Much of the gaming world is holding its breath in anticipation of the Switch 2, or whatever Nintendo decides to call the follow-up to its hybrid console. For now, we know nothing about it, but it seems developers are already working on titles for the mystery machine (not to be confused with the van from Scooby-Doo).

According to the latest GDC State of the Game Industry survey (as spotted by VGC), about 8% of development teams are currently ?developing a project for the Switch successor. Considering around over 3,000 developers were asked, this equates to quite a few people saying they're wor??king on something for the Switch successor.

On top of this, when asked which platforms people in the industry were most interested in as developers, 32% said the Nintendo Switch successor. This ??is above the Xbox Series X|S and the current-gen Switch, but just behind the PS5, which 41% are? still interested in.

More are working on Switch 2 games than Amazon Luna

We've been getting hints here and there about the elusive system. Last year, it was rumored that the next Nintendo Switch had been demoed at Gamescom 2023, exclusively for developers.

Given what we've seen in the GDC report, it seem?s likely that the console must be in the works at this point. The Switch has been out since 2017 and even with the OLED edition launching in 2021, it feels like it's been coming to the end of its lifecycle for some time now.

Those who are said to be working on Switch 2 games are almost certainly being asked to keep mum ??about it. But with a decent number of dev teams saying they are involved in projects for the as-yet-to-be-announced Nintendo console, we may hopefully start to hear word about it soon. Hope springs eternal, and all that.

The post Developers say they’re working on games for a Switch successor in new survey appeared first on Destructoid.

'The same old shit is still happening'

[Update: A GDC spokesperson reached out to Eurogamer with a ??statement regarding the abuse reports of the past few days.

"We are very upset to hear that some people, especially women, reported concerning experiences during the GDC week at off-site events, including assault and drink spiking. T?his is outrageous and unacceptable; everyone has a right to feel safe. We severely condemn any such behavior and support the victims; we encourage reporting to the police and hope the perpetrators will be found.

"At the GDC event, we take everyone's safety very seriously, we do our best to provide a secure environment on-site, we enforce a strict code of conduct and make sure that the GDC team is available to ??help participants contact venue security or local la??w enforcement, to provide escorts, or to otherwise assist those experiencing unacceptable behavior to feel safe for the duration of the conference."

Original Article:

Last week saw the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) take place in San Francisco �Unfortunately, in the closing days of the event, multiple attendees came forward re?porting incidents of abuse, assault, harassment, and drink-spiking that took place either during, or at events related to, the week's confe??rence.

"Women at GDC this year have been belittled and undermined in their roles, been hit on relentlessly, and had their drinks spiked by predatory men," reported game developer Leena van Deventer on T?w??itter. "Two women were even lured up to a hotel room by a man in a position of power for a 'pitch', where he then assaulted them.??"

"It’s ?gutting to thud back to earth when hearing these things. They shouldn’t happen. This year we shared their photos in group chats, though. And we strategised redress. And we reached out to the women to provide?? care. We’re better at being kind than you are at being a deadshit."

"Get the hell out of our industry."

//twitter.com/LeenaVanD/status/1639347400249864??193?s=20

Van Deventer's comments came the same day that Stride PR Vice-Preside?nt Guy Blomberg confirmed that they had received multiple ?reports of serial drink-spiking that took place at a karaoke night held in relation to the conference. Blomberg says "multiple folks" had their drinks tampered with at the event.

"Thankfully they had friends who looked after them and they're ok, all things considered," wrote Blomberg on Twitter. "I'm so very sorry they had to go through such a horrifying experience, it's absolute??ly not their fault, and we're already in the process of tracking down the fucking scumbag who did this."

"I'm furious ?this not only happened, but that it tends to happen so frequently that it's become almost commonplace. It's NOT fucking ok or acceptable. We are doing everything we can to work with the venue, look through security footage, and reach out to various people. "

//twitter.com/YugSTAR/sta?tus/1639706520052027396?s=20

In addition to the inc?idents noted above, other attendees reported a trend in typically misogynistic behavior �including comments on appearance, inappropriate touching, or passive-aggressive prodding and q?uestioning over the validity of their roles within the industry. (Links to these reports not supplied to protect accusers).

"This is where games has yet to find the maturity of measures needed to protect our own," summarised one attendee. "This isn't a one-off. This is continuous, growing and being allowed to do so [...] As a Direct?or of a AAA Game Studio, I do not feel safe in attending. I want to feel safe. What do you need? Who do you want consultancy from? Let's not be humble anymore."

"People are in d??anger and that fucks me right off."

The Games and Online Harassment Hotline issued a statement in response to the reports.

"Every year, t??here are stories about groping, drugging, harassment, and even more stories of countless attempts to create opportunities for assault at games industry events like [GDC 2023], begins the statement. "It's heartbreaking an??d infuriating that this feels so normalized. [...] It wasn't okay; it wa??s never okay. However yo?u feel about it—angry, resigned, depressed, scared, numb—is real and right. If you want to talk, the Games and Online Harassment Hotline is here for you."

You can reach the support group by texting SUPPORT to 23368.

The post (Update) GDC 2023 attendees?? repor?t incidents of harassment, abuse, and drink-spiking appeared first on Destructoid.

Almost Unreal

As part of this week's Game Developer Conference (GDC) publisher Epic Games and developer Team Ninja has shone the light on the stunning facial animation tech that will be used to bring life and personality to the characters of long-in-development sequel Senua's Saga: Hellblade II.

The demonstration video shows off Unreal Engine's "Metahuman" technology, and features the face of actor Melina Juergens, who portrays the troubled Senua in the Hellblade series. The video begins with an extreme close-up of Senua's eyes, slowing pulling back as she delivers a dramatic monologue, before finally being lost in flickering flame. While the blending of reality and digital effects will almost always contain some elem?ent of the infamous "Uncanny Valley", it can't be denied that the technology is m?ightily impressive.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1qG8pRE??fkA&embeds_euri=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.polygon.com%2F&source_ve_path=MjM4NTE??&feature=emb_title&ab_channel=NinjaTheory

"This cloud-hosted tool a??llows you to create photorealistic digital humans for your game or experience, with the simplicity of an RPG character creator, yet with a level of realism and customization that you’ve never se??en before," says Epic Games' chief technology officer Kim Librerim.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II was first announced back in 2019, with only scant updates and previews offered on the grim-looking sequel. Given Hellblade II's core approach to psychological horror and deep, emotive characters, the Metahuman tech will allow the developers to best capture Juergens as she delivers what is expected to be? another stellar lead performance. Should it be a success, we can likely expect to see other character-focused adventures experiment with the next-gen tech.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II ??is currently in development for PC and Xbox Series X.

The post Ninja Theory shows off Hellblade II’s stunning facial animation tech appeared first on Destructoid.

It also won like, every other GOTY award

Elden Ring, our own Destructoid 2022 Game of the Year, is still cleaning up at various award ceremonies. Just this week it managed to snag another overall GOTY win out of GDC, which announced their full li?st of winners last night. While God of War Ragnarok ended up taking the "audience award," Elden Ring beat it out for the top prize.

For context, this is the full list of GDC best overall nominees that Elden Ring had to compete with

• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Immortality
• Pentiment
• Stray
• Tunic

Elden Ring also won the best visual art award, but God of War won the most awards overall with three (best audio, audience award, best technology). It's a fairly well-rounded list, packed with 2022 favorites and several indie releases. While indies can win out in any given year, it was a tough bout with Elden Ring and God of War in the mix; and in the end, both took two of the best overall categories. Stray still won for "best debut," and was one of the most-nominated games of the bunch though, and Pentiment cleaned up with "best narrative," with Immortality taking the "innovation award." In the end everything but Tunic won some sort of prize.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CXdxUDcfa8

Here's a full list of all the winners at the GDC (Game Developers Choice) Awards:

• Best Debut - Stray (BlueTwelve Studio/Annapurna Interactive)
• Best Visual Art - Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Best Audio - God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Narrative - Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment/Xbox Game Studios)
• Social Impact Award - Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over The Age/Fellow Traveller)
• Innovation Award - Immortality (Half Mermaid Productions)
• Best Technology - God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Design - Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Audience Award - God of War Ragnarok (Santa Monica Studio/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Game of the Year - Elden Ring (FromSoftware Inc./Bandai Namco Entertainment)
• Pioneer Award - Mabel Addis
• Lifetime Achievement Award - John Romero

The post Elden Ring deservedly wins Game?? Of The Year at the 2023 GDC Awards appeared first on Destructoid.

Bunny-hopping to the beat

Rhythm game spins have been steadily increasing in popularity. The metronomic pulse underpinning the action forms a thin line to navigate, somewhere between flow state and tripping over your own feet. That's the line Jaw Drop Games' Gun Jam rides, and it does so pretty well.

I had a chance to see and play Gun Jam, as well as speak with Creative Director Martin Darby and Paul Wilson, a producer from publisher Raw Fury. The game was seemingly born out of a concept made a few years ago, of moving and blasting enemies to the beat. Now, Jaw Drop Games has brought the concept to life in Gun Jam, a rhythm first-person sh??????????????????????????ooter where players have to move to?? the beat to survive.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQaSfx56aR0

It's a pretty simple concept, if you've played something like 2016's Doom or even the original. Enemies spawn in, and the player blasts them as they arrive. In Gun Jam, the action centers around the musi?c thumping through the stage, making it pulsate with the beat. A metronome lane of beats scrolls up from the bottom of the screen and into the crosshairs, intuitively showing the player the right time to click heads. Different colored notes will correspond to a few different weapons, ranging from a simple gun to a more powerful rifle or grenade launcher.

I watched the devs play through the level before taking my own crack at it. I note this because Gun Jam took me on a very humbling journey from thinking I got the general idea, to realizing how much was being asked. There's a general flow through the level, but no rails. It was up ??to me to dodge fire, move around the arena, and keep the beat alive by shooting, kicking, or dashing along with it.

It felt a bit like the old rub-your-stomach, pat-your-head routine. Once I started to see beyond the lane, so to speak, it clicked. If you've played a rhythm game like Rock Band or Guitar Hero, you'll know the feeling of seeing "beyond" the highway, and recognizing patterns out of the corner of your eye. That's pretty crucial in Gun Jam, where I'm trying to determine my next? moves and high-priority targets while also matching incoming beat patterns.

Balancing between arena shooter and rhythm game can feel a bit like playing two games at the same time. And, as Darby tells me, it was the core challenge in bringing Gun Jam to life.

