Everything Cool in Games -- OUT of the Mainstream
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Somersault is a platformer, of a sort; each level is traversed from left to right, but extending above and below your entry point, with secret areas. Your goal is to collect gold and silver rings, while avoiding heat, water, and other dangers.
That sounds like any number of other games, but what's interesting, and unique, about Somersault is the UI scheme. You are guiding a bouncing ball, which you do by using the mouse to draw Pong-like paddles on the screen. Basically, when you click, you start a paddle at the point where you clicked; you drag to draw the rest of it. If you release the mouse, the paddle stays in place, but instead you can keep the button down and "swing" the paddle, Ping-Pong-like, to bat the ball. To guide you, a rainbow extends from the ball, showing its future path.
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8bit game embedded-in-emulator accepted?!!
Wow.. there is an Atari VCS game, bundled with emulators for Win/OS X, as an accepted official entry.
-I wish I considered nominating our C64 game in time!
The IGF has never limited
The IGF has never limited entries to particular platforms.
IGF
Because I haven't belabored my point enough on other sites: there's a terrible lack of VVVVVV on this list. It seems that a lot of other people feel the same way, so hopefully it can win the audience award at the very least. Now that I come to think of it, RunMan is also unaccounted for.
Monaco looks fairly interesting, and I can't wait to get my hands on Bogost's 'game poem'. Hopefully next year they will either add more categories or give some honorable mentions, there's a lot of repetition of titles there.
When they passed over
When they passed over Immortal Defense in 2007 I stopped putting so much emphasis on these selections, they serve a good purpose though. IGF is becoming the Sundance of games, naturally a Slamdance will evolve though clearly it won't be run by the film festival of the same name.
IGF: Judging the Judges
Auntie Pixelante wrote about her experience as a judge. She wasn't happy with it.