indiecade posts

This week there's been a bunch of game related events going on including IndieCade 2010. The Los Angeles based event that concentrates on the independent games movement is in its final day but earlier this week the festival announced which games had won awards for its 2010 season.

IndieGames.com has the full list of winners and as you can see it has a wide variety of titles It's likely that many of you may not have heard of most of these titles but there's still a lot of gaming goodness to be had from the games that are listed below:

Gameplay Innovation Award: Continuity
Technological Innovation Award: Miegakure
Sound Award: Limbo
World and Story Award: Games of Nonchalance
Documentary Award: The Cat and the Coup
Aesthetics Award: Spirits
Sublime Experience Award: Faraway
Fun and Compelling Award: VVVVVV
Wild Card Award: B.U.T.T.O.N.
Trailblazer Award: Tim Schafer
Virtuoso Award: A Slow Year
Vanguard Award: A Slow Year
A Slow Year Jury Award: Groping in the Dark

One of the best game designers of all time is being rewarded for his efforts by the independent games event IndieCade. Tim Schafer, the founder of Double Fine, will receive the first ever Honorary Trailblazer Award for Lifetime Achievement during the IndieCade Awards Show on October 8 in Culver City, California.

Schafer is receiving the award because IndieCade wanted "to honor an individual who has displayed extraordinary vision and creativity in the field of game design, while serving as an inspiration to up-and-coming designers in the field." Schafer first gained fame in the 1990s by creating acclaimed PC adventure games from LucasArts including Full Throttle and Grim Fandango. He left LucasArts to create his own titles at Double Fine including the critically acclaimed Psychonauts.

Wow. Who ordered all the news in the past couple of days? It's like there was some huge game-related event that's happening this weekend that serves as an excuse for developers to announce new games ... oh wait.

• Steam has Cossacks: Back to War on sale for 20 percent off. You can also pre-order F1 2010 via Steam and get 10 percent off.
• Steam also has patch updates for Team Fortress 2, The Settlers 7, and Puzzle Dimension.
• Steam is letting folks pre-load R.U.S.E.
• If you are going to PAX Prime you can get some exclusive Penny Arcade A30 headsets from Astro Gaming.
• The IndieCade games festival has named its finalists for the indie games festival in October.
• Is Valve getting ready to port its games to Linux. It sure seems so.

There are now quite a few competitions dedicated to promoting and rewarding indie games. One of the more established ones is IndieCade. Today the event's organizers announced they are taking submissions for their 2010 edition which will be held October 8-10 in various locations in Culver City, California.

In addition to showing off games, IndieCade also offers workshops and panels dedicated to indie gaming as well as awards for the finalists selected to be displayed at the show. The deadline for submissions is June 1. A IndieCade 2010 preview will be held during this year's E3 event in mid-June.

Games from independent developers continue to gain more and more traction, especially in this economy with smaller development teams making titles that are original and outside the normal mainstream game design. Beginning today in Culver City, California (just outside of LA), the annual IndieCade festival puts the spotlight on that growing genre.

From now until Sunday, the festival will showcase a number of indie game titles including well known games such as The Maw, Zeno Clash, and The Path. In addition to showing the games, there will be speeches and panel discussions with people like Will Wright who will give the keynote speech on Saturday night. Tickets for the event are being sold at the IndieCade web site.

The line-up of events for next weekend's E For All Expo at the LA Convention Center continues to grow and today the organizers announced that the IndieCade festival of independent games will make an appearance at the show. Over 20 indie games will be shown at the event and many of the games' developers will also be on hand at the show.

IndieCade is preparing to announce the winners of their festival the weekend after E For All in Bellevue, Washington and our sister web site Joystiq has been running a week-long series that showcases the 26 finalists that are eligible for the awards. All of the winners have downloadable demos or the full free game that you can grab right here at Big Download..