"We've gone through a lot of prototyping, and a lot of pre-production, in order to get that right, and get what we feel strikes that balance in between those two aspects," said?? ??Darby.

The core becomes, like any rhythm game, learning the song. Eventually, the player will start to remember core parts of the tune coming up as they should. The chorus arrives, and they know the grenade launcher will drop on the downbeat. If they see a group of enemies all huddled up, the gears turn. And in my playthrough of the demo, I felt that happening; one particular section keeps the main beat going with the main rifle, but adds in a three-beat syncopation between those steady rhythms. Once I knew when to expect those three extra-quick rounds, I could anticipate them, identify a dangerous foe, and burst it down quickly with the booste?d firepower.

"We want people to like listening to these songs, and through that learning process and knowing when s??ome bridge or chorus or a drop is coming, will kind of trigger a player?? to know that a grenade launcher is on the way also," Wilson told me. "So it's kind of this learning experience, as well as something that they're enjoying moment to moment, if that makes sense."

In the demo I played, death was turned off. In the final build, as Darby tells me, they're looking to have a soft-fail condition, similar to missing notes in Beat Saber or Guitar Hero. Rhythms will also get funkier; ??though the dem?o build was very metronomic, Darby says there is stuff in there for them to ramp up to higher, "Nightmare" difficulty.

As for its soundtrack, Jaw Drop Games is looking to h?ave multiple genres. The devs identify electronic music, trap, and metal as genres they're looking to explore, each with their own corresponding character.

"We got some polyrhythm sections for you, if you like," Wilson jok?es.

User-generated content is also something Jaw Drop Games is interested in, as something in their stretch goal category. I brought up the question of copyright, as users could potentially start using Metallica instead of original music, and the developers assured me they would want to work wit?hin the "legal constraints" of what can be done.

One song and dance with Gun Jam definitely has me interested. I like the different genres they're approaching, the bright colors, and use of weapons as nodes to add some in-the-moment creative problem solving. Clicking heads to a beat is fun, and Gun Jam easily finds the synchronicity between the two.

Gun Jam is up for wishlisting on Steam now.

The post Gun Jam is a r?hythm FPS where beats drop in time with bullets appeared first on Destructoid.

It's the first to win the big award at both ceremonies

The 22nd Game Developers Choice Awards and 24th annual Independent Games Festival Awards were held last night in San Francisco. Many different games were honored, but Inscryption ma?de hist?ory by taking both big awards of the night.

Daniel Mullins Games' Inscryption won Game of the Year at the 2022 GDC Awards and the Grand Prize at the IGF Awards. It's the first game to ever do so. The narrative deckbuilding game als?o won for Excellence in Design, Audio, and Narrative at the IGF Awards.

Other big winners include Unpacking, Valheim, and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, each of which took home two GDC Awards apiece. Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii was honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Steven Spo?hn was recognized with the Ambassador Award for his work in advocating for and improving accessibility ?in games.

//twitter.com/Official_GDC/status/150??6825929699430401

Here's the full list of winners, for both the GDC and IGF Awards.

2022 Game Developers Choice Award winners:

• Best Debut: Valheim (Iron Gate Studio)
• Best Visual Art: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Audio: Unpacking (Witch Beam / Humble Games)
• Best Narrative: Psychonauts 2 (Double Fine Productions / Xbox Game Studios)
• Social Impact Award: Boyfriend Dungeon (Kitfox Games)
• Innovation Award: Unpacking (Witch Beam / Humble Games)
• Best Technology: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Best Design: It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts)
• Audience Award: Valheim (Iron Gate Studio / Coffee Stain Publishing)
• Game of the Year: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games / Devolver Digital)
• Ambassador Award: Steven Spohn
• Lifetime Achievement Award: Yuji Horii

2022 Independent Games Festival Award winners:

• Best Student Game: Live Adventure (Live Adventure Team)
• Excellence in Design: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Excellence in Visual Art: Papetura (Petums)
• Excellence in Audio: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Nuovo Award: Memory Card (Lily Zone)
• Excellence in Narrative: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Audience Award: Mini Motorways (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Seumas McNally Grand Prize: Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)

The post Inscryption had a big night at this year’s GDC and IGF Awards appeared first on Destructoid.

Giving 'open world' a whole new meaning

The annual Game Developer's Conference is right around the corner, which means studios, devs, and hobbyists are primed to discuss some of this year's biggest advancements in game development. One of those studios is Ubisoft, who just announced a brand new "cloud-native" technology, Scalar, that they will use to create "limitless" open worlds, as reported by Gamespot. Ubisoft has proven that they want to be on the cutting edge, so it makes sense that they would lean into technology that could se?t them apart from?? competitors.

As of now, we only really have an announcement from Ubisoft that they're working on this project, so we don't know what it will look like in practice in the final version of a game quite yet. It's all a bit nebulous right now, with Ubisoft claiming Scalar would mean "unprecedented scalability, flexibility, and creative freedom." Apparently, it would also allow for games with no patches, because developers would update single elements of a game in real-time with??out it affecting other aspects �something that usually causes bottlenecks in development. Computing power would also be optimized in ways we haven't seen before, so in theory, there could be "millions" of players in a "singular, shared virtual environment." We do know, though, that Ubisoft Stockholm is currently developing a new IP in tandem with Scalar, which will most likely be used for its first in-game implementation.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_Fkyj2GYeo

What a lot of game fans don't know is that, in addition to developing our favorite games, a lot of the bigger game studios have whole teams dedicated to creating new tech that the studio, and eventually the entire industry, can leverage in order to progress the technology of games as a whole. A great example of this is ray tracing -- after one company had cracked it an implemented it into their games, it became pretty ubiquitous in the rest of? the indus??try. That's likely what Ubisoft's plan is with Scalar: to set a new standard with the technology that they create.

Although the extent of Scalar's potential practical application is currently unknown, it certainly sounds like an intriguing next step in gaming technology. If you're interested in learning a bit more about how Scalar works, I also recommend reading Gamespot's writeup, because they do a great job of explaining the tech in more depth. For now, I'll just? be on the lookout to see what exactly Scalar's continued development means for the rest of the industry, because Ubisoft could either be all talk right now, or on the b??rink of impacting the rest of the industry in a big way.

_{[Featured Image Source: Ubisoft]}

The post Ubisoft ann????ounces their new cloud-based development tech, Scalar appeared first on Destructoid.

Deathloop tallies up the most nominations, but others are close behind

The 2022 Game Developers Conference is currently set for March, and so too is the 22nd Annual Game Developers Choice Awards. Nominees for the show have been revealed today, with some close competition at the front of th??e p??ack.

Deathloop leads the nominations with six, including Design, Audio, Narrative, and Innovation. Just behind is Hazelight's It Takes Two with five nominations, and Forza Horizon 5 drifts in with four. All three? are in the Game of the Year category, and competing in several? others as well.

Other nominees include some interesting games in the Best Debut category, like Kena: Bridge of Spirits and Wildermyth. Best Narrative features Guardians of the Galaxy and Unpacking alongside some ??of those previously mentioned frontrunners, and the Social Im??pact Award has a bunch of excellent games from the last year.

If you're looking for more of the indies, check out the nominees for the IGF 2022 Awards, which features more Unpacking alongside Inscryption and Unsighted.

Here's the full lineup of nominees for the 202??2 Game Developers Choice Awards:

Best Audio

• Returnal (Housemarque / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam / Humble)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
• Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos-Montréal / Square Enix)
• Forza Horizon 5 (Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios)

Best Debut

• Kena: Bridge of Spirits (Ember Lab)
• Valheim (Iron Gate Studio / Coffee Stain Publishing)
• Wildermyth (Worldwalker Games / WhisperGames)
• The Artful Escape (Beethoven & Dinosaur / Annapurna Interactive)
• Sable (Shedworks / Raw Fury)

Innovation Award

• It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts)
• Wildermyth (Worldwalker Games / WhisperGames)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam / Humble)
• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games / Devolver Digital)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks)

Best Narrative

• Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy (Eidos-Montréal / Square Enix)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
• It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts)
• Psychonauts 2 (Double Fine / Xbox Game Studios)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam / Humble)

Social Impact Award

• Before Your Eyes (GoodbyeWorld Games / Skybound Games)
• It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts)
• Life is Strange: True Colors (Deck Nine / Square Enix)
• Boyfriend Dungeon (Kitfox Games)
• Chicory: A Colorful Tale (The Chicory: A Colorful Tale Team / Finji)

Best Technology

• Halo Infinite (343 Industries / Xbox Game Studios)
• Forza Horizon 5 (Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios)
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Returnal (Housemarque / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Hitman 3 (IO Interactive)

Best Visual Art

• Forza Horizon 5 (Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios)
• Kena: Bridge of Spirits (Ember Lab)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
• Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart (Insomniac Games / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Psychonauts 2 (Double Fine / Xbox Game Studios)

Game of the Year

• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games / Devolver Digital)
• Forza Horizon 5 (Playground Games / Xbox Game Studios)
• Resident Evil Village (Capcom)
• Deathloop (Arkane Studios / Bethesda Softworks)
• It Takes Two (Hazelight Studios / Electronic Arts)

The post Nominees for the 2022 Game Developers Choice Awa??rds have been revealed appeared first on Destructoid.

This year's indie award candidates are pretty stacked

It's a new year, and the 2022 Game Developers Conference is right around ??the corner. Which means there??'s also a new batch of nominees to compete in the 2022 Independent Games Festival, or IGF, Awards.

The competition this year is strong, as we were not left wanting for good indies to play throughout the last year. And I always enjoy reading over the IGF nominees, because they tend to highlight some cool picks that often go overlooked. Hades and Umurangi Generation were the big winners of last year's awards, for example, and the 2020 winners included A Short Hike and Heaven's Vault.

As for the 2022 IGF Awards nominees, there are two games leading the pack in nominations: Inscryption and Unpacking both accrued four category nominations. They'll be competing with each other in the Audio,? Design, and Narrative categorie??s as well as the Grand Prize.

Don't rule out the competition, though. Some of these, like Cruelty Squad and Unsighted,? could be fierce c?ompetition. Really, reading down the nominations, it was like a list of games I need to get around to playing, alongside the ones I've already been playing.

