.

On top of that, it really is quite well-designed. Puzzles are precise, new concepts are introduced gently and the background music is ... well, awesome. Give this one a shot, it won't disappoint!

-Nandrew