The Independent Games Festival (IGF) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers, and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group, IGF is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition.
A browser game is a video game that is played via the internet using a web browser. They are mostly free-to-play and can be single-player or multiplayer. Alternative names for the browser game genre reference their software platform used, with common examples being Flash games, and HTML5 games.
Newgrounds is an American company and entertainment website founded by Tom Fulp in 1995. The site hosts user-generated content such as games, films, audio, and artwork. Fulp produces in-house content at the headquarters and offices in Glenside, Pennsylvania.
A stick figure is a very simple drawing of a human or other animal, in which the limbs and torso are represented using straight lines. The head is most often represented by a circle, which can be filled or unfilled. Details such as hands, feet, and a neck may be present or absent, and the head is sometimes embellished with details such as facial features or hair. Simpler stick figures often display disproportionate physical features and ambiguous emotion.
Alien Hominid is a run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth and first released as a Flash game on the multimedia website Newgrounds on August 7, 2002. It was originally developed in Adobe Flash by programmer and Newgrounds founder, Tom Fulp, and animator and artist, Dan Paladin. It has since been re-released in several expanded and enhanced iterations for home consoles and computers.
The Behemoth is an American video game development company that was founded in 2003 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin, and programmers Tom Fulp, Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh and LaCava later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California. The company is known for producing simple games with Paladin's signature 2D style. Its games are also known for their heavy arcade inspirations, especially among their early games, emulating genres common on the Neo Geo in particular.
Castle Crashers is a beat 'em up video game developed and published by The Behemoth for the Xbox 360. It was originally released on August 27, 2008 by Microsoft Game Studios via Xbox Live Arcade as part of the Xbox Live Summer of Arcade. A PlayStation 3 version was released in North America on August 31, 2010, and November 3, 2010, in Europe via the PlayStation Network. A Microsoft Windows and OS X version, exclusive to Steam, was released on September 26, 2012. The game is set in a fictional medieval universe in which a dark wizard steals a mystical crystal and captures four princesses. Four knights are charged by the king to rescue the princesses, recover the crystal, and bring the wizard to justice. The game includes music created by members of Newgrounds.
Thomas Charles Fulp is an American programmer known for creating the website Newgrounds and co-founding the video game company The Behemoth.
Fancy Pants is a series of free side-scrolling Flash games created by American developer Brad Borne. Four worlds have been released so far. World 1 was released on March 14, 2006 and World 2 was released on January 9, 2008. After the 2009 Comic-Con, Borne announced he would officially start working on World 3. It was released on April 5, 2012. A console version developed by Borne and Over the Top Games was released by EA 2D for PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on April 19 and April 20, 2011, respectively. An iOS version developed by Chillingo, Over the Top Games and Borne Games was released on the Apple App Store on March 4, 2012, with an Android version released on May 22, 2017. In 2017, Brad Borne made a fourth entry, Super Fancy Pants Adventure, which was later ported to Adobe Flash in 2020 as World 4.
BattleBlock Theater is a comedic platform game developed by The Behemoth and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox 360, Windows, Mac, and Linux. It is the third title from The Behemoth following Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers. The game was released on Xbox Live Arcade on April 3, 2013, and later temporarily made free via Games with Gold on July 16, 2014. On July 26, 2024, a quality-of-life update and future console releases were announced for the game.
The Room Tribute is a point-and-click adventure game released on September 3, 2010, that serves as an unofficial adaptation of the 2003 film The Room directed by Tommy Wiseau. It was programmed by Newgrounds founder Tom Fulp, with artwork by Newgrounds staff member Jeff "JohnnyUtah" Bandelin, and music by animator Chris "OneyNG" O'Neill. The game was designed in the style of 16-bit graphics, much like similar games based on the films Tremors and The Hunger Games for Newgrounds' own 2010 and 2012 April Fools jokes.
Pit People is a tactical role-playing game by indie game developer The Behemoth. An early access version for Microsoft Windows and Xbox One was released in January 2017 and the full version was released in March 2018.
Michael Brough is a New Zealand-born indie video game developer known for his eclectic roguelike games. His games are often tightly-focused explorations of a single mechanical aspect of the roguelike genre, set on unusually small grids. This style of game, perhaps best exemplified by 868-HACK, has become widely known as the "Broughlike".
Adam Phillips, also known by his online alias Chluaid, is an Australian filmmaker, animator, and former freelancer. He is best known for his animation work, consisting of flash animation compositions published on his website, Bitey Castle, and on the flash portal Newgrounds. His animation work on the latter has over 16 million views, making him one of the most-viewed artists on the site. Phillips created the fantasy animation shorts series, Brackenwood, the first of which was posted on Newgrounds in March 2004.
Ruffle is a free and open source emulator for playing Adobe Flash (SWF) animation files.
The 21st Game Developers Choice Awards was an annual awards ceremony by Game Developers Choice Awards for outstanding game developers and video games held on July 21, 2021. The awards ceremony was held alongside the Independent Games Festival awards, with both events presented through virtual streaming video due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Hades was named as Game of the Year.
Tyler Glaiel, also known by the moniker Glaiel Games, is an American video game designer and programmer known for games such as Aether (2008), Closure (2012), Number (2013), Bombernauts (2017), The End Is Nigh (2017) and Mewgenics (2025).
Pico's School is a 1999 Flash game developed by Tom Fulp for his website Newgrounds. At the time of its release, it was "one of the most sophisticated" browser games, exhibiting "a complexity of design and polish in presentation that [was] virtually unseen in amateur Flash game development". It has been widely credited with kickstarting the Flash games scene and helping launch Newgrounds "as a public force".
Alien Hominid Invasion is a 2023 run and gun video game developed by The Behemoth. It serves as a sequel/reimagining of The Behemoth's 2004 video game Alien Hominid, originally released on as a demo Newgrounds, on August 7, 2002.
Nightmare Cops is an upcoming 2D platforming brawler video game developed by Tom Fulp and Jeff "JohnnyUtah" Bandelin under Newgrounds. The game takes place in a town overseen by a police force tasked with entering and combating the inhabitants' nightmares. The game has seen an over 10 year long development cycle and has no tentative release date currently set, however as of 2024, development is more than halfway to completion according to the development team.
