2013 IGF Student Showcase winners picked: meaningful games, surrealist fantasies | Bangkok Post: tech

There's no need to wait until the March 25-29 Independent Games Festival to get your hands on the eight Student Showcase games -- each is available right now as a browser game, PC or Mac download, or smartphone app.

The 2012 IGF Showcase saw "Way" emerge as overall Best Student Game, and this year Carnegie Mellon University is again represented courtesy of eight-game compilation "the mindfulxp volume," whose creators have become known for their considered approach to game design.

Two projects from the Netherlands' NHTV IGAD are in the showcase, with the genre-blending philisophical sci-fi of "ATUM" and Persian carpet rolling puzzler "Farsh," as are two from the Danish Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment: Escheresque sleepwalker "Back to Bed" and escapist trip "Blackwell's Asylum."

Students at the IESB in Brasilia can celebrate as the polish and invention of iOS and Android game "Knights of Pen & Paper" sees it become another showcase pick.

"Pulse" from Vancouver Film School presents a blind main character who uses echolocation to see, and the surreal skiing of "Zineth" (Rensselaer Polytechnic, New York) celebrates "speed, movement and Twitter."

As a rare exception, there are no finalists hailing from either DigiPen Institute or DePaul University, both of which have been prominent in recent years, with DigiPen's "Narbacular Drop" and "Tag" teams among the IGF's most prominent successes, going on to work on Valve Software's "Portal" and "Portal 2."

Play these 2013 IGF Student Showcase Winners
ATUM at atumgame.com (browser game)
Back to Bed at backtobed.dadiugames.dk (browser game, or download for Win and Mac)
Blackwell's Asylum at blackwellgame.com (Win and Mac)
Farsh at marsigames.blogspot.com (Win and Mac)
Knights of Pen & Paper beholdstudios.com.br (iTunes & Android)
The mindfulxp volume mindfulxp.com (browser game)
Pulse teampixelpi.com/pulse (Win or Mac download)
Zineth arcanekids.com (Win or Mac download)

Independent Game Festival webiste: IGF.com

Tell us what you think about this article

Like dislike 0 people liked / 0 people disliked it

Share this article

0

0

• More +

• Republishing permission
• Print this

Bangkok Post online classifieds

Try buying & selling goods and properties 24/7 in our classifieds which has high purchasing power local & expatriate audience from within Thailand and around the world.