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[Reposted from my website forum]
The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual competition for indie games. There's a lot of competitions like this, but the IGF is the biggest one. I'm considering (re)entering Salvation Prophecy in it. But I'm not sure yet - I'm weighing the pros and cons.
I entered Salvation Prophecy in the IGF once already, a few years ago. Yes, I've been working on the game for over 4 years now.  That was much nearer the beginning of the project. That time through, Salvation Prophecy wasn't nominated for any awards at all.
On one hand, this could mean that Salvation Prophecy just isn't the kind of game that does well at the IGF. It's a lot different than games which have won in the past, nifty games like Crayon Physics Deluxe, World of Goo, Blueberry Garden, Aquaria, and Minecraft. Those are all very unusual, unique, quirky games that all feel really "indie". Salvation Prophecy has a more traditional, "mainstream" feel to it. I suspect this doesn't jive well with the judges, which I can totally respect - they're trying to recognize non-mainstream games.
Plus, Salvation Prophecy is a pretty complicated game, especially compared to other indie games. There's no way you could play Salvation Prophecy for like 20 minutes and have any real feel for it. You don't even get a space ship until about an hour into the game. But the IGF judges need to judge hundreds of games. So realistically, they can only play each one for minutes, not hours.
On the other hand, the game really sucked back then, compared to what it is today. Really, I shouldn't have entered it back then. It was way too unfinished. So I guess it might have a better chance this time around.
The big reason for entering is publicity. If Salvation Prophecy won, or even was nominated, there would be a lot of people who would check out the website, and maybe buy it when it is released. This kind of publicity is really important, especially for indies like me who don't have money to spend on marketing the game.
So why not enter it? Well, it's kind of a drag to lose I guess. If your game isn't nominated at all, it's tough not to take it a bit personally. Quitting your job, starting a company, and making an independent game is a crazy, stressful experience. Jumping on emotional roller-coasters like the IGF doesn't help, especially when you think the odds might be stacked against you.
Anyway, I need to decide soon. The submission deadline is Oct 17th.
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Good to know! It looks like some smart changes have been made to the IGF judging process over the last couple years.
I mean, by checking your screenshots I can see that your visuals are very "late 1990s". I don't mean the quality or the polycount, but the art direction itself, the style of the HUD and etc. Seems very derivative of all those shiny blue-ish space opera games of that era. Not old enough to be retro, just old enough to look unoriginal.
Also, you mention that "There's no way you could play Salvation Prophecy for like 20 minutes and have any real feel for it. You don't even get a space ship until about an hour into the game.". That, for me, says that you have a pacing issue. The player should be able to "have a real feel" very early on, and have a glimpse of all the cool features, even if he loses those things right afterwards, and then has to go after them again.
That way you tell the player that your game has a lot of awesome things to offer, if only he works hard to get them. It really brings a sense of achievement and clear objectives. And, of course, it keeps the game fun.
That's just my two cents based on very little information, but it is an educated guess. Good luck with your game!
I see where you're coming from on pacing, particularly having only my comments to go on. But I would argue that games only have a pacing problem if they're not fun. I think Salvation Prophecy is very fun, right from the beginning. One of it's main features is that you get to control both a character and a space ship - whereas most space sims only have a ship. It's precisely for pacing reasons that I don't throw both at the player right at the start - I figure it's best to allow the player to get the hang of the character controls before moving on to the space ship controls.
I like the art of Salvation Prophecy a lot, but I get that others won't necessarily feel the same. The palate is quite bright compared to many modern mainstream games, which might be why it feels dated to you, but that was an intentional art decision. If you're suggesting a total revamp of the art direction, that's not really something I agree with nor have the power to change.
Still, I agree, Salvation Prophecy isn't going to compete graphically with other modern AAA titles. But, I'm not trying to compete against those games - I don't think it would be possible with an indie budget and tiny team. I'm more gunning for the space-sim niche, and I think Salvation Prophecy compares pretty well to other modern space-sim games.
Thanks for taking the time to read my blog!
Tiago is giving some very poopy advice. That's right . . . I said it . . . poopy.
Now don't reply. Just acknowledge it on the inside.
I've just seen google screenshots but for an indie game I think it looks relatively good. Obviously I can't speak to the gameplay. But anyone who judges a game as harshly as Tiago based on a few screenshots is full of it.
That is not the case. As I said in the end (exactly to avoid sounding harsh), This was all based on very little information.
Not that it matters, though, I would also like to clarify that I wasn't suggesting a total revamp. It is still my honest opinion that the art direction, although pleasing to me (as a fan of space shooters since Namco's Starblade), will be received with less acceptance then it could.
It's also funny to point out, in closing, that when you say that you can't compete graphically with other modern AAA titles, I actually disagree. That's what I meant by "I don't mean the quality or the polycount". I believe it's very acceptable in comparison to what you get today out of a 360 with no HDD, for example. Not to mention that, outside of the first world markets, PS2 graphics are the current norm.
I would also like to point out to Gerald that his comment is only made offensive by the fact that he underestimates my capacity of receiving an actual grown-up curse word. The rest of it is only a reaction to what I just apologized for above, and was actually a very clever reply.
Excellence In Visual Art? We have good retro graphics, but hardly mindblowing. Unlikely.
Excellence In Audio? We have an excellent soundtrack, but the sound effects are limited and we don't do anything particularly innovative in the audio-gameplay integration. Unlikely.
Excellence in Design? It's a JRPG. We made some tweaks here and there to improve things and have much better pacing than most games in the genre but we didn't do anything horribly innovative (like say Desktop Dungeons). Unlikely.
Technical Excellence? Um, no. I've seen our code (seeing as how I wrote it). We're not winning this unless we bribe the judges.
Nuovo Award? Not an artsy experimental game so no.
Audience Award? A distant possibility but doesn't Minecraft win this every year?
Seumas McNally Grand Prize? Unlikely without winning at least one of the individual awards.
The one area where we've received the most praise in reviews and from fans has been with our story and writing but unfortunately, IGF doesn't have a category for that. And if they did have a Story/writing category, there's probably a piece of interactive fiction that only 5 people have ever heard of that would win. ;)
I read about Cthulhu Saves the World on Rock Paper Shotgun. They spoke quite highly of it, congrats on that!
I agree the way IGF is broken down into categories creates a bias for games that focus on doing something innovative in one area. It's kind of like your game is getting chopped into parts (technical, audo, visual, design) rather than looked at wholistically for the fun/entertainment value.
I don't blame the IGF for this - not at all. Contests need rules. And certainly the IGF has been a great thing for the indie scene. And there is the Seumas McNally award, which kind of goes to the most overall awesome game, all things considered.
I guess I could imagine a different kind of IGF category breakdown, with more wholistic categories like "immersion", "action" and "gameplay". But that's extremely hand-wavy stuff, and maybe you're just chopping the games into different pieces instead of better ones.
My game, like yours, is just fun as an overall package, but probably doesn't dominate in any particular category.