Today has seen an avalanche of great indie news for the Boston area.  Some of this isn’t completely current, but I wanted to lump it all together.

The Indie Game Challenge

Today we found out the finalists for the Indie Game Challenge.  This is a contest sponsored by GameStop, SMU’s Guildhall, and the AIAS.  We have FOUR finalists in there from our area.

• AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard for Gravity by Dejobaan Games
• Fieldrunners by Subatomic Studios
• Miegakure by Marc Ten Bosch*
• Waker by a team at MIT’s GAMBIT Game Lab (game link leads to the Indie Game Challenge entry page.)

ModDB’s Indie Game of the Year

Five minutes later, I heard that Aaaa! had been named ModDB’s indie game of the year!

IGF Nominations!

Slightly older news – Miegakure and Aaaa! are both up for awards in the Excellence in Design category for the Independent Games Festival, which takes place at the Game Developers’ Conference this March.

And Finally the Global Game Jam

And all this came just after I finished up being a participant in the Global Game Jam this weekend.

For those that don’t know, a game jam is when a bunch of people get together for a weekend and make games. Usually you’re given one or more constraints to work within.  At the end of the weekend, you show off whatever you get done. The Global Game Jam in particular is put on by the IGDA, the International Game Developer Association.

The Boston area had 3 sites doing game jams – Northeastern, Worcester Poly Institute, and MIT’s GAMBIT Game Lab.  (Incidentally, I was at the third and was on the team for RunRunRunJump.)

All told, at these three sites we developed SEVENTEEN games in a weekend.  Granted, a lot of our games are barely functional… but that’s not the point.  The thing is, over seventy five people got together in Massachussets this weekend, made games in 48 hours, and then published them for all the world to play.

Way to kick some ass, folks.  I’m extremely proud to be a member of the game development community here in MA, and I’m incredibly proud of all my colleagues and friends who are fighting the good fight – be that at big studios, small indies, at colleges, or anywhere in between.

* For the record, Marc Ten Bauch lives in Rhode Island. But until someone claims him for some RI located dev meetup, I’m totally lumping him in here with us.

EDIT – I forgot to mention that Aaaa! won the ModDB Editor’s Choice Best Indie Game.  Woo!