Here's the full line?up of n?ominees for the 2022 IGF Awards:

Seamus McNally Grand Prize

• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam)
• Loop Hero (Four Quarters)
• The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)
• Cruelty Squad (Consumer Softproducts)
• Unsighted (Studio Pixel Punk)

Nuovo Award

• Memory Card (Lily Zone)
• Okthryssia and Saturnia's Bureaucratic Adventures (Outlands)
• Space Hole 2020 (Sam Atlas)
• Tux and Fanny (Ghost Time Games)
• Cruelty Squad (Consumer Softproducts)
• Sparkles & Gems (Resnijars)
• Fuzz Dungeon (Jeremy Couillard)
• Cuccchi  (Fantastico Studio)

Best Student Game

• Cai Cai Balão (Look Up Games)
• Abriss - build to destroy (Randwerk Games eG)
• Letter Lattice (Ethan Zarov)
• SmallLife (Yueqi Wu)
• Nainai's Recipe (Fan Fang, Mai Hou)
• Live Adventure (Live Adventure Team)

Excellence in Visual Art

• The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)
• Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery (Silver Lining Studio)
• Papetura (Petums)
• Fuzz Dungeon (Jeremy Couillard)
• The Wild at Heart (Moonlight Kids)
• Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)

Excellence in Narrative

• Last Call (Nina Freeman and Jake Jefferies)
• Neurocracy (Playthroughline)
• Closed Hands (Passenger)
• Overboard! (inkle)
• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam)

Excellence in Design

• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam)
• Overboard! (inkle)
• Strange Horticulture (Bad Viking)
• Webbed (Sbug Games)
• Midnight Protocol (LuGus Studios)

Excellence in Audio

• Toem (Something We Made)
• Unpacking (Witch Beam)
• Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)
• Mini Motorways (Dinosaur Polo Club)
• Sable (Shedworks)
• Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)

You can find the full list of games and developer bios, as well as honorable mentions for each of the categories, at the 2022 IGF Awards site here.

The post IGF 2022 nomine??es include Inscryption, Unpacking, and more appeared first on Destructoid.

Umurangi Generation takes home the IGF Grand Prize

Both the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival Awards took place yesterday as part of GDC 2021. At the former, Supergiant's Greek myth roguelite Hades took home the big award, while indie photography sim Umurangi Generation won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize a?t the IGF Awards.

The GDCA Game of the Year award wasn't the only trophy Hades took home that night, as Supergiant also won the Best Design and Best Audio awards. Sucker Punch Productions also picked up two awards, in Best Visual Art and Audience Award, for Ghost of Tsushima. And Best Debut went to the multiplayer indie horror game Phasmophobia, from developer Kinetic Games.

//www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxD0bn9nIvw

On the IGF side, Umurangi Generation took the Grand Prize as well as the award for Excellence in Narrative. Genesis Noir also picked up two awards, for Excellence in Audio and Excellence in Visual Art, and the community-driven narrative sports sim Blaseball won the Nuovo Award,?? ?for games that "think differently about games as a medium."

The Game Developers Choice Awards also gave a Pioneer Award to Tom Fulp, who created the Flash game-hosting site Newgrounds, and a Lifetime Achievement Award to Laralyn McWilliams, who holds 28 years of experience in the industry, including being the Creative Director for Sony Online Entertainment's Free Realms and as the lead designer for Full Spectrum Warrior.

Here's the full rundown of the awards:

2021 Game Developers Choice Awards winners:

Best Audio: Hades (Supergiant Games)

Best Debut: Phasmophobia (Kinetic Games)

Best Design: Hades (Supergiant Games)

Best Mobile Game: Genshin Impact (miHoYo)

Innovation Award: Dreams (Med??ia Molecule / Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Best Narrative: The Last of Us Part II (Naughty Dog / Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Best Technology: Microsoft Flight Simulator (Asobo Studio / Xbox Game Studios)

Best Visual Art: Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch P??roductions / Sony Interactive Entertainment)

Best VR/AR Game: Half-Life: Alyx (Valve)

Audience Award: Ghost of Tsushima (Sucker Punch Productions / Sony Interacti??ve Entertainment)

Game of the Year: Hades (Supergiant Games)

Pioneer Award: Tom Fulp

Lifetime Achievement Award: Laralyn McWilliams

2021 Independent Games Festival Awards

Best Student Game: Vessels (Local Space Survey Corps, LLC)

Excellence in Audio: Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den)

Excellence in Narrative: Umurangi Generation (Origame Digital)

Audience Award: Arrog (Hermanos Magia and Leap Game Studios)

Excellence in Design: Teardown (Tuxedo Labs)

Excellence in Visual Art: Genesis Noir (Feral Cat Den)

Nuovo Award: Blaseball (The Game Band)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize: Umurangi Generation (Origame Digital)

Archives of the full ceremony for both awards can be found over on the GDC Twitch channel or YouTube channel.

The post Hades wins Game of the Year?? ?at Game Developers Choice Awards 2021 appeared first on Destructoid.

Industry event set to return in March 2022

The organizers of the annual Game Developers Conference, Infor??ma Tech, have announced that it fully expects to hold GDC 2022 as a live, in-person event when the trade show returns in March 2022. The conference will once again be held a?t its regular haunt: the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

GDC 2022 is expected to be a return to form for the annual developer conference, which was held in an online capacity for the years 2020-2021 �one of many, many industry events canceled or forced online due to the ongoing COV?ID-19 global pandemic. Informa Tech has not declared whether it intends to retain any form of its online/virtual components once GDC returns in its original physical form. A slight submission window for next year's event will be open from August 3-31.

The COVID-19 pandemic is still wreaking havoc across the globe, despite a major increase in the vaccinated populace. As science and the public attempt to come to grips with the vaccination program, various COVID-19 variants, and efforts to return business, travel, and general living to any sense of "normalcy," as an international community we will be struggling with COVID-19 �albeit in a decreased capacity �into 2022 and beyond. Whether shows such as GDC, E3, gamescom, SDCC, and many others will be fit to retur?n "same as before" remains to be seen.

GDC 2021 is current??ly taking place this week in an online ca??pacity.

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Annual event to take place July 19-23

The organizer of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) has officially ?announced that its 2021 iteration will be an online-only affair. The annual event had originally planned to make GDC 2021 a?? hybrid in-person/online showcase, but concerns from the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have rendered that impossible, forcing organizer Informa Tech to go all digital.

"While we can't wait to gather in the halls of Moscone [San Francisco] together again, and we did consider an in-person component this year, we have decided that it's more important that our speakers, attendees and sponsors be able to plan ahead, to continue to be as safe as possible, and to spend our attention on delivering the best possible GDC," said Informa Tech in a press statement. "As in a more traditional year, this year’s conference will be filled with deep conten?t developed with our adv??isory board, a focus on community-building, networking and celebrations that GDC is known for."

GDC 2021 is scheduled to take place the weekend of July 19-23, and will offer developers and publishers the opportunity to network and converse online, show??casing their respective wares, discussing the industry, and looking for new talent and opportunities. Both the Indepen??dent Games Festival and Developers Choice Awards will take place on July 21.

Additionally, GDC has several workshops and presentations planned for next month. March 4-5 will see GDC Masterclass offer in-depth advice and training via a series of paid "virtual workshops" held by industry veterans. Just a heads-up folks: They ain't cheap. A GDC Showcase event is also planned for the weekend of March 15-19 and will include AMAs, panel interviews, podcasts and presentations from various developers and publishers. For more information, check out the official GDC website.

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Industry conference to return in July 2021

Event organiser Informa Tech is already making plans for next year's Game Developer Conference (GDC), and has announced its intention to make the 2021 edition of the annual industry event a digital/phy?sical hybrid.

Taking place between July 19-23, the next GDC will feature a scaled-down edition of the traditional live show, which is to be ??held, as per usual, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. At the same time, an online showcase will be taking place, allowing publishers and developers to show their upcoming wares face-to-face and worldwide simultaneously.

One might assume that this dual-show idea, along with the later date (GDC typically runs during spring) represents a growing concern that the COVID-19 pandemic is already making its presence felt in plans for 2021. The pandemic caused the postponement or outright cancellation of multiple trade events in 2020, and as major organisers and publishers start plotting out their calendars for the new year, no doubt the continuing health crisis r??emains an issue.

As for the remainder of 2020, GDC will be h??osting a series of virtual "Master Classes": online courses designed to tutor devs on various aspects of game design. More information on these courses will be?? announced over the coming weeks.

GDC 2021 is scheduled to take place online and in San Francisco betwee?n July 19-23,?? 2021.

GDC announces physical/digital hybr??id event for 2021 [GamesIndustry.biz]

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'Available to everyone with an internet connection'

It's been a?? gradual process, but this y?ear's GDC event has finally committed to going "all-digital."

The organizers of the San Francisco-based Game Developers Conference went from scrapping the annual March event as we know it and giving out industry awards remotely to planning a physical replacement, GDC Summer, for August 4-6, 2020. Now, inevitably, they're "moving forward with a plan to trans??form GDC Summer into an all-digital event in order to best serve our community."

"As so many game developers embrace remote working arrangements and online collaboration, we're inspired to adapt and deliver GDC in a digital format that will be available to everyone with an internet connection, and will work hard to deliver the high-quality content and networking opportunities GDC attendees have come to expect," the organizers said today in a blog post.

"We believe in the power of gathering our community to share, inspire, and strengthen our industry and are comm??itted to providing that opportunity in August." Details will be shared in the coming weeks.

GDC Summer's previously scheduled "freestyle two-day expo show floor" can't happen remotely, but presumably at least some of the promised "expert-led talks" can carry on in the new at-home format. In the meantime, the organizers have uploaded a selection of pre-recorded GDC 2020 talks to YouTube.

There's still so much stomach-churning uncertainty in the world – not just directly tied to ?COVID-19, but also ripple effects that'll persist for years – that I'm anxious about GDC 2021 and future events. I'm curious to see how the show-runners, sponsors, and on-the-fenc??e attendees react. Networking, in general, is a big question mark in the age of coronavirus. That's a crucial component for many industry events that isn't so easily replicated remotely. They can't let those opportunities fall through the cracks.

One day at a time, though. For now, it's reassuring to see GDC Summer?? make this call.

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Tough to get too excited right now

The games industry, just like the world at-large, is trying to figure out how to manage the COVID-19 outbreak. Conventions have been ca??nceled, manufacturing has been delayed, and nearly everybody's working from home as we face a very real uncertainty about how long the coronavirus crisis will last and what kind of toll it'll take.

