I live a little less than an hours drive from Sundance.  As most people know, Sundance is the home to the most popular, and really the first major Independent Film Festival.  This is significant, because Independent films have a lot in common with independent games.  The film festival here was initially a place for those who did things a little different than everyone else, to show their wares.  Those showing films were often presenting life works that weren't as well produced, and suffered from small budgets.  However, the rawness of many of the films did not detract from the quality of a good story or a good story teller.  In fact, the rawness of the film could in many ways help you focus more on the story than on all the extra production values that a film from a major film will garnish.  With the passage of time, Sundance has begun to lose its luster in many people's eyes.  The reason may be that many of the films there have tremendously large budgets, and are scheduled for mainstream release before they ever are shown at Sundance.  Many film critics, including Steve Oldfield, have decried movies such as "The Butterfly Effect" being shown at Sundance over films that are more raw and show the talents of unappreciated artists and film-makers.  In some ways I think the complaint can be made, that the Independent Film Festival should serve to showcase the independent films...the films that the majority of the public wouldn't find out about anywhere else...but I digress...

This year, the Independent Games Festival enters its sixth year.  For anyone who hasn't participated in the Game Developers Conference (GDC), it is a wonderful technology show that contains hours upon hours of sessions taught by the Game Industry's finest developers.  In fact the Independent Games Festival (IGF), is really only a very small part of the whole conference.  It has become over the years, the premier showcase of Independent Games.  With the focus in the GDC being to take program further than it has been before, the IGF is a natural fit.  Many people have come to view the IGF as a showcase of innovation, and when considering the judging guidelines that go into picking out the games, it is easy to see where this notion comes from. 

Games in the IGF are judged before they ever show up on the Expo floor of the GDC.  Each game is judged in two ways, execution and innovation, in four categories, Visual Arts, Audio, Game Design, and Technical Excellence.  The real trick to this is that the scores in any category come from the execution and innovation scores for that category being multiplied together.  So if your game is very innovative, but wasn't executed very well, then you would score lower than a fairly well executed game that was only slightly innovative.  The idea here is that if you made a perfectly well executed game, but it was just another Half-Life clone, your game would not score as well as an innovative game that wasn't quite as professionally produced.  In fact, you might score much lower.  From the IGF website we read: "In short, the jury wants to be surprised -- it does not want to see the same old game designs and technologies used in predictable ways."  Certainly that is true, but there are holes in the judgment system that can lead to games that are mainstream games pushing their way into the IGF.  Is that a bad thing?  That question is something for each individual to decide, but certainly, if execution is as important as innovation in the IGF, the group with the most money, and can thereby produce a flawlessly executed game has a much better chance of getting their game in as a finalist, even if it is only a little innovative, then does a poorly funded team who can be as innovative as they want, but with the resources they have in place, cannot hope to create something that is as well executed.

This year's IGF has shown this flaw, but also come up with a solution, though it appears to have been happenstance that the solution has worked as well as it did.  Instead of handing out a single set of the six awards at the IGF, this year there will be two complete sets of awards.  One set will go to the "Open" category, and the other set to the "Web / Downloadable" category.  The main differentiation between the two is the size of the game.  Games that are either played in a browser or are under 15MB in total size are entered into the Web / Downloadable category.  Those that are larger are in the "Open" category.  Again though I don't believe it to have been intentional, this split has divided the games much along the lines of what many people consider to be the "traditional" indie, and what Independent games is becoming.  The Web / Downloadable category consists of mostly under funded projects that are much like the arcade games of old in that they don't require large amounts of time to play.  For example, Oasis, one of the finalists, puts you into a deep strategy / world-building game where you build up cities, develop technologies, raise armies, mine, build roads and trade routes, and fight a huge on-coming horde of enemies, all in 3-6 minutes. 

On the other hand, the "Open" category includes some games that have raised a few eyebrows, including the game "Savage," that was a moderate mainstream hit.  However, that certainly doesn't keep the game from being innovative, and with the division made between the sizes of the games, the IGF has done a good job of keeping games like Savage from competing with comparatively less polished, though in no way less innovative, efforts.

One can only hope that the changes being made will help to refute some of the ill-will placed on the IGF from the developers, and even the gaming industry at large, as more polished efforts become mainstay in the IGF, and thereby increase the visibility of Indie games. 

With all of the undercurrents present, from the question of well-financed projects being in the IGF, to developers looking down on indie gaming, to even the supposed Indie "holier-than-thou" attitude, anyone attending the GDC will have plenty to talk about even if they don't take a look at the games.  However, hopefully not lost in all of this is that this years crop of games is absolutely fantastic.  With the increase in the number of finalists, not to mention in the number of contestants, the public will get a chance to look at a lot of really great games, and up-coming games that will tantalize your mind and give you an experience that you likely won't find elsewhere.

This year Game Tunnel is doing everything in its power to give you a glimpse into the games, and their developers before you get to check them out at the conference.  Throughout the month of March, new information will be added nearly daily in regards to the different projects, so you can have a good idea what games you'll be pining to play once you hit the GDC Expo floor, and perhaps more importantly, who you want to talk to.  To keep track of all the information, simply check back at www.gametunnel.com whenever you have time.  Dates will be listed for when things will be posted, and as updates are made to each of the articles with new interviews with developers and new game reviews posted, the dates on the front of the site will be updated.

Once the conference begins, Game Tunnel will be on the scene, adding daily highlights, award winners, and a few other surprises, so those who cannot attend can get a good feeling for the show and all the fun they are missing.

It's not quite Sundance, and hopefully, as the IGF continues to age, it will learn from some of the mistakes that Sundance has made, and instead continue focusing on the diamond, no matter how rought may look.  With the division into two separate groups this year, I believe that this will go down as a landmark movement towards keeping the integrity of the IGF, while not forcing innovation into the package of the small budgeted.  Either way, there will be twice as many finalists this year, to go along with an increasingly professional group of student showcase games, which gives us a wonderful way to spend our next month; playing great games.