Local game developers make it big in Paris, France!
OK, well, “Local” in this case of means local to our side of the Earth, sort of an new world VS. old world battle: But we won!
OK let me explain, iGam4er is a hot hot game competition hosted each year since 2013 by the CRI in Paris, France. The CRI is the Centre for Research and Interdisciplinarity. What is interdisciplinarity, you ask? Interdisciplinarity is getting game developers to create science games! The CRI is doing the kind of advanced work on innovative teaching that we all wish was happening everywhere! The Science Game Center loves the CRI. Do I digress? Sorry! Here you go: from their website: The CRI was founded in 2005 as a convivial place at the crossroad of life sciences and exact, natural, cognitive, and social sciences.
The CRI hosts a competition each year not just for video games, but for science video games, and they call that competition iGam4er. Each year science game developers are invited to submit their games and the best ones are chosen as finalists. The developers of the finalist games are invited, all expenses paid to participate in the Global Game Jam at the CRI in Paris. Yeah, that’s right, the iGam4er guys are clever, and have found a way to attract the best, most innovative talent to their site for the biggest game development competition, the Global Game Jam.
Some terrific games made it into the finalists list this year, you can see all the finalists here: www.igam4er.org
One of the finalists was already posted on the ScienceGameCenter.org, and it is a FREE game made by a retired scientist! How cool is that, retiring from plant science to becoming a video game developer? Have you played Solarium yet???
Read about Solarium on the Science Game Center, and link to their website to get the game for free. Solarium is actually a 3 person project, lead by plant scientists David Ehret, Ph.D. David’s company is called Sunfleck Studios. They are located in Sidney, British Columbia, Canada. Look them up if you would like to work with a truly innovative development team.
The other winner from our side of the world is from Test Tube Games. Andy Hall, the whole team is actually Andy Hall. Andy’s games Bond Breaker, Agent Higgs and my personal favorite, Velocity Raptor have been popular on the Science Game Center for years. But the one that was a finalist at igam4er was The Electric Shocktapus. It is so new it isn’t even listed on the SGC yet. I was so excited for our “local” devs that I wanted to get this out first. You may now all harass me until I get the game listed!!!
Guess who won the iGam4er contest? Yep, that’s right, The Electric Shocktapus.That’s right. Score one for the New World.
Want to comment on these games, maybe share your winning strategy? Maybe you think plants should rule the world? Perhaps you think Electric Octopi are unlikely? Perhaps you found these games so fun to play that you missed some sleep? Well march on over to the Forum at the ScienceGameCenter and let us hear it!