Today, three weeks after postponing its regularly-scheduled March convent??ion, GDC announced dates for a new summer show. GDC Summer will take place in San Francisco from August 4-6. It'll be smaller than usual, thr?ee days instead of five, and it'll feature talks from industry experts and "a freestyle two-day expo show floor."

This feels premature for a litany of reasons. First and foremost, we have no idea if life will be back to normal in August. So many people are only worried about ?their immediate future, and asking them to start planning for a show that's five months away comes off as naive. Also, plenty of developers are still dealing with the financial ramifications of booking airfare and lodging for a convention that never happened; it's a really bad time to ask them to double down and do it again (in an extremely expensive city, nonetheless) for a??nother convention that is equally uncertain.

Hopefully GDC Summer goes off withou??t a hitch because that will mean the world's in a far better place than it's in right now. But maybe only San Francisco-based developers should put it on their calendar for now. Currently, there are too many questions without answers for international developers to take the financial risk -- even if GDC is always one of the highlights of the year.

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The Steam Game Festival runs from March 18�3

Last year, The Game Awards organizer Geoff Keighley helped put together a stay-at-home video game demo showcase on Steam called The Game Festival. "Extending the benefits of a physical event to the global?? gaming community" was a neat idea, one I said I hoped to see again soon. Well, here we are!

The second iteration, the 2020 Steam Game Festival: Spring Edition, begins at ?10:00 a.m. Pacific on March 18, 2020, with free demos for "a selection of new and upcoming games." Th??e limited-time PC game demos will be playable until March 23, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. PT.

There are 40+ game demos that otherwise would have appeared at the 2020 Game Developers Conference were it not for the pandemic we're currently facing. Keighley's last digital event had demos for some cool upcoming releases like Eastward, Carrion, and System Shock, so this should be good.

[Update: The Game Festival is now live and includes demos for Chicory, Haven, Garden Story, Curious Expedition 2, Heavenly Bodies, and a bunch of other Indie Megabooth ??and Day of the Devs games.]

Keighley says the team is planning to run "more editions of the Festival throughout the year to connect gamers aroun?d the world to?? content you can play at home." And as for the current PC-only caveat, the organizers are also "working hard to make the Festival available on more platforms too."

This concept was smart and forward-looking even before COVID-19. Now it's e??ven more important.

The Game Festival [Twitter]

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Whether it's applicable to you remains to be seen

As Information Watch for the new consoles continue, we're obligated to give a heads-up for an event next week that will probably lead to some new details about the Xbox Series X. It's born out of Microsoft moving its GDC presence entirely online (be?fore the whole conference was eventually postponed).

On Wednesday, March 18, Microsoft is hosting a talk called "Xbox Series X + Project xCloud = New Chapter in Gaming." It's part of the Game Stack Live series of presentations that will be streamed on Mixer. The whole schedule can be seen here, but this? is the one that most obviously directly concerns the next generation of Xbox.

So, what can we expect? It's super difficult to guess. Sometimes GDC talks focus on consumer-facing issues. If that's the case, we might get some more details about things that actually affect us. Maybe it's a presentation about the approach to game streaming as it concerns the new generations of consoles.?? Or, maybe it's very developer-dense and has to do with leveraging cloud computing infrastructu??res. This one could go either direction.

Join us for Game Stack Live [Microsoft]

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GDC Awards to be held virtually

What has felt like an inevitability has finally happened. The Game De??velopers Conference has been postponed, as the convention's organizers try to avoid a full-on cancellation.

GDC sent along the following statement:

After close consultation with our partners in the game? development industry and community around the world, we've made the difficult decision to postp??one the Game Developers Conference this March.

Having spent the past year preparing for the show with our advisory boards, speakers, exhibitors, and event partners, we're genuinel??y upset and disappointed not to be able to host you at this time.

We want to thank all our customers and partners for their support, open discussions and encouragement. As everyone has been reminding us, great things happen when the community comes together and connects at GDC. For this reason, we fully intend to host a GDC event later in the summer. We will be working with our partners to finalize t?he details and will share more information about our plans in the coming weeks.

This comes after many major video game companies pulled out of GDC over the past two weeks due to concerns over the coronavirus outbreak. That list includes: Epic, Unity, Microsoft, Amazon, Activision-Blizzard,?? Electronic Arts, ?Facebook, Oculus, Gearbox, Sony, PUBG Corp, Iron Galaxy and Kojima Productions.

However, one GDC mainstay will still take place, albeit virtually. The Independent Games Festival and Game Devel?opers Choice Awards ceremonies will be streamed online via Twitch.

As for registered attendees, they'll be eligible to receive full refunds for their conference pass and lodgi?ng (in the event that they booked through the GDC hotel website). Information regarding that process will be available next week. Presumably, plans for this summer version of GDC will be shelved until everyone knows more about how the coronavirus situation plays out.

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Amazon, Activision-Blizzard, and Iron Galaxies are out

Is it a party if no one shows and you're left to pick at the charcuterie and drink the champagne by yourself? At some point, you just turn off the? front lights and toss on Netflix, right?

The Game Developers Conference is still taking place in mid-March -- at least at the time of writing this article, anyway -- despite nearly every major exhibitor and presenter pulling out over health concerns related to the coronavirus. The list of absentee guests grew again today as Amazon, Activision-Blizzard, and Iron Galaxy all canceled their GDC appearances. [Update: Gearbox just canceled too.]

This trio joins other big-name companies ??such as Epic, Unity, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, Facebook, Oculus, Sony, PUBG Corp, and Kojima Productions who have all opted to forgo attending GDC this year. 

Now, all eyes are on GDC's organizers, as most people assume the convention will eventually be canceled altogether. That's obviously a worst-case scenario, and one they seem to be avoiding at absolutely all costs. As of now, GDC's official stance is that they're "closely moni??toring" the coronavirus situation and will make a statement "if [their] assessment changes."

Meanwhile, several industry veterans, such as Iron Galaxy CEO Adam Boyes, are calling for GDC to offer refunds for anyone who choose not to attend for health reasons. GDC is an expensive professional conference. Individual passes that grant access to educational presentations and talks range in price from $1,350 to $2,400. That value is greatly diminished considering the major industry names that have pulled ??out. As Boyes says "Many developers spend their hard earned money to attend, and they shouldn't be punished ?for their caution."

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The biggest withdrawals yet

The Game Developers Conference is going to be missing a lot of the biggest game developers. In a little more than?? two weeks, GDC will kick off in San Francisco without attendance from PlayStation,? Oculus, Facebook, Electronic Arts, PUBG Corp or Kojima Productions. They all canceled their plans in response to the ongoing concerns over coronavirus and its potential to become a global epidemic.

Now, three more heavy hitters are out. Microsoft, Epic Games, and Unity have announced that they're also skipping GDC 2020. Epic tweeted confirmation that it's pulling out by saying "Regrettably, uncertainty around health concerns has made it unviable to send our employees, and so we have made the difficult decision to withdraw attendance." Epic is always one of the biggest names at GDC considering how many developers ?work with the Unreal Engine. 

It's a similar story for Unity. Another one of the most popular game engines, Unity has also pulled out of GDC while citing concern for its employees. "While we did not make this decision lightly, the current conditions with COVID-19 (also known as Novel Coronavirus??) present too much risk," Unity says. "We take our employees' wellbeing very serio??usly. We do not want any Unity employee or partner to compromise their health and?? safety unnecessarily."

Microsoft's withdrawal is more nuanced. According to Microsoft's official Game Stack blog, it seems as though all Microsoft and Xbox-related sess??ions will be moved to a digital-only format that is available to be streamed. Micros?oft won't have any physical presence at GDC, though.

This trio of cancellations may be the biggest yet for the people who actually attend GDC. While their presentations and talks would surely impart valuable knowledge, it's the show floor where their absence will be most noticeable. GDC's show floor largely functions as a job fair -- a recruitment event where peopl?e can get facetime with companies they're interested in working for. Now, it's without three of gaming's tech giants. GDC is going to be a shell?? of its former self, at least for one year.

@UnrealEngine [Twitter]

An update on our GDC 2020 plans [Unity]

GDC and the wellbeing of our teams &; communit??y [Game Stack Blog]

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Is a Wonder Boy IV remake on the cards?

Among the many releases scheduled to appear at the upcoming Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2020 event is a mysterious new title by the name of "Wonder Boy Universe: Asha in Monster World," first spotted on the official GDC 2020 exhibitor page.

There are no images or information accompanying the listing save for the address and website of Japanese indie studio Artdink - previously responsible for a huge variety of titles across franchises such as A-Train, Dragon Ball Z, Sword Art Online and Macross.

While this is purely speculation, the use of "Monster World," along with the name-checking of Asha, could suggest a remaster or remake of 1994's Monster World IV - a Sega Mega Drive sequel that starred a spritely, green-haired hero of the same name. Monster World IV never saw the light of day outside of Japan un?til the last decade, when it was finally localised and released on platforms such a the Nintendo Wii, PS3, and X?box 360.

Still, in the wake of excellent releases such as DotEmu's Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap and love letters like Game Atelier's Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom, the time would be perfect for a full remake or sequel to this ?lost classic. Again, this is just specu??lation, but hopefully the mystery will be cleared up soon.

GDC 2020 takes place at ??the Moscone Center in San Francisco between March 16-20.

Wonder Boy Universe: Asha i??n Monster World on GDC website [Resetera]

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More publishers kept away by COVID-19

[Update: I would like to clarify that neither CDPR or PUBG Corp. were scheduled to hold any panels or feature any of their titles at PAX East. Therefore both companies' decision not to attend the event will not impact the PAX East lineup. I apologise for not making this clearer in the original article and have altered the text to reflect this - Moyse.]

The list of major compani??es cancelling plans due to the coronavirus outbreak continues to grow. Both CD Projekt RED and PUBG Corp. have both made the last-??minute decision not to visit PAX East, which takes place in Boston from tomorrow.

The news of CDPR's change of plans broke via the Twitter account of Head of Communications Stephanie Bayer, who notes that her team will not be present at the event. Cyberpunk 2077 wasn't scheduled to be in attendance at PAX East, so this is presumably a motion to secure staff health ahea??d of the game's appointment at GDC 20?20 next month.

Meanwhile, GameSpot reports that PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds publisher PUBG Corp. will also not be making the journey to PAX, where it planned to hold a "Happy Hour" event with fans. "We will be rescheduling this plan for an upcoming event, once the coronavirus is under control and travel returns to normal," said the publisher in a brief statement.

