Category «Festivals»

The Golden Sparrow – Der Goldene Spatz 2014

GoldenerSpatz


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Last week we received the 'Goldener Spatz' (means 'Golden Sparrow') for TRI. The award is not only a very beautiful pipe-blown glass sparrow, but important for us for mainly one reason: the jury consisted of children only!

The children that applied and were selected for the jury position were all boys, so they were aptly called GameBoys. They were not just asked to play games and choose one among them for the award; the children also needed to be able to articulate what they like, what not, and why. Therefore we received their statement printed on the certificate together with the cute little Golden Sparrow.

GoldenerSpatz_Award

We like the idea that the Children's Media Festival does not only award movies, games and websites for children, but also let them form their own opinion. A jury so young has an interesting advantage as well: the opinions were mostly created without tactical or political decisions. They presumably didn't consider trends nor fame, but followed purely personal taste.

Maybe I interpret too much into this, but it was highly enjoyable for Friedrich to talk to them after the award ceremony in Erfurt, Germany, and hear their thoughts concerning our game TRI. We like how much they engaged with the game, developed their own ideas for what could be added and also were not too shy to criticize it.

We realized, by receiving an award made for and by children, that we should totally aim for children as an audience. Especially because TRI is challenging but non-violent, imaginative, and it triggers what most children love most: curiosity and exploration.

GoldenerSpatz_Gameboys

Photos by Florian Hohmann @hohse

EGX Rezzed, Amaze and Making-of part 3

Birmingham - EGX Rezzed 2014

rezzed14_01 rezzed14_02

The REZZED, including 2 days of visiting Birmingham, were a blast! The convention is full of interesting games, diverse genres, from AAA to smaller and very experimental indie titles. It was really fun and rewarding to be chosen for the nicely arranged Leftfield Collection. And to have TRI presented to young kids, families, a whole bunch of YouTubers, and curious players for the first time after two years of work was a really good feeling! Of course, meeting other devs and talking about their games was pretty cool, as well.


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I really feel that I should have written more about the Rezzed, since our days in Birmingham were absolutely enjoyable and also important for us, to show the game around. But unfortunately, we take the final sprint to the release of TRI, which makes writing up all the events nearly impossible.

A Maze Berlin 2014

At least I have to mention that we visited the third edition of Germany's very international Indie Festival A Maze in April, again. Being there is always a big highlight of our year! It feels almost like coming home to the place where you belong. The A Maze is a crazy colorful exhibition with all sorts of games you might or might not imagine. From weird stuff you never fully understand, to multiplayer games you can play for hours, to pieces of art and artistic expression, students' works and polished diamonds smash hits. Not to forget workshops and talks. This festival is always so fully packed with interesting people, enlightening talks and fun games that I just get crazy, not knowing where to jump first.

amaze14_01 amaze14_02

Making-of TRI episode 3

For the lack of written blog posts we made this third episode of our making-of story. This time we talk about our first prototype and why it was scrapped, again.


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We soon have some fresh news for you at the end of the month, as we're working on the Steam integration! Until then we need to give this guy here more interaction, voice and animation.

monktrajectories_web

 

Update for TRI, Making-Of 2, Game Jams, Presskit

TRI

We finally could release a new version of TRI - after "ObliviousFox" comes "OptimusFox" (or in numbers: the game has now version 0.4.1)! Here are the most important changes:

  • Fixed missing collision geometry in level "Tower of Nowhere"
  • Hidden stone parts now save and load their position correctly
  • Kami part of Level "Prisons" is now beatable
  • Changed level info in the pause screen
  • Loading screen can't appear anymore when loading right after death

Level 16

If you got the game via any platform (Desura, our own website, IndieGameStand, GamersGate) we recommend you download the new version as soon as possible, as you can't complete the game otherwise. (Sorry for that!) While we're at it, we'd also like to mention that TRI is now also on itch.io.

      Making-Of, Part 2!

We filmed the second installment of our TRI Making-of series! Have a look:


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You can find the first part on YouTube.

      Game Jams!

Two weeks ago, the 7-Day-Roguelike Challenge 2014 started. Tradition demanded that we should participate, and so we did. Unfortunately our ideas didn't trigger the right motivation, and in the end I (Friedrich) started on Friday alone, with only 2.5 days left, to make a small game named Variablo that already got a bit of nice press coverage. In Variablo you have to not only walk through a dungeon and kill monsters, but also move parts of the dungeon around like in a sliding puzzle. It's inspired by the board game Master Mind. It's fairly short.

7drl2014-08

But wait, there's more - this Saturday, Mini Ludum Dare 50 starts - and I am the host! I had several ideas in mind for the theme, but ultimately decided to please the fans and announced that participants need to make a Demake.

miniLD50

Demakes are remakes of already existing games that use a "less advanced" technology - like going from 3D graphics to 2D - or they only present a subset of the original gameplay. Officially the MiniLD starts Saturday and ends Monday, but you can create and upload the game until end of March.

      EGX Rezzed

We changed our plans and decided to fly to Birmingham, UK, the next week, to visit the EGX Rezzed. So if you're around from Friday to Saturday (28th - 30th), and want to have a chat, we will be near the Leftfield Collection (where they exhibit TRI) from time to time! Hope to see you there!

Of course, we will still visit the A MAZE. / Berlin in April. Phew, a lot of traveling around in such a short time frame!

      Presskit

Last but not least Jana took the time to create a new presskit for not only TRI but also about us and our company. She used the excellent presskit() by Rami Ismail. We also have subpages for Pitman, Tumblox and our game jam games now, complete with descriptions, screenshots and videos.

That's it for today! Thanks for reading!

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