The organizers of the Independent Games Festival have announced a sister event for the handheld game industry, IGF Mobile, with entries open for innovative indie cellphone, DS, PSP and other handheld titles, and $20,000 in prizes to be awarded at GDC 2008 next February.

Submissions for the event are open at the official IGF Mobile website through Friday, October 26, and winners of the event will be recognized with multiple prizes at the IGF Mobile ceremony, taking place during the GDC Mobile event at Game Developers Conference on February 19, 2008. The event will run parallel to the main IGF competition, which retains its $50,000 prize pool and current categories.

Posted by Kris Graft at 5:19 PM | Permalink

The mission of the IGF is both to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize and promote the best independent game developers. In order to help this year's finalists utilize the exposure the IGF provides, and to navigate the business offers and deals that typically follow, the IGF is adding free legal consulting to compliment its cash prizes.

Thomas H. Buscaglia, noted game attorney, has graciously offered his services for this year's prize pool. He has donated the following:

All Finalists - All finalists will receive a free copy of Buscaglia's Game Dev Kit. The Kit contains essential information and forms for new independent game developers: Starting a company, contracts and NDAs, and advice on managing copyrights and intellectual property ($295 value).

Category Winners - In addition to the $2,500 cash prize, winners of each of the seven major awards will also receive a free one-hour consultation with Buscaglia ($400 value).

Seumas McNally Grand Prize - In addition to the $20,000 cash prize, the Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner will also receive ten hours of free consultation with Buscaglia ($4,000 value).

About Thomas H. Buscaglia

Tom Buscaglia, the Game Attorney, is committed to helping independent game creators get the right start in the business. He has been representing developers in the game industry since 1991. In addition to his legal practice, Tom sits on the board of directors of the International Game Developers Association and chairs the IGDA Charitable Foundation. He speaks regularly at the Game Developers Conference and other venues.

More information on Tom is available on his website.

Posted by Kris Graft at 5:25 PM | Permalink

Expect more news to be posted as the IGF deadlines approach. Again, that's October 1st for the main competition and October 15th for the student competition (just 56 and 70 days to go, respectively)! For this update we have some great news for web game developers:

Kongregate Competition - Flash game site Kongregate is running a competition where its 10 highest rated games of the year, as of September 15th 2007, will be entered into the IGF "Best Web Game" category free of charge. If you have a free Flash game that you'd like to enter this is a great way to go about it.

Kongregate is an online hub for players and developers to upload their work, play games, and work together as a community. Go check out the site here.

Unity Competition - OTEE is running a game development competition for developers using Unity, their 3D game development tool. The contest is for online games played in a web browser using the Unity Web Player. In addition to a cash award and other prizes, the five contest finalists will each be entered into the IGF's “Best Web Game” category free of charge.

Unity is a modern cross-platform 3D game engine with an emphasis on ease of use. For more information on Unity and the development contest visit their contest information page.

Independent Games Summit Videos - Also, the IGS website has posted more videos of the great lectures and panels from the inagural Independent Games Summit. Telltale's Dave Grossman speaks about managing episodic game development, with some juicy bits on scheduling, and Gamelab's Eric Zimmerman talks about milking the casual cash cow.

Visit the IGS website for a listing of all of the videos posted so far.

Posted by Kris Graft at 5:28 PM | Permalink