Various industry names such as Sony PlayStation, Oculus, Electronic Arts, Kojima Productions, Capc?om, and Square Enix have recently cancelled plans to visit either PAX East or GDC 2020, which?? is being held in San Francisco next month.

As reported yesterday, there are currently around 80,000 globall?y reported cases of coronavirus, though just 53 of t??hese were confirmed in the United States.

PAX East t?akes place in Boston between February 27 and March 1.

PAX East loses CD Projekt RED and PUBG Corp amid coronav?i??rus fears [PC Gamer]

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COVID-19 keeping publisher at bay

Electronic Arts has announced that it will not be present at the GDC 2020 event to be he??ld in San Francisco next month. In a statement to GameSpot, the long-time publisher announced that it was cancelling its attendance in the wake of the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 virus - more commonly referred to as the "Coronavirus."

"Having closely followed the global situation with Coronavirus and with the recent escalation of cases in new regions, we have decided to take additional steps to protect the wellbeing of our employees including the restriction of all non-essential travel," said an EA spokesperson in the statement. "As a result we are also?? cancelling our official participation at GDC and limiting attendance to other even?ts. We are continuing to monitor the situation and will adjust guidelines to our employees as we feel is appropriate."

Electronic Arts joins a number of high-profile companies limiting their appearances at upcoming events such as GDC and PAX East, including PlayStation, Oculus, and Kojima Productions. Recent statistics point to around 80,000 confirmed global cases of the Coronavirus, though o??nly 53 of these are located in the United States.

??GDC 2020 takes place in San Francisco ??between March 16-20.

EA is droppi??ng out of GD?C 2020 due to the coronavirus [GameSpot]

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Joining Sony and Oculus

As concerns heighten due to the expansion of the coronavirus, yet another outfit has pulled out of another major trade sho??w.

While Sony and Oculus (Facebook) have already announced their intentions of ??skipp??ing GDC, Kojima Productions has revealed that it too will be missing the event. The message is fairly brief, but notes: "Kojima Productions has made the difficult decision to cancel our participation at the 2020 Game Developers Conference due to increasing concern??s related to coronavirus. Although much-anticip??ated, unfortunately this cancellation also includes Hideo Kojima’s session on the 19th and Eric Johnson’s session on the 16th."

That wasn't just a nominal panel:?? but two panels, one of which was hosted by Kojima himself. It seems as if the prevailing mentality for eastern developers is to avoid exposure at major ev??ents: last week we said the recent pullouts wouldn't be the last, and it seems as if they are cascading as we speak.

This isn't a last-minute decision either, but a calculated one. GDC doe?sn't start until March 16.

Kojima Productions [Twitter]

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Control and Outer Wilds have the second most

Just like The Game Awards a month ago, Hideo Kojima's Death Stranding will have the most chances to stack precious cargo on its back at the GDC Awards in March. At The Game Awards, it took home three of the nine awards it was nominated for?. Will it fa?re better at a show voted on by industry creators?

Yesterday, we learned about the Independent Games Festival finalists, the first half of the awards show that eventually leads into the GDC Awards. Now we have the nominees for the hardware that will go to the biggest names in games. Death Stranding has seven nominations, including Game of the Year, Best Design, and Best Narrative. There are only 10 categories and Death Stranding is present in 70 percent of them. It's only omitted from Best Debut, Best Mobile?? Game, and Best VR/AR Game -- three categories it's unqualified to run for.

Trailing Kojima's newest are Control and The Outer Wilds, each represented in five categories. All three help make up Game of the Year, which is comprised of: Control, Death Stranding, The Outer Wilds, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Untitled Goose Game.

Here are all the categories and nominees for the 2020 GDC Awar??ds:

Best Audio:

• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
• Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
• Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Activision)

Honorable Mentions: Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the NecroDancer featuring the Legend of Zelda (Brace Yourself Games/Nintendo), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), Disco Elysium (ZA/UM), Ape Out (Gabe Cuzzillo, Bennett Foddy, Matt Boch/Devolver Digital), Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)

Best Debut:

• ZA/UM (Disco Elysium)
• Mobius Digital (Outer Wilds)
• William Chyr Studios (Manifold Garden)
• Foam Sword Games (Knights and Bikes)
• Chance Agency (Neo Cab)

Best Design:

• Baba Is You (Hempuli)
• Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)
• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision Publishing, FromSoftware)
• Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)

Honorable Mentions: Disco Elysium (ZA/UM), Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games), Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), Luigi's Mansion 3 (Next Level Games/Nintendo)

Innovation Award:

• Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
• Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
• Baba Is You (Hempuli)
• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)

Honorable Mentions: Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games), Hypnospace Outlaw (Tendershoot, ThatWhichIs Media/No More Robots), Kind Words (Popcannibal), Ring Fit Adventure (Nintendo EPD/Nintendo), Wattam (Funomena/Annapurna Interactive)

Best Mobile Game:

• Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
• What the Golf? (Triband Productions/The Label Limited)
• Grindstone (Capybara Games)
• Sky: Children of the Light (thatgamecompany)
• Call of Duty: Mobile (TiMi Studios/Activision)

Honorable Mentions: Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik/Akupara Games), Assemble with Care (ustwo), Pilgrims (Amanita Design), Archero (Habby), Card of Darkness (Choice Provisions), Mini Motorways (Dinosaur Polo Club)

Best Narrative:

• Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)
• Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division)
• Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)

Honorable Mentions: Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Intelligent Systems, Koei Tecmo Games/Nintendo), A Plague Tale: Innocence (Asobo Studio/Focus Home Interactive), Heaven's Vault (inkle), Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik/Akupara Games), Telling Lies (Drowning a Mermaid Productions, Fur??ious Bee/Annapurna Interactive)

Best Technology:

• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (Infinity Ward/Activision)
• Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts)
• Noita (Nolla Games)

Honorable Mentions: Gears 5 (The Coalition/Xbox Game Studios), Resident Evil 2 (Capcom), Manifold Garden (William Chyr Studios), Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision), The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)

Best Visual Art:

• Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision)
• Sayonara Wild Hearts (Simogo/Annapurna Interactive)
• Disco Elysium (ZA/UM)

Honorable Mentions: Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive), Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic), The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (Grezzo/Nintendo), Luigi's Mansion 3 (Next Level Games/Nintendo), Void Bastards (Blue Manchu/Humble Bundle)

Best VR/AR Game:

• Vader Immortal (ILMxLAB/Disney)
• Blood & Truth (SCEE Studio London/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Asgard's Wrath (Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios)
• Boneworks (Stress Level Zero)
• Pistol Whip (Cloudhead Games)

Honorable Mentions: Trover Saves the Universe (Squanch Games), Falcon Age (Outerloop Games), Ghost Giant (Zoink), Vacation Simulator (Owlchemy Labs), Stormland (Insomniac Games/Oculus Studios)

Game of the Year:

• Death Stranding (Kojima Productions/Sony Interactive Entertainment)
• Control (Remedy Entertainment/505 Games)
• Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (FromSoftware/Activision)
• Untitled Goose Game (House House/Panic)
• Outer Wilds (Mobius Digital/Annapurna Interactive)

Honorable Mentions: Disco Elysium (ZA/UM), The Outer Worlds (Obsidian Entertainment/Private Division), Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts), Apex Legends (Respawn Entertainment/Electronic Arts)

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Mutazione earned the most nominations

The next time you're looking to branch out beyond your typical week-to-week video game backlog, consider poring over the finalists for the 2020 Independent Games Festival. The list is brimming with wonderful indie g?ames – some you'll recognize, others you won't – and it's a great place to start.

One of the games on my must-play list is Mutazione, a garden-tending ha?ng-out adventure from Die Gute Fabrik "where smal?l-town gossip meets the supernatural." It's the most prevalent nominee this year, earning nods for the Grand Prize along with Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, and Narrative.

The IGF Awards will be hosted by Armello director Trent Kusters and live-streamed on March 18, 2020. After that ceremony wraps up, the night will continue wi??th the Game Developers Choic?e Awards.

Let's get into it. These are the Inde?pendent Games Festi??val finalists and runners-up for 2020:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

• Eliza (Zachtronics)
• A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu)
• Untitled Goose Game (House House)
• Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik)
• Slay the Spire (Mega Crit Games)
• Anodyne 2: Return to Dust (Sean Han Tani & Marina Kittaka)

Honorable Mentions: Katana ZERO (Askiisoft); Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Megagon Industries); Song of Bloom (Philipp Stollenmayer); Wide Ocean, Big Jacket (Turnfollow); Elsinore (Golden Glitch); Astrologaster (Nyamyam); Heaven's Vault (inkle)

Excellence in Visual Art

• Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik)
• Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword)
• Void Bastards (Blue Manchu)
• Creature in the Well (Flight School Studio)
• Eastward (Pixpil)
• Stone Story RPG (Martian Rex / standardcombo)

Honorable Mentions: LUNA The Shadow Dust (Lantern Studio); Eastshade (Eastshade Studios); Minute of Islands(Studio Fizbin); Katana ZERO (Askiisoft); Song of Bloom (Philipp Stollenmayer); A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu); Creaks (Amanita Design)

Excellence in Audio

• Observation (No Code)
• Vectronom (Ludopium)
• Astrologaster (Nyamyam)
• Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword)
• Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik)
• Untitled Goose Game (House House)

Honorable Mentions: Afterparty (Night School Studio); Kind Words (lo fi chill beats to write to) (Popcannibal); Manifold Garden (William Chyr Studio); Alt-Frequencies (Accidental Queens); Don't Look (Don't Look Team); Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Megagon Industries); Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1 (Cosmo D)

Excellence in Design

• Katana ZERO (Askiisoft)
• Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Megagon Industries)
• Slay the Spire (Mega Crit Games)
• A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu)
• Elsinore (Golden Glitch)
• Patrick's Parabox (Patrick Traynor)

Honorable Mentions: Guildlings (Sirvo Studios); Nauticrawl (Andrea Interguglielmi); Blabyrinth (Sleeping Beast Games); Children of Morta (Dead Mage); Void Bastards (Blue Manchu); Untitled Goose Game (House House); Creature in the Well (Flight School Studio)

Excellence in Narrative

• Mutazione (Die Gute Fabrik)
• Heaven's Vault (inkle)
• Elsinore (Golden Glitch)
• Wide Ocean, Big Jacket (Turnfollow)
• Eliza (Zachtronics)
• LIONKILLER (Sisi Jiang)

