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 Features
"Are There Any Jews in the Audience?" - IGDA's Demo Night 4
 Snagu
Another game featured was Snagu, which was developed from one of the hot game design programs in New York City. It's a scavenger hunt-type game that utilizes camera phones; participants are provided with a word, or "tag," and then they go about and attempt to take a picture of something that represents it. It's basically like Flickr (which the game's designer Oren Ross noted) but "in reverse." The image is then submitted for the rest of the players to vote upon, which determines the best picture and the best picture taker. Points are given for submitting pictures, having them voted, and even simply the act of voting.
One primary intention of Ross was to create something that was very easy for everyday folks to participate in (there's no time limit, nor is that any "right" answer for starters), and which incorporated a tool which most people have, that being the cameras built into cell phones. All voting takes places online, and there's even a community aspect, with people able to set up "parties" and establishing tags that fall under a theme. If it sounds very ARG/Big Games to you, well it should, since the game was developed under the supervision of Frank Lantz (who was behind Pac
Manhattan, perhaps the most well known Big Game to date).
Snapshots, from Snagu.com
Like the other titles at Demo Night, Snagu feels distinctly New York, which has become the home for the casual game market. It's "the hot thing" as Ross noted, which everyone in the room already knew, and so does MTV. The game was funded by a grant from mtvU (the budget was just under $25,000) and the music channel was behind the nationwide roll-out of the game on Labor Day. It was also mentioned that one would expect much in the area of corporate sponsored activities and prizes.
Wingnuts 2
All the way from the opposite end of the spectrum, in regards
to audience, platform, gameplay and down to its very execution,
you had the shareware title Wingnuts 2. Like many other
shareware titles, its represents a genre that is neglected by today's
gamers and the market, that being the shooter (or as the hardcore
dedicated call its them these days, "shmups"), and is
based upon one of the classics from its glory days, Time Pilot.
Even further distancing itself from the contemporary pack is the
fact that it's for the OS X platform (though a Windows version
did follow).
Wingnuts 2
Unlike Snagu, which was bold and new, though a bit esoteric,
and despite its attempt at being something that everyone can understand
(though a few in the audience were scratching their heads throughout
its presentation), Wingnuts 2 goes the tried and tested
route, and no one was confused as to what everyone was watching,
as Bruce Morrison, the lead designer from Freeverse Software, flew
over the ocean and blasted enemy ships to bits. The game actually
won runner up for the award for the best-designed game for the
Mac at a recent Apple developer's conference, which only lost out
to Sims 2. Also, it was announced that an Xbox 360 Live
Arcade version was in the works, which is quickly overtaking the
statement of '“I'm working on a screenplay'” as the
most overheard quote in the Big Apple.
Supple
Next you had the "that's... interesting" candidate,
that being Supple. Billed by its creators from More Than
Interactive Games as "the world's first true interactive sitcom" the
player assumes the role of a young woman working in the offices
of Supple, a magazine aimed at single urban professionals (which
happens to also be the intended audience) and who has five days
to impress her boss to win a promotion. She has to work with, yet
against, a young man who also has his sights on the job, so both
must engage in verbal fisticuffs of sorts. Basically, almost all
actions in the game revolves around conversations: the protagonist
will say something, so the player has to choose an appropriate
response, which in turn elicits another comment or questions, with
the idea being that it all feels like a real, everyday conversation.
Everyone in the room was treated to a brief walkthrough as the main character was asked by the coworker if he had indeed seen her flirting with the UPS guy the day prior, which lead to the decision to sneak out of the office to go shopping for a new outfit, to hopefully impress the boss. That, and along with making sure she was caffeinated enough for the rest of the work day were two examples of the micromanaging components that Supple also features. It does somewhat sounds like Sims, so perhaps it should be no surprise that it happens to also look very much like that game as well.
Slingo Quest
Slingo Quest
For the last couple of Demo Nights, each has ended with what was considered the "big game" of the bunch and this time it was Slingo Quest. It was featured last perhaps because it's based on a known property, or because its budget was by far the biggest of the group, at a whopping $100,000, or maybe because it best represented what the New York game dev scene was all about at the moment: casual games, and all the promise of successes they seem to hold.
Slingo Quest takes its combination of slots and bingo gameplay and adds a number of bells and whistles, but the core game remains the same. One of the presenters, Eric Lamendola from the Slingo company, mentioned that one of the key challenges of the development of the title was taking a game that's already successful and "bringing it up [to the next level]."
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