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.
The Game Developers Choice Awards are awards annually presented at the Game Developers Conference for outstanding game developers and games. Introduced in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards were preceded by the Spotlight Awards, which were presented from 1997 to 1999. Since then, the ceremony for the Independent Games Festival is held just prior to the Choice Awards ceremony.
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is an annual conference for video game developers. The event includes an expo, networking events, and awards shows like the Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival, and a variety of tutorials, lectures, and roundtables by industry professionals on game-related topics covering programming, design, audio, production, business and management, and visual arts.
Game Developer is a website created in 1997 that focuses on aspects of video game development. It is owned and operated by Informa and acted as the online sister publication to the print magazine Game Developer prior to the latter's closure in 2013.
Digital Eel is a self-funded independent video game development team located in the Seattle, Washington area. Digital Eel is best known for its Infinite Space series of space roguelikes.
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a 2007 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the first game in the Uncharted series and was released in November 2007 for PlayStation 3. The game follows Nathan Drake, the supposed descendant of explorer Sir Francis Drake, as he searches for the lost treasure of El Dorado with journalist Elena Fisher and mentor Victor Sullivan.
Fez is a 2012 indie puzzle-platform game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve puzzles. The objective is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is a 2009 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the second game in the Uncharted series and was released in October 2009 for PlayStation 3. Set two years after the events of Drake's Fortune (2007), the single-player story follows Nathan Drake, Chloe Frazer, and Elena Fisher as they search for the Cintamani Stone and Shambhala while battling a militia led by war criminal Zoran Lazarević.
Clean Asia! is a freeware vertically scrolling shooter video game for Microsoft Windows. It was developed by Jonatan "Cactus" Söderström.
Tale of Tales BVBA is a Belgian developer of art games founded in 2003 by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn, who had been working together in the creation of Web sites and electronic art as Entropy8Zuper! since 1999. In an interview by Nightmare Mode, Michael Samyn explained their motivations to create interactive art and disappointment at the lack of evolution in interaction of games.
Jonatan Söderström, also known as Cactus, is a Swedish video game developer noted for his unusual and innovative games. He is best known as the co-designer and programmer of Hotline Miami (2012) and Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015), but had prior to those games developed over 40 small freeware games, many of which were reviewed and lauded even in the mainstream video game press. His game Clean Asia! was nominated for both Excellence In Visual Arts and Excellence in Audio at the Independent Games Festival in 2008. In 2010, he won the IGF's Nuovo Award, which honours unconventional game development, for his puzzler Tuning.
Uncharted is an action-adventure video game franchise published by Sony Interactive Entertainment and developed by Naughty Dog. Created by Amy Hennig, the Uncharted franchise follows a group of treasure hunters who travel across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. The series features historical fiction, elements of fantasy and folklore, and fictional characters alongside real-world historical figures and events. In the main series, players control Nathan Drake; in the expansion, players control Chloe Frazer.
Amy Hennig is an American video game director and script writer, formerly for the video game company Naughty Dog. She began her work in the industry on the Nintendo Entertainment System, with her design debut on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System game Michael Jordan: Chaos in the Windy City. She later went to work for Crystal Dynamics, working primarily on the Legacy of Kain series. With Naughty Dog, she worked primarily on the Jak and Daxter and Uncharted series.
Uncharted 4: A Thief's End is a 2016 action-adventure game developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Computer Entertainment. It is the fourth main entry in the Uncharted series. Set several years after the events of Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, players control Nathan Drake, a former treasure hunter coaxed out of retirement by his presumed-dead brother Samuel. With Nathan's longtime partner, Victor Sullivan, they search for clues to the location of Henry Avery's long-lost treasure. A Thief's End is played from a third-person perspective, and incorporates platformer elements. Players solve puzzles and use firearms, melee combat, and stealth to combat enemies. In the online multiplayer mode, up to ten players engage in co-operative and competitive modes.
Andy Schatz is a video game designer based in San Diego. He began developing video games at a young age and graduated from Amherst College. After graduation, he worked for various video game development companies, including TKO Software, before founding his own independent video game development studio Pocketwatch Games in 2004. Attempting to expand his company, Schatz tried enrolling into business school; all applications were rejected. As a result, he began working on games he was passionate about. Schatz has released four video games under Pocketwatch Games: Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa, Venture Arctic, Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine, and Tooth and Tail. Monaco 2 is currently in development. His design philosophy revolves around taking inspiration from already existing media, such as films, and transforming it into a video game.
Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn are two artists who collaborate on creating art video games. Auriea Harvey is a Professor for Games at the Kunsthochschule Kassel.
Simogo is a Swedish independent video game developer based in Malmö. The company was founded in 2010 and is best known for creating games for mobile devices, including Year Walk and Device 6. Its name comes from the name of its founders Simon (SIM), and Gordon (GO); the 'O' from the Swedish word "och" meaning "and".
Lucas Pope is an American video game designer. He is best known for experimental indie games, notably Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn, both of which won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize alongside other awards. Pope currently resides in Saitama, Japan.
Uncharted is a 2022 American action-adventure film directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay by Rafe Lee Judkins, Art Marcum, and Matt Holloway, based on the video game franchise of the same name developed by Naughty Dog and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment. It stars Tom Holland as Nathan Drake and Mark Wahlberg as Victor Sullivan, with Sophia Ali, Tati Gabrielle, and Antonio Banderas in supporting roles. In the film, Drake is recruited by Sullivan in a race against corrupt billionaire Santiago Moncada (Banderas) and mercenary leader Jo Braddock (Gabrielle) to locate the fabled treasure of the Magellan expedition.