Honorable Mentions: American Election (Greg Buchanan); Night Call (Monkey Moon, BlackMuffin); Astrologaster(Nyamyam); A Short Hike (Adam Robinson-Yu); Adventures With Anxiety! (Nicky Case); Observation (No Code)

Nuovo Award

• Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1 (Cosmo D)
• Infini (Barnaque)
• The Space Between (Christoph Frey)
• Life Tastes Like Cardboard (Demensa)
• Promesa (Julián Palacios)
• Song of Bloom (Philipp Stollenmayer)
• The Longing (Studio Seufz)
• PAGAN: Autogeny (Oleander Garden)

Honorable Mentions: Astrologaster (Nyamyam); Elsinore (Golden Glitch); Fit for a King (Brent Ellison & Tanya X. Short); My Exercise (Atsushi Wada, Ryoya Usuha, Nobuaki Doi); Where the Bees Make Honey (Brian Wilson); Smile For Me (Gabe Lane and Yugo Limbo / LimboLane)

Best Student Game

• Orbital Bullet (SmokeStab)
• A Juggler's Tale (kaleidoscube)
• Forgotten (Mutiny Games)
• Neon Beats (OKYO Games)
• BORE DOME (Goblin rage)
• Nothing In Sight (Nothing In Sight Team)

Honorable Mentions: Unhatched (Filip Loster); Du Rejser (You Travel) (Victor Selnæs Breum + Katinka); Trail Mix(Puzzsoft); Where the Bees Make Honey (Brian Wilson); Northbound (Johannes Köberle & Arno Justus); Evergreen Blues(David Su and Dominique Star)

Here are you?r finalists for the 2020 Independent Games Festival Awards! [IGF]

The post Stuck in a gaming rut? Try pl?aying some of the IGF 2020 finalists appeared first on Destructoid.

Ever wonder what it takes to enjoy swinging through high-rises and slashing through ruins?

There are games that let us fulfill our fantasies of pointing off into the distant horizon and follow our curiosity. They let us traverse, on and off the beaten track, to discover what lies just beyond our vision. Games like Skyrim or Breath of the Wild place t?owering mountains and monolit??hic structures within the gamer-explorer’s grasp and give us amazing tools to reach them, like sure-footed steeds or sweeping hang gliders.

In a fantasy world, what you can find in a game is limited only by the developers’ imagination and the technology they use to execute their designs. The challenge to create awe-inspiring sandboxes is infinitely increased, however, when those spaces of play are rooted in reality. Nonetheless, games like Spider-Man and Assassin’s Creed Odyssey take up the challenge. This year at GDC, both Insomniac and Ubisoft held talks detailing?? exactly what they faced in recreating real life for our sandboxes.

Tackling Real Life

In recreating reality, sometimes the reality part flies in the face of playability and aesthetic goals. As Matthew MacAuliffe, material artist on Spider-Man, put it, in an open-wor?ld sandbox, “everything is big, and everything is a problem.”

Insomniac wanted Spider-Man’s world to be hyper-realistic, but also retain that Marvel superhero sheen. The game already required some suspension of disbelief -- your main mode of transportation through the city is web-slinging -- but keeping the world believable was a major focus. One problem with this for Spider-Man came when designing the city at night.

Senior lighting artist Brian Mullen described New York at night as obviously dark but having a vibrant nightlife. Also, as anyone who has played Spider-Man will know, there are a lot of collectibles. The backpacks were especially difficult for the night-time designers because Peter Parker had hidden them all over the city and not always in the most well-lit of spaces. The Spider-Man team faced the problem of needing to have darkness, visibility, and vibrancy all at ??the same time. So, as Mullen explained, night in the game, “departed the most from reality” as he and his team played around with slightly unrealistic lighting solutions that d??idn’t break player immersion.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey had a similar problem when translating the real world into a sandbox. First, they also wanted to build a city that felt real and lived in, but, lacking a time machine, had no ex??ample of a living ancient Greek town. So, Ubisoft got the next best thing to a time machine: Dr. Stéphanie-Anne Ruatta, who became their in-house historian. Dr. Ruatta coached the team on everything from architecture to mythology. In an ?unusual move, they ended up splitting their team into level design and world design, so that one half of the team could put all their resources towards making the world as absolutely perfect as possible, while the other half of the team could focus on what created the most fun for the player. Luckily, their historian was there to guide them. “When we went too far with creativity,” said art director Thierry Dansereau, “she would rein us back in.”

Conjuring Atmosphere

Lighting assists in the overall storytelling in a subtle but vital way. The best lighting in a game enhances the players’ experience, without calling attention to itself. Despite the thankless nature of the job, lighting artist on both Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Spider-Man contributed monumentally to crafting ??a believable sandbox.

To give every neighborhood its own feel in Spider-Man, they gave each one its own palette. Hell’s Kitchen’s street lights tended towards the warmer shades while the Financial District had LED-lit streets. To make life-like lighting conditions, the Spider-Man creators went out with an SLR camera to take pictures in both lighted and shaded areas, to get a base-line for the game. The disparity turned o??ut to be too stark, making the light from the in-game sky appear blindingly white if the player were standing in a deeply shaded alley.

One of the most beautiful aspects of Spider-Man’s sandbox is the way that the light plays across the surface of the buildings. Mullen explained how the team created those effects by splitting the lighting into four di??fferent locke?d types: day, sunset, overcast, and night.

The hardest by far, he asserted, was overcast. When everything is grey and bleak, it is less inspiring for both creators and players. He combated this by turning up the lighting contrast and shifting everything towards a greener tone. That way, he could still support the more somber story beats while highlighting the developers’ work on the city. His favorite time was sunset and the golden hour. During this time, as Mullen put it, warm and cool colors create a visually interesting mix and the designers were able to play around with those spectacular god rays. The onl??y problem? This type of light is the most prone to showing off little mistakes, sometimes from buildings blocks and blocks away, making it hard to?? find the source of the problem and fix it.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey had a somewhat different lighting challenge. While the team paid consideration to how natural sunlight in the game works in tandem with the various structures players could interact with, you can imagine they were more concerned with how the player would see in the ancient world at all. The only light source of the time being fire, game makers had to decide how the players would traverse dark areas, like the caves predominantly built by level designers to give players fun ?explorable spaces with important collectibles throughout the world. Ubisoft also wanted to deviate from other popular depictions of ancient Greece as being de-saturated, monochromatic, and flat, so vibrancy was key.

Creating Spaces

Ubisoft went all-out to faithfully recreate the ancient Greek world. They decided a group trip to Greece was essential to their creative vision. If only I’d thought to convince someone that writing this article absolutely hinged on a week-long trip to Greece. However, when the Ubisoft team made their trip, they took over 13,000 pictures to use as a reference for their urban hubs and the seven unique biomes they would create for the game. Though the fact that many buildings they wanted to recreate had long turned to dust -- temples and structures made of wood, for example ??-- it actually turned out to be an unexpected gift. With no pre-formed picture to emulate, the developers could bring in a little of their own flair. Much to the team's delighted surprise, most?? of the art for the ancient Greek world was vibrantly painted. This encouraged them to create pops of color in a world often depicted as having only stark white marble.  

While they both had vastly different time periods to cover, Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Spider-Man developers each admitted to sharing one tool: Google Earth. The street view function allowed Ubisof??t to study ancient Greek ruins and the Insomniac team to explore New York City anytime they wanted.

The Spider-Man developers knew they wanted to reflect the variety of different cultures found in NYC in their game and that portraying the neighborhoods accurately would be important to telling the story of the world. To do this, the city was broken down into distri?cts, which in turn were broken down into smaller neighborhoods. This allowed them to create micro-stories artistically for each place. The art direction was set for each neighborhood and then the districts further refined their own personalities, though staying true to the larger neighborhood’s aesthetic.

The most frequently used textures for Spider-Man were, unsurprisingly, roads, sidewalks, and rooftops. But since each neighborhood had its own feel, the textures would eventually meet at a shared border. During their initial development, those converging zones just look like a wild clashing of different and jarring aesthetics. To solve this problem, the developers decided to create a shared layer of asphalt underneath each neighborhood’s unique formula that would increas?ingly show through as they reached one of these shared borders, creating a satisfyingly homologous look without sacrificing each spaces individuality.

I admit that when I went into this talk, I didn’t care about tiny details like how Insomniac blended together asphalt textures or how Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s caves were built, but during the talks, both teams put the question to us: why is it important to get these minor details? Why not just place generic buildings and call it good? Insomniac’s senior environment artist answered the question in the first few minutes. He insisted it was because these uniquely crafted spaces created a sandbox that rang true to real life, engaging the player in a way that a generic New York skyscraper simply wouldn’t have been able to. The key to translating the real world, from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’s ancient streets to Spider-Man’?s modern Manhattan, into a sandbox is all in the details.

The post How Spider-Man and Assassin??’s Creed Odyssey made the real world your sandbox appeared first on Destructoid.

Getting the low down at GDC

Bertil Hörberg is probably the only Swedish name I know. I can't pronounce it to save my life, but it's a name that's been at the forefront of my mind when it comes to the games industry. Hörberg, if you are unaware, is the creator of the Gunman Clive series. I was introduced to the first game because of a review right here on Destructoid, as well as its phenomenally low price point??. Though it was short, simple, and sweet, it left a lasting impact.

For the life of me, I can't tell you why that is. There's nothing jaw-droppingly amazing about the game. It's a simple platform shooter. And yet, with its unassuming nature, its back-to-basics concepts, and its incredible art direction, Gunman Clive is one of the few games I return to quite often when I'm out and about with my 3DS. Why this game over ??the others?  I don't kno??w, but I thought I could maybe find out why by talking to the man behind it.

I met Hörberg last week at GDC. At the Metreon near the Moscone Center in downtown San Francisco, he joined me for a barbecue lunch to discuss his upcoming title. It was his first trip to GDC as well as his first time in the United States. He wasn't at the show as a speaker but rather to rub shoulders with those in the industry who don't usually get to his part of the world. It was also his chance to get the word out about Mechstermination Force, his upcoming co-op shooter that's part Contra and part Shadow of the Colossus. The game was officially announced not too long ago a??nd just recently passed its lot check. Soon, Hörberg will set its release date, something that is leaving him with mixed feelings.

"I'm excited and terrified of the launch," he explained to me. "We'll see what happens basically and I have to admit, it's not the perfect timing with Cuphead being announced. They're not the same game, but they are similar and being released so close together is not ideal.??"

