Entries 'amaze' judges in Pinoy Indie Games Competition

By Relly Carpio INQUIRER.net IN 48 HOURS, they made the seemingly impossible, playable. The teams that participated in the recently concluded Pinoy Indie Games Competition came up with games that "amazed" the judges. Overcoming fatigue, sleep deprivation, disobedient randomization, convoluted code, mal-rasterized pixels and, in one case, the laws of physics, the participants submitted their final designs to the organizers. In his closing speech, Gabby Dizon, president of the Game Developers Association of the Philippines. said, "We are very happy. We are amazed with what we've seen. What we've seen in the quality of the work -- ang galing! Some people here are even college freshmen, or fresh out of college or hobbyists and we really like the games that we've seen. So hopefully we will have more of these events to give the community a chance to express themselves and their creativity." Jerome Matti, marketing manager of Intel Philippines, was also pleased saying. "This whole competition has been amazing,. This is the first time that we had this type of game development competition in the country, and I hope we can have another one sometime soon." Last Sunday, with 12 hours to go before the deadline, hackenslash sneaked in exactly at midnight to see if any team was slacking off. To our surprise, one team was rumored to have already given in their submission, and two teams were nowhere to be found. The other teams noticed our arrival and there was a sudden burst of activity when we announced that 3/4ths of the time had passed. By 5 a.m. (seven hours to go), some teams began rotating breaks to keep up the pace, while others went to sleep outright in the face of the deadline. Later with only two hours left, it was a cacophony of sounds from the games, being debugged by the teams, punctuated by loud arguments between team members on what to do about them. When Matti arrived at the scene, it was like a jolt of electricity went through the participants and what was already controlled chaos became even more frenetic. But in the end, the teams made the deadline -- and what a diverse collection of entries they were. Team Calmado of Asia Pacific College (APC) created Quadron, a platform shooter where a futuristic soldier is in a firefight with a cyborg snail. Team Intimidating Face, also from APC, created Robocat, where a gravity-defying robotic cat paces, jumps and runs collecting power-ups along a tunnel-view obstacle course. Team Pre-Productions of De La Salle University (DLSU) made UnstopAball, a player vs player (PVP) game using classic Pong-like elements mixed with manga/anime-like characters controlling the paddles. Team Guilty Pleasures from Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU) made Unstoppable, where a double sword-wielding hero battles it out with flaming hell-hounds protecting the precious Intel Core 2 Quad chip core. Team Crates, Kitchen Sinks and Duct Tapes of ADMU made Cores & Cords, a LocoRoco-like game where two circular blobs controlled by one person each try to traverse a Mario Bros.-like side-scrolling terrain. This game is arguably the one with the most advanced physics in the lot. Team Fuchikoma, composed of hobbyists, made Teddy's Happy FuN TiEm Wonderland, where a giant zombie-like monster teddy bear rampages through the city collecting power-ups while crazy hang gliding ninjas try and stop him. Resty Aldana Team of STI Southwoods made Anomalous Maze Dimension, a 3D maze where an anthropomorphic Intel Core 2 Quad being walks through question and answer gates in search of the four Intel seals hidden within the maze. Correct answers let you through while wrong answers teleport you to a random area. Take too long in answering the questions or miss collecting the heatsinks scattered in the maze and you melt from the heat of the digital motherboard maze. Team Adrastos of STI Angeles created Force of Intelletsu, a side-scrolling game where, as an armored ninja, you have to plow through enemies to reach the end. Team Op. 3 of ADMU made Space Soldier, a side-scrolling PVP space shooter, that binds very well with the use of a game pad. Team Taguro of APC made QuadQuest where you navigate a 3D motherboard maze to reach the Intel Core 2 Quad core. Team Trillema of APC made UP&UP, a 3D jumping game, much like Frogger 3D. Team 3D Taho, composed of Nonoy Dadivas and his son 17-year-old Roy, made the creepiest game, a survival horror game called Labyrinth, where you have to try and escape an ever changing maze of walls covered with bloody mouths while being chased by a Sadako-like ghost who has an eerie, hollow childlike laugh. It's like Pac-Man directed by Wes Craven and Hideo Nakata. Other teams whose games hackenslash was not able to test were Void made by Team Null from ADMU DLSU (Editor's note: Thanks to Andrew for the heads up; made the correction.), but based on the artwork seen during the creation phase it would have fantastic backgrounds; and Quad Bot Factory by Team Untitled Psychedelic Jam Production from APC. Fourteen out of the fifteen teams that registered were able to complete their entries. After the closing ceremony teams were invited to try out each other's games. Matti and Dizon went around previewing the entries and discussing the games with the participants. The winners of the competition will notified this Friday, February 8. The awarding ceremonies will be held on February 29.