iGame Radio

We have some good news out of the Independent Games Festival in China. The Line HD, the iPad game released by Anthive Games, won The Best Mobile Game at IGF China.

Reviewed last year by iGame Radio, The Line has been granted several awards for their innovative game mechanic which they have improved upon consistently. Rather than control the main character, Eddy, the player controls and manipulates Eddy’s environment to help him get to the goal of each level.
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OstinGames, developer of KissIsland, is launching the KissIsland Kissing Contest. A prize worth as much as $2000 awaits the person to come up with the best kissing video with the most creative kiss.

KissIsland is a survival action game that combines fighting and kissing in the story line (including, apparently, gorillas) about a pilot of a military spaceship that survives a crash on an isolated island full of impassable jungles, gorillas, and the local tribe run by a Voodoo sorceress.
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The winners of the 2011 IndieCade awards have been announced. Of the thirty-six finalists, thirteen have received jury awards in categories such as game design, interaction, audio, and the Grand Jury award.

IndieCade 2011 featured games of almost every genre and platform by independent game makers from more than a dozen different countries, including Australia, Canada, Denmark, Hong Kong, South Africa, the Ukraine, and the United States. The festival weekend included speaker sessions, gaming, an awards ceremony, and the Gamewalk/Festival Arcade.

The games and developers receiving awards this year are:

• Grand Jury Award: FEZ; Polytron Corporation.
• LG Mobile Innovative Game Award: Hungry Hungry UFOs; Asher Vollmer, Sam Farmer and Ben Bharier.
• Visuals, sponsored by Nvidia: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP; Superbrothers, Capybara Games, Jim Guthrie
• Audio: Proteus; Ed Key
• Impact, sponsored by G4: Johann Sebastian Joust; Douglas Wilson and Friends
• Interaction: Ordnungswissenschaft; Till Wittwer, Marek Plichta and Jakob Penca
• Game Design: Deepak Fights Robots; Tom Sennett
• Technology, sponsored by Transgaming: Johann Sebastian Joust; Douglas Wilson and Friends
• Story/ World Design, sponsored by BBC Worldwide: FEZ; Polytron Corp.
• Special Recognition: The Swapper; Facepalm Games
• The Trailblazers Award: Megan Gaiser
• Developers Choice Award: Way; Coco & Co (Carnegie Mellon)
• Audience Choice Award: The Depths to Which I Sink; Bigpants

Congratulations to the winners!

Voting on the uDevGames contest has begun! Starting October 2nd and ending on October 13th, everyone may vote for their favorite Mac game in the contest.

For those of you unfamiliar with the uDevGames contest, in a nutshell developers create a game from scratch to complete in three months. Then games submitted to the contest are voted on by peers and the public at large, and prizes are awarded in multiple categories. It’s not uncommon for a uDevGames contest winner to go on to become a commercial success.

The official start of the contest was July 2, but voting began last week so you’ve got three more days left to cast your vote. There are sixteen games to look over, from RTS to sim to arcade shooters to RPG. Winners will be announced October 14.

This is a damn fine contest that really helps out the community. Not only does it allow both newbie and veteran coders and artists to stretch their potential, but all source code (that isn’t commercial, say, from a commercially used game engine) is then published to the community. So check out the games, have some fun, and vote!

CCP has announced that voting for the EVE is Real contest has begun.

EVE is Real site is a collection of videos, images, and text created by players archiving the eight years of EVE Online’s persistent universe. Over 4000 player-made images, videos and posts are located on the site. The site is divided into the categories of War, Exploration, Corp Recruitment, Freestyle, and EVE is Real, the last of which seems to be a collection of player views on how realistic and lifelike various aspects of EVE gameplay feels to them. The posts range from poignant and precious to terrifying or hilarious.

Every person can vote for one image and one video per day. Prizes include 20 GEFORCE GTX 460 SE video cards for image winners and a grand prize of an ALIENWARE AREA-51 PC for the video contest winner. Voting ends September 1st.

UPDATE: looks like Dota 2 is going to be pushed to sometime early next year, according to this Shacknews article.

The International, the first tournament of Dota 2 held at Gamescom, has resulted in a champion. Valve has announced that team “Na’Vi” from Ukraine took first place with the $1 million grand prize.