Cuphead will hit Switch a bit after Mechstermination Force launches, but that doesn't mean it won't be without competition. History has shown us Nintendo loves to flood the eShop every week with new titles and it can be quite the herculean effort to try and cover them all. Of even some of them. Hell, even getting coverage of three eShop games is quite a task. There is so much competition, so many games that you immediately forget about all hitting at the exact same time. Yet Mechstermination Force ??;has something many of those other games won't: developer pedigree.

Gunman Clive is one of the biggest success st??ories to come out of the ?3DS eShop. The original title, ported over from mobile devices, sold more than 400,000 copies. Part of this was its low price of entry -- a meager $2 -- that turned it into a surprise success.

"The strange thing is," Hörberg said, "is it wasn't a big overnight success. It just kept se?lling decently for a really, really long time. At first, it was kind of the same sales curve as mobile except it just kept carrying those numbers for months and months ??and years. That was crazy. You expect it to go down after a few weeks, but it didn't."

Clive's success cemented that indie development was the future of Hörberg's career. A half-decade or so before, he was part of the big studio machine. He started his career working on small projects before finding a steady gig with developer Grin. The company was in the process of making the ill-fated Bionic Commando, a reset of the classic side-scrolling franchise that would ultimately be one of the la??st titles Grin would release. Hörberg started on that project when he first joined up with the developer, but soon found himself with an opportunity he couldn't pass up.

"When I started working with Grin," he explained, "they hadn't begun working on Bionic Commando: Rearmed yet. They were working on the 3D remake-sequel-thing that didn't end up quite as good. I was super excited at first to be working on it, but I quickly realized that AAA development isn't my thing -- if you can call that thing 'AAA.' Then a few people started talking about Rearmed and a really small team started working on that. I sort of forced my way onto that project because I love 2D platformers and the original Bionic Commando."

Rearmed ended up releasing to rave reviews, far superior to those of the big-budget game. Similar to Dark Void and Dark Void Zero, people preferred the retro gameplay. Rearmed wrapped its development long before Bionic Commando was finished and Hörberg was shuffled ??back onto tha?t game's development team.

"I got moved back onto the big project and found I wasn't happy there. There was some talk about doing another small game and all that. I was going to quit but they talked me into taking a few months off -- unpaid of course -- and I just waited to see what happened. They actually did start on Rearmed ??;2 while I was away from the studio, but even then I wasn't keen on go?ing back."

Hörberg left Grin not long before it shut down for good. A one-two punch of duds like Bionic Commando, Wanted: Weapons of Fate, and Terminator Salvation, coupled with the developer losing out on a Square Enix contract over the game Fortress drove it into bankruptcy. The founders of Grin would go on to create Overkill Software, developers of the Pay Day franchise. Hörberg would dabble with smaller indie tea??ms for a while before starting Hörberg Productions.

"I actually released a few small games that I don't really want to talk about," Hörberg told me about the early days of his new, one-man studio. "I was kind of fed up and depressed, making this small games for mobile. Eventually, I started to graduate towards more serious projects. Gunman Clive was so well-received that I gravitated back toward?s consoles with the 3DS that was recently released."

Gunman Clive's success led to an equally well-received sequel, Gunman Clive 2. Both games have been packaged and sold as a set on the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. While neither HD release was able to reach the heights of the original game, Hörberg honestly seemed okay with that. During our conversation, I never got the impression I was talking to somebody who let success go to his head. In fact, he said he had mixed feelings about Gunman Clive selling so many copies when it was only around six months worth of work. ?Even when his most famous character was being asked to guest in another developer's game, Hörberg stayed true to himself.

"I was working with Flyhigh Works and Circle Entertainment for the Japanese release of Gunman Clive and they were the publisher for Dracania Saga and they were looking to have a bunch of guest characters. So they reached out to me. I have been approached to have Clive appear as a guest character in other games, but usually, I just don't bother or I don't know the game and get real defensive about him. But I actually love Skipmore [the developer of Dracania Saga] and think Fairune is brilliant. I'm not very active ab?out making guest appearances happen, but that was one I wanted to see."

That care and love for Clive is evident when you see how much of the developer is in the character. Hörberg is an openly gay man, and when he had the opportunity to go back to the original Gunman Clive for the Wii U port, he decided to put that part of himself into the game with a kiss between Clive a?nd new playabl??e character Chieftain Bob.

"I actually put way too much thought into it. Half the reason I even added Bob in Gunman Clive 2 was to eventually add him to the first game and then make them kiss. So it was a lot of planning. I almost felt bad after a while because I only made a gam?e with a damsel in distress plot and no gay representation. I didn't put much thought into it back when I first made it and I wondered why I don't have any gay stuff in my games. I want more gay kisses in everything."

It's unclear if gay kisses will be part of Mechstermination Force, but one thing that will be are giant mechs trying to destroy everything in?? their path. The game arose out of Hörberg's abandonment of a 3D action title he teased a few years ago. He said the project was too big and left him depressed. When a friend of his became available to work on a different t??itle with him, Hörberg revisited another idea he had for a game: taking down giant robots

Bringing his friend aboard would put Hörberg in a position he hadn't filled before: boss. The first two Clive games were one-man efforts, but now he would be in charge of a team trying to bring his visi?on to life.

"It's been challenging," Hörberg said of his new leadership role, "even if it's not a big team. For most of it, it's just been me and one other person. After about a year we hired a n?ew artist to help speed things up. It has been different though. Now I'm working regular business hours at an actual office. I can be pretty hands-on and hard to work with I think. There have been some conflicts trying to figure out how we should work together, how I should be able to hand off things to my employees without being too overbearing. But it's mostly worked out pretty well, I think. You'll ha??ve to ask them how horrible a boss I was."

Mechstermination Force will feature two-player local co-op with four selectable characters. Each character controls the same way and they don't have much of a backstory, allowing players to create their own history for their favorite character. If Switch owners already have Gunman Clive HD Collection&n??bsp;downloaded onto their console, Clive will become available as a fifth playable character. It is a boss rush game, so don't expe??ct any platforming levels though there is a hub area between missions.

You can, however, expect a radically different art direction full of pop and vibrancy. It's the opposite of the muted, limited tones of the Clive games and as Hörberg explained, that was quite i?ntentional.

"Back when I did the first Gunman Clive, I thought it looked the best with a mostly brown screen. Then I added more color in the sequel, but now that I am working with a friend who is an art director and 3D artist, it felt more natural to lean more into color and make mor??e colorful stuff. I tried to create shaders and techniques to turn the illustrations into 3D. I'm not sure how well we managed that but? the end result is very nice in its own way."

Mechstermination Force will be the longest single project Hörberg has ever worked on. The game has been in development for more than one and a half years, far longer than the six months he worked on Gunman Clive or the, and I'm not kidding, two weeks it took him to port the Gunman Clive HD Collection to Switch. He told me he's not built to make games that take three to four years to complete and is already planning his next title, a smaller project that will follow in the footsteps of his first breakthrough project. It's not Gunman Clive 3, as he emphatically told me, ?but another game that will look to the early years of the industry for inspiration.

When I wrapped up my talk with Hörberg and wished him well for his last two days in the country, I still didn't quite know what it is about his games that I'm so very fond of. They remind me of the experiences of my youth, yes, but so does about 100 other games tha??t don't nearly resonate with me the same way his titles do. But in listening back to our interview, I think I found my answer.

There is an honesty about Bertil Hörberg that I don't often hear in my other developer inter??views. He's humble, he's not good at marketing as he repeatedly told me, and he has a light, self-deprecating humor I believe is more for him than those he's speaking to. This is somebody you can nerd out about SNES games with, not some PR rep trying to explain to you why their AAA shooter is the coolest or the most artistic product on the market. I never realized how much I didn't want games to be all "in my face" until I spoke game developer who wasn't, and it's that level of reserve that is at the forefront of every single game he creates.

The post The creator of Gunman Clive talks?? giant robots, gay kisses, and go??ing indie appeared first on Destructoid.

The God of War director's GDC talk detailed his personal battles with doubt while making the game.

Cory Barlog, the director and recognizable face behind God of War, has won almost every Game of the Year award known to man. The celebrated title has dominated every award sh??ow it's been a part of, from last year's Game Awards to last week's GDC Awards. When I saw he was giving a presentation I knew I had to go; not just because I have loved the series for so long and fell so hard for the latest installment, but because the talk was going to focus on dealing with self-doubt.

Self-doubt? From the awarding-winning guy who so successfully reanimated God of War? The one who always seems so cool and self-assured? I had to see it. I couldn’t stop wondering, wha??t does Cory Barlog’s guide to self-doubt even look like?

Knowing that his talk at GDC would be popular, I rushed to get to the conference as early as possible. My sleepy-headed determination sc??ored me a seat smack dab in the front row, right next to the man himself. About twenty minutes before the talk was set to start, the people who foolishly didn’t start off at an ungodly hour began to pour into the room. The sudden human flood triggered the man accompanying Barlog to whisper what I can only imagine was a few words of encouragement. They didn’t hit their mark because, due to my awesome seat, I overheard Barlog laughingly exclaim, “Way to stress me out more, dude!”

The funny, private, interaction coincidentally highlighted the theme of the day’s talk: the stress and doubt that walked hand in hand with reinventing God of War. It was clear that even though he seemed like such a celebrity well-versed in public speaking, he was experiencing the same fear I would in front of the throng of people waiting for his talk. Funnily, the temptation of his celebrity proved too much for some audience members, who came up to request a selfie, and soon, there was a line forming in front of the God of War director. Far from being mad at the selfie-seekers, Barlog joked with them that they were helpfully distracting him from being nervous. It wasn’t lost on me that Barlog w??as demonstrating his point even before the presentation began.

2013: The First Pitches

He started his self-doubt journey with pitching. According to Barlog, the roller coaster of doubt that was making God of War started when pitching to progressively influential Sony executives. He looked back on his original presen?tations and quickly pointe?d out to us that he had been right to doubt himself, they were bad.

“There was nothing of substance in that initial pitch,” he said and attributed his success to confident and bold arm gestures. He demonstrated these for the audience so we could use them should we ever find o??urselves under-prepared while pitching to Sony, or, in general, just for persuading people you really are confident when you really don’t feel confident. Big arms, that’s the first lesson.

The second trick to battling doubt in Barlog’s repertoire is his humor. He earned a genuine round of laughter from his audience with a joke about every Sony executive having an “s” in their name and that, consequentially, he was changing his name to Scory SBsrlogssss. The l?aughter seemed to put him a little more at ease.

