Articles - Editor's Notes

High Score is a documentary series about the golden age of video games, when legends – from Pac-Man to Doom – were brought to life. Of course, it wouldn't bring the legendary history of the Doom series justice if mods weren't mentioned!

Through ingenuity and sheer force of will, computer pioneers and visionary artists from around the globe spawned the iconic worlds of Space Invaders, Final Fantasy, Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, Sonic the Hedgehog, MADDEN NFL, and beyond.

Without rules or roadmaps, players and innovators alike pushed the limits of money to be made, rivals to be crushed, and hearts to be won. The documentary series explores the story of the brains behind the pixels and how their unmatched innovation built a multi-billion dollar industry - almost by accident. You can watch the documentary on Netflix.

The 2020 edition of the digital convention LudoNarraCon, which celebrates narrative video games is now live. Running from the 24th to the 27th of April, the online event hosted through Steam showcases some of the most interesting and innovative upcoming and already released narrative games.

Experience much of you'd expect from a normal convention, with over 40 games being exhibited, several panels from members of the industry to watch, sales for over 50 games and dozens of playable demos during the event to play.

There is a wide variety of panels to check out and topics to learn about throughout the event, including the evolution of game narrative, storytelling in games without dialogue and how to develop branching narratives (check out the full list in the image above!).

While there are dozens of games being showcased as part of the event from a variety of developers from around the world, including Chinatown Detective Agency, Eliza, Heaven's Vault, Mutazione, Yes, Your Grace, Beholder 2 and plenty more.

LudoNarraCon is an initiative from indie game publishing label Fellow Traveller, which aims to create a platform to spotlight and bring more attention to the many unique and upcoming narrative games being created around the world, all in a digital event format.

Hey members of ModDB & IndieDB! It's been great to see so many more users online in recent weeks, downloading mods, checking out indie games and generally being awesome.

We appreciate all your support over the years and would be grateful if you could support us with our latest readership survey.

ModDB and IndieDB are partnered with the Gamer Network group, which includes Rock Paper Shotgun; Eurogamer.net and more, and share advertising across the network of sites. Each year, we now conduct a readership survey to better understand you and our community, so we can better serve you and to continue to adapt and grow with the trends of the industry.

If you have 10 minutes to fill out the survey to answer a few questions, the DBolical team would greatly appreciate it! We understand several of the questions are quite personal and we understand and encourage you to skip any you don't feel comfortable answering.

Thank you for taking the time to fill out the survey and hope you and your families are healthy and safe during this current global pandemic. You can always reach us at support@dbolical.com with any questions regarding the sites, or join us on Discord to chat with us and the rest of the community!

The winners for the 22nd annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards have been revealed, with A Short Hike by Adam Robinson-Yu winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game. Held as a virtual live-stream event following the postponement of the Game Developers Conference, the awards recognize the most innovative and best independent games from the past year.

The categories range from excellence in visual art, audio, design, narrative, best student game, The Nuovo Award which honours the title which makes the jurors 'think differently about games as a medium', and the community decided audience award, which also went to the grand prize winner A Short Hike.

Check out all the winners below, which include unique indie titles such as the colorful co-op adventure game Knights And Bikes, the "mutant soap opera" adventure game Mutazione and the archaeological science-fiction narrative driven game Heaven's Vault.

The winners of the 22nd annual IGF Awards are:

Excellence in Visual Art ($2,000)

Knights And Bikes by Foam Sword

Excellence in Audio ($2,000)

Mutazione by Die Gute Fabrik

Excellence in Design ($2,000)

Patrick's Parabox by Patrick Traynor

Excellence in Narrative ($2,000)

Heaven's Vault by inkle Studios

Nuovo Award ($2,000)

The Space Between by Christoph Frey

Best Student Game ($2,000)

Bore Dome by Goblin Rage

Audience Award ($2,000)

A Short Hike by Adam Robinson-Yu

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($10,000)

A Short Hike by Adam Robinson-Yu

The winners of the the 20th annual Game Developers Choice Awards have also been announced as part of the same live-stream as the IGF awards, with several indie games taking out awards next to huge Triple-A titles.

The internet phenomenon Untitled Goose Game by House House took out Game of the Year, while developer Hempuli won Best Design and the Innovative Award for their puzzle game Baba Is You, and the mind-bending detective adventure game Disco Elysium was awarded Best Narrative and Best Debut game.

The Game Developers Choice Awards winners are:

Best Audio

Control by Remedy Entertainment/505 Games

Best Debut

Disco Elysium by ZA/UM

Best Design

Baba is You by Hempuli

Best Mobile Game

WHAT THE GOLF? by Triband

Innovation Award

Baba is You by Hempuli

Best Narrative

Disco Elysium by ZA/UM

Best Technology

Control by Remedy Entertainment/505 Games

Best Visual Art

Control by Remedy Entertainment/505 Games

Best VR/AR Game

Vader Immortal by ILMxLAB & Oculus Studios/Disney

Audience Award

Sky: Children of the Light by thatgamecompany

Game of the Year

Untitled Goose Game by Househouse / Panic

Pioneer Award

Roberta Williams

Ambassador Award

Kate Edwards

This year's IGF and GDC awards were livestreamed on the official Twitch channel for the Game Developers Conference at Twitch.tv/GDC and are archived both on Twitch and on the official GDC YouTube channel.

You can watch the full show in the video below and enjoy the unique angle the awards were presented in this year!

Congratulations to all the winners for the IGF and GDC awards and the many incredible games nominated too. Despite GDC not being able to go ahead for the time being, it is wonderful to see the game development community to soldier on and to still host these great long running awards in a new format.

The DBolical team wishes everyone safe health during these difficult times <3

The AXA Group, a worldwide leader in insurance and asset management, is making their first move into gaming with their virtual item trading platform, codenamed Project S. The aim of the platform is to simplify and streamline the way players acquire and exchange digital goods, such as game skins or characters.

How to apply

Developers can apply now to take part in the initiative to be able to integrate their games and help co-build it with AXA. Watch the video below for more details:

AXA will provide formative workshops as well as financial support to cover the costs of integrating selected developers/publishers games into the platform. While AXA's experience in insurance and legal fronts will help the successful applicants to make digital transactions as part of Project S safe and legal.

Benefits for participants

• Partner with AXA in building a game-changing solution
• Get financial support for costs incurred creating for the platform
• Participate in monthly workshops and coaching sessions
• Receive boosted covered from AXA as an early-adopter

Open to indies

To access the platform developers can submit an application before January 30th 2020 and AXA are welcoming game studios and publishers of all sizes to take part. After applications close teams will be shortlisted to pitch in front of a jury composed of AXA Next and gaming industry expects in February, before moving into the implementation phase.

Learn More

Head to the Project S website to learn more and to apply to take part in the program and work with AXA to make it a great addition to your game and business.