A game engine is a software framework primarily designed for the development of video games and generally includes relevant libraries and support programs such as a level editor. The "engine" terminology is similar to the term "software engine" used in the software industry.
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 game programmer is a software engineer, programmer, or computer scientist who primarily develops codebases for video games or related software, such as game development tools. Game programming has many specialized disciplines, all of which fall under the umbrella term of "game programmer". A game programmer should not be confused with a game designer, who works on game design.
Ensemble Studios was an American video game developer. It was founded by Tony Goodman in 1994 and incorporated the following year. It borrowed the name of Ensemble Corporation, a consulting firm founded by Goodman in 1990. It was acquired by Microsoft in 2001 and operated as an internal studio until 2009, when its development capabilities were officially disbanded. Ensemble developed many real-time strategy games, including the Age of Empires game series, Age of Mythology, and Halo Wars. In addition to game development, Ensemble Studios also made the Genie Game Engine used in Age of Empires, Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, and Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds. The studio sold 20 million games and was worth an estimated $500 million.
Action 52 is an unlicensed, multicart video game compilation developed by Active Enterprises for the Nintendo Entertainment System, and by FarSight Technologies for the Sega Genesis. The NES version was released in 1991, followed by the Genesis version in 1993. The multicart consists of 52 games in a variety of genres, mostly scrolling shooters and platformers. The "featured" game is The Cheetahmen, which was part of Active's attempt to create a franchise similar to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Active Enterprises was legally incorporated in The Bahamas, but the offices and development were located in Miami, Florida while the company's product warehousing was located in Orlando, Florida.
Video game development is the process of developing a video game. The effort is undertaken by a developer, ranging from a single person to an international team dispersed across the globe. Development of traditional commercial PC and console games is normally funded by a publisher and can take several years to reach completion. Indie games usually take less time and money and can be produced by individuals and smaller developers. The independent game industry has been on the rise, facilitated by the growth of accessible game development software such as Unity platform and Unreal Engine and new online distribution systems such as Steam and Uplay, as well as the mobile game market for Android and iOS devices.
Remedy Entertainment Oyj, trading internationally as Remedy Entertainment Plc, is a Finnish video game developer based in Espoo. Notable games the studio has developed include the first two entries in the Max Payne franchise, Alan Wake, Quantum Break and Control. Sam Lake, Remedy's creative director, has represented the company on numerous occasions.
The Indie Game Jam (IGJ) was an effort to rapidly prototype video game designs and inject new ideas into the game industry. Started in 2002 by a group of game designer-programmers, the event featured a shared game engine technology and worked on by other designer-programmers for a single long weekend. The games resulting from that weekend were then published, open-source, on the IGJ web page.
Jonathan Blow is an American video game designer and programmer. He is best known for his work on the independent video games Braid (2008) and The Witness (2016). Blow was born in California, United States, and became interested in game programming while at middle school. He studied for computer science and English at the University of California, Berkeley, but dropped out to start a game company. After the company closed following the dot-com crash, Blow worked as a game-development contractor. He co-founded the Experimental Gameplay Workshop and wrote a monthly technical column for Game Developer magazine.
Harold and the Purple Crayon is a 1955 children's picture book by Crockett Johnson. Published by Harper Collins Publishers, it is Johnson's most popular book, and has led to a series of other books, as well as many adaptations.
Christopher Bryan Hecker is an American video game programmer and commentator. He is the founder of the gaming company Definition Six and best known for his engineering work on Will Wright's 2008 game Spore. Hecker is an advocate for indie game development and co-founder of the Indie Game Jam. He has written a number of influential articles on programming and has been an editor for Game Developer Magazine and the Journal of Graphics Tools.
Crayon Physics Deluxe is a puzzle video game designed by Petri Purho and released on January 7, 2009. An early version, titled Crayon Physics, was released for Windows in June 2007. Deluxe won the grand prize at the Independent Games Festival in 2008. It features a heavy emphasis on two-dimensional physics simulations, including gravity, mass, kinetic energy and transfer of momentum. The game includes a level editor and enables its players to download and share custom content via an online service.
An indie game, short for independent video game, is a video game typically created by individuals or smaller development teams without the financial and technical support of a large game publisher, in contrast to most "AAA" (triple-A) games. Because of their independence and freedom to develop, indie games often focus on innovation, experimental gameplay, and taking risks not usually afforded in AAA games. Indie games tend to be sold through digital distribution channels rather than at retail due to a lack of publisher support. The term is synonymous with that of independent music or independent film in those respective mediums.
Alec Holowka was a Canadian indie game developer and co-founder of independent game companies Infinite Ammo, Infinite Fall, and Bit Blot. He was mainly known for the award-winning titles Night in the Woods and Aquaria.
Kellee Santiago is a Venezuelan American video game designer and producer. She is the co-founder and former president of thatgamecompany. Santiago was born in Caracas, Venezuela, and raised in Richmond, Virginia, where Santiago played video games from a young age and was encouraged by her software engineer father to experiment with computers. While attending New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, she became active in experimental theater, planning to pursue it after earning a master's degree in the Interactive Media Program of the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California. However, Santiago became involved in video game design and produced Cloud, a game developed by Jenova Chen and a student team. Its success sparked her and Chen to found thatgamecompany upon graduating, and she became the president.
The Marriage is an experimental art game created by Rod Humble and released for Microsoft Windows in March 2007. Humble set out to explore the forms of artistic expression unique to video games, leading him to express his feelings associated with marriage by relying primarily on game mechanics rather than on traditional storytelling, audio, or video elements. The game uses only simple colored shapes that the player interacts with using a mouse. The player's actions cause pink and blue squares to increase or decrease in both size and opacity, representing the balance of personal needs in a relationship.
Video gaming in Finland consists of video game industry of 260 active video game developer studios, roughly a dozen professional players and countless enthusiastic amateurs.
Noita is a platform roguelike game developed by Nolla Games. Players control a sorcerer that can create and cast spells in order to defeat enemies named after Finnish mythological creatures. It was released in early access for Microsoft Windows on 24 September 2019. Noita left early access as the 1.0 version was released on 15 October 2020.
The 20th Game Developers Choice Awards was an annual awards ceremony by Game Developers Choice Awards for outstanding game developers and video games held on March 18, 2020, hosted by Kim Swift. Though normally held at the Game Developers Conference, due to the 2020 coronavirus outbreak, the conference was postponed to later in 2020, and the awards were presented via online streaming media, alongside the Independent Games Festival awards.
