iGame Radio

 

We had a great conversation with Josh Veloria of Telltale Games. iGame Radio’s Omaha Sternberg talked with Josh about the soon to be released Jurassic Park: The Game, the recently released episode two of Hector: Badge of Carnage, and touched upon the recently signed Walking Dead. Also, Josh hints at new projects for 2012.

Unfortunately, we won’t be able to give you any feedback about Jurassic Park: The Game. Despite the fact that Telltale had demos running at PAX Prime, the only peripheral to interact with the game was an Xbox 360 gamepad. One wonders why Telltale would use such a device for a game that will be running on machines that will be using keyboards and mice, but there you go.

PAX Prime is starting in 0 minus 1 day, 17 hours, 51 minutes, and whoknowshowmanyseconds and counting. And that means iGame Radio will be there, covering your favorite Mac and iOS games here and to come!

We’ve already got a slew of meetings and interviews scheduled, so you can look forward to a bunch of great podcasts not just about specific games and hardware, but daily podcast summaries as well.

To give you some ideas of what is to come:

EVE Online: interviews with developers and why EVE is so hard to get into (OR is that a myth?)
Topware Interactive: updates about Two Worlds II, and the upcoming games Scivelation and Raven’s Cry (YUM!)
Runic Games: Torchlight 2…need we say more?
Red 5 Studios: Covering their game Firefall. (Gosh, I wonder why we’re meeting with them? ;)

And many more, both Mac and iOS.

Will you be at PAX Prime? If so, let us know so we can hook up. We’d love to know what your thoughts are on the Mac gaming scene in general and the PAX scene in particular. You can post a comment here, on our Facebook page, or email us to connect.

Penny Arcade has announced the finalists for the 2011 PAX 10, ten of the very best independent game developers, who will be showing their games at PAX Prime 2011. These developers will have free booth space during the three day event to show off their games.

Culled from more than 100 submissions, these ten developers have created games on platforms including Mac, Windows, XBLA, iOS, and Android. The winners were selected by industry experts looking for the best in gameplay, originality and overall fun-factor.

“Every year the showcase of new indie gems are one of the highlights of the show,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “In always chasing the next big blockbuster, too much of our industry is dedicated to making the same game over and over again. The PAX 10 is one way that indies with innovative game concepts can get in front of the community.”

The winners include:

Atom Zombie Smasher for Windows, Mac, Linux by Blendo Games. The zombie apocalypse has come, and you must take strategic command of mercenary forces to conduct massive rescue operations. Use military forces such as snipers, artillery crews, and orbital bombardments to hold back the undead while the civilians escape.

Word Fighter for iOS & Android by Feel Every Yummy. A one-on-one word battling game that mixes rules from popular word games like Boggle and Scrabble and wraps them around a competitive fighting environment. Think “Street Fighter” meets “Words with Friends”, or word games mashed together with “Super Puzzle Fighter”.

The full list includes A Flipping Good Time, Antichamber, Jamestown: Legend of the Lost Colony, Snapshot, Solar 2, Splatters, and Vanessa Saint-Pierre Delacroix & Her Nightmare (all for Windows), and Fez (XBLA).

We note that though Antichamber is listed for Windows on the PAX site, the game developers site explicitly states that a platform hasn’t been announced yet, and that the game has been developed on the Unreal game engine. So there is hope that this game might actually become available for the Mac. This game looks especially yummy to us, with a very minimalist approach to design and graphics.

More information can be found at the The PAX 10 website. PAX Prime 2011 will be held at the Washington State Convention Center on August 26 – 28, 2011, and is currently sold out.

Penny Arcade has announced that David Jaffe of God of War fame will be keynoting PAX Prime 2011. The keynote will kick off three days of demos, speakers, competitions and concerts by some of the biggest names in gaming.

PAX Prime will include some of the hottest new games in the gaming industry including 2K Games, Activision, Bioware, Capcom, NCsoft and Turbine as well as table top/CCG power houses such as Wizards of the Coast and Privateer Press. Microsoft is hosting Halo Fest – the largest and most expansive live Halo experience anyone has ever seen – at the third floor annex of the Washington State Conference Center.

Attendees will also get their fill of nightly nerd concerts, including the return of favorites Jonathan Coulton, MC Frontalot, Metroid Metal, Minibosses, and Paul and Storm, as well as newcomers Supercommuter and The Video Game Orchestra.

PAX Prime is scheduled at the Seattle Convention Center on August 26 – 28. Passes are sold out, but you might still find one by searching the forums.

With all the excitement around E3 and WWDC, PAX news has fallen by the wayside. Despite PAX badges selling out, there are still deadlines looming for those who wish to participate…

If you want to speak at PAX, you still have a chance. PAX Prime speaker submissions deadline at June 14th. Also, if you are a developer and want to speak, your deadline is June 15th. Despite the schedule already being posted, there is still time because it’s a rolling submission process.