Even though Barlog mentioned he had nothing for his pitch, he assured us that, even if you doubt yourself, you have to fight for your vision and the doubtful voice in your head can actually help you with that. Even in this very early stage, he knew he would be leaving behind the Greek era of God of War to move forward into the Norse one. He also knew that it was going to be a reboot, but that the team would not be “re-starting anything.” Rather God of War 4 – in this early stage he didn’t want to confuse anyone by just calling it God of War?? – was going to? continue and mature Kratos’s journey.

Cory explained that Kratos, “like us as a studio” was going to break the cycle. The new Kratos was not going to be the continuously raging Hulk he was in the first games, but instead, the tension of the story would center around Bruce Banner? attempting to and sometimes failing at reining in his more destructive counterpart. Failure, or accepting its inevitability and getting back up, was the next tip from Barlog’s guide.

2015: The Demo

To give an example of when he should have listened better to his inner doubts, Barlog told the room about the stomach-twisting moment when he realized his E3 demo pitch was taking a nose dive. As he told it, the gathered E3 producers “started fidgeting in their seats,” within five minutes and, looking at them, he knew his presentation was about to bomb, despite his ever-increasingly bombastic hand gestures. This, he explains, is the moment he was honest with himself that while making the E3? reveal, he’d had the feeling that “this wasn’t very good,” and that it was, “so cheesy.” So, instead of accepting failure, he listened to that voice and asked to pitch again, to a reluctant crowd.

Highlighting his point, Barlog later warned us not to “demonize failure. We all fail, we are going to continue failing. It is a??bout getting back up after that failure, learning from that failure, and keeping moving forward. That is the learning experience. Everything we do, especially large endeavors like this, is about constant failure, right?"

He explained that the root of his problems began when he got distracted by the, admittedly cool, but largely unimportant details. Things like the god’s political scheming started to overtake the core of the story, the relationship between father and son. So, he scrapped his uninspired original demo, which was goi??ng to show Kratos and Atreus battling through the mountain interior with a large boss screaming at the end, and decided to instead depict the more thoughtful hunting scene we actually saw at E3 2016.

2016: E3 Stage

Everything about the E3 demo amplified Barlog’s self-doubt. They were revealing their game for the first time to an unsuspecting audience of gamers and game critics alike, but nothing for the actual game was close to being done. The engine was still being built, the lighting wasn’t set, the God of War team hadn’t e?ven fully figured out the art direction yet. W??hat could go wrong?

For E3 2016, unlike previous years Barlog had participated, the show curators insisted everything be prepared and submitted two weeks ahead of the show. That ga??ve him two weeks to imagine everything that could go wrong. He insisted that it was like, “flying a plane while it was being built, and while making the blueprints for the plane.” In what seems like a situation tailor-made to amp up stress, Barlog told us about the rehearsals for the big show. In order to be ready for any eventuality, each E3 presenter had to rehearse the speech they would give if everything were to crash and burn. So, just before his nerve-wracking presentation, Barlog had to stand up on the stage, facing row after row of empty chairs, to practice the apology he might have to give if his demo completely fails. “The important thing about all of this,” Barlog summarizes, “is that I was experiencing doubt the whole way.”

The final piece of advice from Cory Barlog’s guide to conqu??ering self-doubt, and what he had to do that day at E3, is this: it is up to each of us at ever?y step of the way to push through every self-doubt that confronts us. When we do push through that wall, and we inevitably find another wall, we have to push through that too. Keep repeating that process, and you will get through it.

2019: Beyond the GDC Talk

After wrapping, Barlog took some time to walk to another room with a small group of us with more questions. What most people in his overflowing talk didn’t hear was a fantastic summary to his presentation. A crowd member asked him to talk a little more on his thoughts about self-doubt?? to which Barlog responded, "Failure is the gasoline for doubt. It is the thing that’s flaming that doubt up into this huge bonfire that’s telling you 'you suck!' You have to process it, but then stamp it down and move on."

He also ad??vised the crowd not to "ignore [doubt], don’t compartmentalize it and pretend it’s not there. I tried doing that for years. That shit tore me up because it was still alw?ays there. It was still screaming, and I wasn’t listening to it and processing it. Fifty percent of the time, that doubt is actually right, and that’s the bitch of this whole thing. You have to be open to figure out the thing you're going to need to change."

The post Cory Barlog wants to help you conquer self-doubt appeared first on Destructoid.

Is Stadia really for everyone?

It wasn’t a surprise that Google announced Stadia, its game streaming platform. Rumors had b??een swirling for a while that the internet giant was jumping into the console war. Those rumors were enough to bring in the biggest names in the gaming industry to Google’s early morning event at GDC??.

The whole presentation room was a vision in white. A swanky, mood-lit room playing upbeat pop music to inject energy into the audience. On the big screen, murky smoke-figures faded in and out of view. Some were abstract, images that looked like they might be tire treads or a ladder; but others were glaringly clear. Like the smoky sphere of a figure taking an arrow to the knee that left many in the crowd vocally wondering if Skyrim was trying to come to yet ano?ther console. The display was beautiful, but I couldn’t miss that the whole assembly was staring at a literal smoke screen, an idea that became more distinct as I watched the presentation.

Google’s representatives talked about all of Stadia’s amazing features and paraded numerous partners across the stage from Ubisoft to Tequila Works, creators of adventure-puzzle game Rime. Each speaker had a different theme to touch on, but whether their topic was technology, creator tools, or audience engagement, every speaker hammered home one talking point: this was going to be a gaming plat??form for everyone!

But is it really?

I asked some indie developers what this annou?ncement and a possible streaming future mig??ht mean for their small studios and they talked about what Google didn’t at their presentation.

At What Cost?

Red Hook Studios, co-founded by Tyler Sigman and Chris Bourassa, has recently scal?ed up to a staggering 13 employees. It’s a fact many indie developers manage the momentous task of making games with an exceedingly small staff, and any and all financial changes affect their teams deeply.

“I d??on’t understand the economics,” explained Sigman, “if you are paying $10 a month to get whatever games you want, and whoever is running the service gets their cut, then at the end of the day that leaves a couple of bucks a month to distribute to developers.”

Now, keep in mind that the $10 he is talking about is really just a stand-in number. No one, except Google and their high-level confidants, actually know how Stadia will be monetized. It was one of the most obvious omissions from the announcement pres??entation, and that omission left the indie developers I talked to uncertain of their futures.

“I can see a dystopic scenario," Bourassa?? added, "where the focus on subscription model ends up curtailing games’ ability to punch through. Why would I need to buy those cool little $10 indie game because I’m already spending $10 a month?”

Will the Technology Work?

While enjoying the games made by the IGF Award finalists on the expo floor, I spoke with Ingvi Snædel, associate producer of ThroughLine Games, the studio that made Forgotton Anne. My first ten minutes with Snædel consisted of him patiently trying to help me say his name correctly, and I'm afraid I never got it quite right. Despite that, he graciously stepped away from watching people enjoying his work long enough to share his opinion on the ?Stadia.

Snædel explained that he had some misgivings, but his concern was for the players, rather than creators like him. He shared that he was from a rural area and, if all-streaming is the future, he worried that people like him would be left behind or get the short shift when it came to things like multiplayer. Likewise, Bertil Hörberg, best known for Gunman Clive and the upcoming Mechstermination Force, stated, “I’m not sure how the input lag is. My games so far ??have been demanding of instant response, so that would be hard [if there is lag].”

Unlimited Limitation

Everyone I talked to had mixed feelings and were keenly aware that they didn’t have much to go on but their own speculations. “Interestingly enough, things like Netflix have led to th?e creation of some great new content,” says Sigman, “so who knows?” But he and Bourassa both worried about how the subscription model could kill off some innovative titles.

“If [payment is based on] time spent in game, arguably, that would be great for a game like ours where you could play 100 hours,” mused Sigman before Bourassa chimed in saying, “But then games like Firewatch [have] a four-hour campaign. That’s not fair to them. I worry about the business models homogenizing the types of games that are made because, right now, it’s this wonderful thing. You get Wandersong over here and you get Stardew Valley."

Speaking of Wandersong, I spoke with the game’s developer, Greg Lobanov, who was one of the most vocal of the IGF finalist about what Stadia might mean for his game-making. Walking up to his booth, it was easy to see that Wandersong and its creator are unique, even among the already unique ?IGF-nominated crowd. He'd placed a length of rainbow fabric below his screen, which contrasted markedly to the sea of yellow around him.

When talking about Stadia and what an all-streaming future would mean for him, Lobanov told me he was, “apprehensive, to be honest.” He agreed with the Darkest Dungeon developers that Wandersong probably wouldn’t exist in a world monetized by stream views. Lobanov noted that it seemed like Google was selling Stadia to streamers and video content creators as much as developers and, if you are being compensated for stream-ability, then Wandersong is not the kind of game that gets funded. Even the game’s most ardent fans will only play for about ten hours to complete everything. If the length of a game becomes its selling point, Lobanov said he would have to pivot to meet that market. Right next door, representing the IGF-nominated indie Niota, Arvi Teikari, co-founder of Nolla Games, was equally con??cerned that streaming would put less commercial indies at a disadvantage.

Waiting Game

The most common response I got from the indie developers was that we just don’t know enough right now. Lobanov confided in?? me that cautiousness and apprehension colored all of his personal conversations with other indie developers about streaming and the future. And while those feelings came across in my discussions, so too did cautious optimism. Teikari said plainly, "if [streaming] is the way forward then that's the way forward,” a notion shared by Snædel. He reasoned that ove?rall, as a creator of single-player experiences, he didn’t have much to fear and indies would find their place in a streaming world.

Maybe the Darkest Dungeon duo stated the range of emotions the most eloquently. “We see all these machinations and it can be pretty scary to try to predict how it’s going to shake out, Sigman confided, "maybe some positives are going to shake out. If the world pivots mid-way through Darkest Dungeon’s development, we will try to pivot with it. At the end of the day, no matter what’s happening in the market, it all comes back to whether or not your game is any good.&??rdquo;

Bourassa, very pragmatically, noted, “being unable to really influence what Google is doing, they haven’t called me for advice in a very long time, I think we have to concentrat??e on making a great game. If we don’t even have that, and we spend all our time worryin??g about what’s going to change in five years, we’d stop trying to make a good game and try to make the right game. I don’t want to make the right game, I want to make a good game.”

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