Indie Game Jam

Description

Indie Game Jam , a yearly game design and programming event designed to encourage experimentation and innovation in the game industry. IGJ2 took place March 18 through March 21st, 2004, in Oakland, California. 21 game developers worked on experimental and innovative games over the course of 4 days! This year's theme is "Physics in Gameplay", or, "Physics must be good for something besides ragdolls and exploding crates!" The goal of IGJ2 is for attendees to do experimental game design with physics to really try to figure out how it can be used to qualitatively impact gameplay, and not just for effects. We'd like to put even more of an emphasis on thoughful game design experimentation this year. Getting a game done by the end of the Jam is still key, of course, but pushing in experimental game design directions is an important goal. To that end, we're extending the IGJ presentation time this year at the Experimental Gameplay Workshop at GDC so that in addition to the crazy whirlwind romp through the games, we can also have some of the games analyzed in more depth by their authors, with self-critique and discussion of the game design goals, what worked and what didn't, etc. We think it's a great time to do a Jam about physics in gameplay, since a lot of developers in the industry are trying to figure out how to integrate physics into their commercial games as more than just special effects, and we can explore that space (stochastically :) and report the [potentially useful] results. The IGJ2 engine technology is Atman Binstock's excellent 2D physics simulator, which he is generously donating to the Jam. He used it for his great IGJ1 games last year, and it's quite optimized at this point. See the attached insane screenshot of 1000 boxes stacking in real time (5000 contacts). It's a full-featured 2D simulator, with a constraint editor, and an Illustrator plugin for building objects and levels. Chris

Products & services

Similar companies nearby