Over five days, this event was viewed by millions through live broadcasts and live audiences. The International featured the 16 best Dota teams in the world competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne’s five-day trade show. Teams represented countries from across the world, including Denmark, China, Russia, the Philippines, and Singapore.

In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, Nvidia provided all the hardware for the event plus hardware prizes for the winning team. Valve has confirmed that it will be holding another International tournament next year, and is even discussing upcoming Dota 2 events during its beta phase.

Dota 2 is the stand-alone sequel that Valve is developing to the popular Warcraft III mod map Defense of the Ancients (popularly known as Dota). The game will tentatively be released for Windows and Mac later this year early next year.

Valve today announced The International, a tournament of Dota 2 that will be the first public showing of the game. The tournament will take place August 17th-21st at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany.

The International features the 16 best Dota teams in the world competing in the Dota 2 Championships through a group stage, double elimination playoff format over the course of Cologne’s five-day trade show. The winning team will receive $1 million. In addition to the cash prizes awarded by Valve, NVidia is providing all hardware for the event.

“The International is the first public Dota 2 event and will give the tens of millions of gamers playing Dota around the world their first look at the new game,” said Gabe Newell, president and founder of Valve. “I have had the good fortune to watch the competitors as they prepare for the tournament, and the level of play is extraordinary.”

Dota 2 is the stand-alone sequel that Valve is developing to the popular Warcraft III mod map Defense of the Ancients (popularly known as Dota). The game will tentatively be released for Windows and Mac later this year.

Teams represent countries from across the world, including Denmark, China, Russia, the Philippines, and Singapore. Interestingly enough, there are no teams from the US listed on the site, or indeed from either of the Americas (North or South). The tournament will be broadcast in four languages (Chinese, German, Russian, and English) free of charge. We’ll keep you up to date regarding the tournament as information is released.

CCP recently announced their EVE is Real site which stores a growing collection of some pretty awesome videos, images, and texts created by players archiving the eight years of EVE Online’s persistent universe.

More than 1000 player-made images, videos and posts have been received so far. The museum is cataloged into War, Exploration, Corp Recruitment, Freestyle, and EVE is Real, the last of which seems to be a collection of player views on how realistic and lifelike various aspects of EVE gameplay feels to them. The posts range from poignant and precious to terrifying or hilarious.

EVE is Real is also running a series of contests that will benefit individual EVE players as well as the EVE gamer universe as a whole. The EVE is Real site provides a method of sharing these videos, images, and text with other players. Each piece of content that is shared is counted towards a whole, with an unknown bulk number unlocking an amount of Aurum for the entire EVE universe.

The first level of sharing rewards was unlocked this week, triggering a 1,000 Aurum reward for each of EVE’s subscribers, the equivalent of over $1.89MM USD worth of virtual currency and the equivalent of 107,000 months of gametime (AKA PLEX). Aurum was recently introduced with the Noble Exchange as part of EVE Online: Incarna, EVE’s latest free expansion. There are still three more levels to unlock.

There is also an image and video contest to enter. Submissions can be made until August 18th, at which time EVE Online players will vote on all images and videos available until the contest ends on September 1st. Players can win a GEFORCE GTX 460 SE or ALIENWARE AREA-51 PC.

Want to win an autographed guitar and Portal 2 swag? Like creating videos? Here’s your chance to satisfy both.

Valve Software and recording artist The National are sponsoring a contest. Starting today and running until midnight July 15th, the contest asks the community to make a music video for the song “Exile Vilify”, the Portal 2 piece that The National composed, using whatever visuals they choose.

Once aspiring video directors have completed their work, they may submit their videos on YouTube using the tag PORTAL2NATIONALEXILE. After the deadline, Valve, The National, and the community will select the winner who will win a prize package including a guitar autographed by The National plus a collection of Portal 2 merchandise.

For more information regarding the Portal 2 Music Video Contest, please visit thinkwithportals.com.

The deadline for the App Store 10 Billion Countdown Contest is tonight. Just guess on the iGame Radio Facebook page when the countdown will be over, and whomever is closest to the actual time will be the winner!

The winner will get a special edition package of Bejeweled 3, including Bejeweled 3 for the Mac, a Bejeweled 3 Strategy Guide, and a custom mouse pad. All decisions by iGame Radio are final. Have a great weekend!