Slamdance Announces 2007 Gamemaker Finalists

Organizers of the 2007 Slamdance Guerilla Gamemaker Competition (GGC) announced finalists for the event, which will be held alongside the Slamdance Film Festival from January 18-27, 2007 in Park City, Utah. The judging will be spread across three broad categories, including the Grand Jury prize which aims to award one developer over $5,000 in cash and prizes. In addition, the Audience award returns from previous years' events, as does the Student prize, which recognizes excellence in art and technical design, and includes a summer fellowship with the University of Southern California's Game Innovation Lab in the Interactive Media Division. In total, 14 independently designed video game finalists were selected for the competition, covering a variety of genres, from documentary to platform puzzler. Games eligible for the prizes include Base Invaders from Seven Sigma; The Blob from Banana Games; Book and Volume from Nick Monfort; Braid from Number None; Castle Crashers from The Behemoth; and Cultivation from Jason Rohrer. Other selections include Queasy Games' abstract shooter Everyday Shooter, flow's flOw, Waking Games' Once Upon a Time, Steve Taylor's Plasma Pong, Pedestrian Entertainment's Steam Brigade, Danny Ledonne's controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG!, Toblo/DigiPen's Toblo, and Hampus Soderstrom's turn based fighter Toribash. “Video games today are as important and influential as movies have ever been,” said Peter Baxter, the president and co-founder of Slamdance. “The type and standard of creativity we are seeing at Slamdance Games is akin to the trail blazing days of independent filmmaking, a time that artists reacted with more imagination and against the generic fare of the movie studio.” The previous year's GGC winners include Procedural Arts innovative conversation piece Façade winning the Grand Jury Sparky Award, while 2005 IGF Audience Award winner N from Metanet Software took home the Audience Award. The Student Physics Award went to the fighter Rumble Box by Insert Coin, while the Student Art Award was given to Cloud by USC's Cloud Team. Finally, the new PopCap Casual Games Award went to Odyssey by Liquid Dragon Studios. Those interested in finding out more information about the event should visit the official Slamdance game website.