This year, Google hosted their first annual Indie Games Festival in San Francisco, California. Over 200 indie game developers submitted their games for inclusion in the festival, which was eventually whittled down to only 30 exhibiting games. Each of the 30 games on display at Google’s Indie Game Festival brought something new and interesting to the table.
We really enjoyed spending time with each developer as we played through their games, and learned more about the game’s development process. Many developers traveled quite a distance to showcase their games, and as a
Coffee Pot Terrarium by Brothers Flint
Attendees of Google’s Indie Games Festival were each given a paper where they could collect stamps from the developers by stopping at their table and checking out their game. In addition, the bottom of the paper had tickets which attendees could drop into the developer’s box if they wished to vote for the game. Later in the evening, the 30 games were narrowed down to 15 finalists who were called to the stage to present their game in the hopes of snagging some of the coveted prizes up for grabs.
Scoring the games fell to both a diverse panel of judges, as well as the attendees themselves. Prior to the judging process, Google staff members went around the gathered audience and passed out clickers which could be used to rate each of the 15 games on a scale from 1-5. Audience score factored into 20% of the game’s overall score, so winning both the judges and the crowd was important. The emphasis on each attendee’s final impression of the exhibiting games served to differentiate the event from other game conventions.
Time seemed to fly by as each game developer hopped on stage and proudly demonstrated their game’s merits. At the end, 7 winners were chosen and split into 4 Runner-Up Winners and 3 Grand Prize Winners. For a more comprehensive list of the exhibiting games and the final winners, be sure to check out the congratulatory page on Google’s Indie Game Festival website. Overall, we enjoyed the Google Indie Games Festival and thank Google for taking the time to highlight indie game developers. For more on the games
For more on the games featured at Google’s Indie Game Festival, so be sure to check back in for developer interviews and previews here at Indie Obscura!
For more indie game news, be sure to check out our initial coverage of Google's Indie Game Festival, our interview with