Hmm…maybe we should sign up for a speaker gig…

Not satisfied with PAX Prime or PAX East, the organizers behind both have created PAX Dev. Bringing together programmers, designers, producers and artists to explore the craft of creating digital and physical games, PAX Dev will take place two days before PAX Prime.

PAX Dev is designed to be an intimate event where game developers can concentrate solely on the art of game development. To keep that focus, the PAX folks have outlawed marketing buzz, bizdev speed dating events, and PR opportunities with the press. Attendees will be participating in learning, sharing, and debating.

“The idea started with friends in the game dev community asking us to host an event where they could really focus on exchanging ideas without any distractions,” said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. “There are events that are great for signing your next deal or promoting your current project, but that’s not PAX Dev. We’re 100 percent focused on the craft of game development.”

PAX Dev will cover exploration of not just video games, but also pen and paper, tabletop, board, and collectible card games for a complete picture of game development. “…We’ve all seen how ideas in one segment can feed and influence innovation in another part of the game industry,” stated Khoo. “Having representatives from all of the extended game development family can only make PAX Dev stronger.”

PAX Dev takes place Wednesday, August 24 and Thursday, August 25 at the Sheraton Seattle Hotel. Early registration is $249 (at the door pricing is $329) and approximately 750 tickets will be sold at the PAX Dev 2011 site. Individuals interested in presenting at PAX Dev can submit panel applications to the PAX Dev panel site as well.

PAX East has chosen the winners of their Boston Indie Showcase, and a Mac game developer is among them. Owlchemy Labs will be showcasing their game Smuggle Truck at PAX East at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center in March.

Smuggle Truck is an over-the-top physics-based driving game where you smuggle your passengers across the border in the least amount of time. Tilt your truck, catch newborn babies, drive over armadillos, and rocket your way over hills, through caverns and over quicksand to save the people. The game was created as a satire on the very real issues of immigration, because the developers had watched personal friends deal with the issue themselves. Owlchemy is releasing the game for Windows, Mac, iPhone/iPod Touch, iPad, as well as a web-based version.

The other two winners are Boston Indie developers Team Uncertainty and Retro Affect. Team Uncertainty will be showing Blinding Silence, a sound-based puzzle game for Windows. Retro Affect explores cameras that can do more than capture images in their Windows-based game Snapshot.

PAX East is a mirror of PAX Prime (the original PAX held in Seattle), bringing gamers together from across the globe for three days of celebration of gaming culture. The Boston show will be jammed with panel discussions, concerts, tournaments and an exhibitor hall filled with the latest new games for pen-and-paper, tabletop, CCG, PC and console video game fans. PAX East runs from Friday, March 11 – Sunday, March 13.

Penny Arcade has announced the return of the successful line-up of gaming music to PAX East in Boston in March. Held March 11 – 13, the lineup includes artists highlighting a wide range of music from hip hop to orchestral performances.

The full list of acts includes:

• Jonathan Coulton
• MC Frontalot
• Metroid Metal
• Paul and Storm
• The Protomen
• The Video Game Orchestra

The PAX East festival includes a wide range of gaming including pen-and-paper, tabletop, CCG, PC and console video games. Fans will attend panel discussions, concerts, tournaments and see the latest and future titles in a huge exhibition hall. PAX East launched in 2010 and brought in more than 50,000 attendees.

The pre-registration cost is $55 for three-day and $35 for single day passes. The passes are all-access for events, concerts, parties, panels and freeplay areas.

PAX East has created the Boston Indie Showcase. Similar to the PAX 10 held at PAX Prime, the Boston Indie Showcase will give the most prominent Boston Independent developers a chance to show off their titles at PAX East.

Qualified teams must be an independent developer without a traditional publisher-developer relationship in place (no outside funding), have no more than 15 employees, and be located within the Boston Metro area. All titles must be at least at beta and electronic in nature, and no mods or levels are allowed. In other words, you can’t submit a game that requires the installation of 3rd party software, unless the game uses a 3rd party engine or middleware that you have the rights to, like Torque or Unity.

What you get if you are picked is a kiosk in the PAX East Exhibition Hall for you and your team to demo your game. This year, PAX East enjoyed an inaugural attendance of over 52,000 people, an there will be guaranteed more next year. You will also be included in the announcements on Penny Arcade and PAX East sites about your selection.

The submission deadline is January 15th, 2011. To sign up, or for additional rules and details, go to the PAX East site.

 

Ankama is the developer of Dofus, Dofus 2, and the Isles of Wakfu for XBLA. Last year they attended PAX with a large booth in which they showcased the beta of Dofus 2. I was grateful, because I could park my 10 yr old in front of a computer on Sunday and never have to worry about her till lunch. She even made a friend through the game! I chatted with David Calvo, creative director of Ankama, about Dofus 2 and what we might expect in the future. Ooh, and look, he gave us a surprise at the end!