More good news! Johann Sebastian Joust is a finalist at the 2012 Independent Games Festival! It was nominated for both the Nuovo Award (which honors “abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development”) and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. It was also given an honorable mention for Excellence in Design. Wow! We’re honored.
Our PSP/PS3 puzzle-platformer Where is my Heart? almost made it too – the game was given three honorable mentions (for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Audio, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize). So close, yet so far. Still, we’re humbled. The game had been featured as a Student Finalist back at IGF 2009.
Between Nils, Bernie, and myself, the three of us have now worked on five IGF-nominated games. Most recently, Nils and I were part of the team that made B.U.T.T.O.N., a party game nominated for last year’s Nuovo Award.
Photo from the Official GDC flickr stream
Before that, Nils’ adventure game Rückblende was a Student Finalist in 2008:
Last and perhaps most obscure is Euclidean Crisis, a touchscreen-controlled RTS game I worked on back during my university days. The game was a Student Finalist in 2007.
But enough about the past. Looking forward to this year’s showcase, I’m honored that J.S. Joust will be in the company of so many other excellent indie games! Three of my favorite ten games of 2011 (Proteus, GIRP, and WAY) have all been nominated along with us in the Nuovo category. I’m also very happy for my fellow academic Dan Pinchbeck, whose game Dear Esther was nominated for a whopping four categories.
Now I just need to figure out how to run J.S. Joust amid the hustle and bustle of the IGF pavilion. Uh oh. Time to get creative…
Congratulations to all the other finalists! Let us know if you’ll be at GDC this year.