Month: January 2019

The 2019 Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists for its awards ceremony. The winners for each award will be announced on March 20 during GDC 2019.

There are several awards that over a dozen different games have been nominated for. Titles can be nominated for Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, Best Student Game, the Nuovo (Innovation) Award, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize. Each winner for the first six awards also earns a cash prize worth several thousand dollars, with a grand prize of $30,000 USD going to whoever receives the Seumas McNally.

Return of the Obra Dinn is the most nominated game for IGF by far, with the title up for five of the seven awards. Obra Dinn was one of the three indie games to earn a spot in our 10 favorite games of 2018 list, alongside Dead Cells and Into the Breach. It captured our eye with its superb story-telling and unique murder mystery mechanics. Although they haven’t received as many nominations, other notable standouts for the IGF awards include Forgotton Anne, Minit, Opus Magnum, and Unavowed.

We’ve compiled the full list of finalists below, which you can also view–along with the honorable mentions for each category–on the Independent Games Festival’s blog.

Independent Games Festival 2019 Awards Nominees

Excellent in Visual Art

• Forgotton Anne
• Alto’s Odyssey
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Just Shapes & Beats
• Mirror Drop
• Return of the Obra Dinn

Excellence in Audio

• Ethereal
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Moss
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Alto’s Odyssey
• Paratopic

Excellence in Design

• What the Golf?
• Do Not Feed the Monkeys
• Noita
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Dicey Dungeons
• Opus Magnum

Excellence in Narrative

• Wandersong
• Genital Jousting
• Unavowed
• Seers Isle
• Watch Me Jump
• Return of the Obra Dinn

Nuovo (Innovation) Award

• Circle0
• eCheese Zone
• Noita
• Mirror Drop
• Black Room
• Paratopic
• Do Not Feed the Monkeys
• Nth Dimension[al] Hiking

Best Student Game

• It’s Paper Guy!
• Grace Bruxner Presents: The Haunted Island, a Frog Detective Game
• After Hours
• En Garde!
• levedad
• Sole

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

• Minit
• Opus Magnum
• Noita
• Return of the Obra Dinn
• Hypnospace Outlaw
• Do Not Feed the Monkeys

Thanks to developer Niantic’s steady rollout of new content, 2018 turned out to be a big year for Pokemon Go. Not only was the title selected by GameSpot as one of the year’s best evolving multiplayer games, it also saw an impressive jump in revenue.

According to mobile tracker Sensor Tower, Pokemon Go generated an estimated $795 million in revenue worldwide in 2018–a 35% increase over 2017. US players sunk the most money into the game last year, spending an estimated $262 million in 2018, although Japanese players weren’t far behind, spending approximately $239 million.

Daily spending in Pokemon Go was up as well last year. The game generated an average of about $2.2 million per day in 2018. Players also spent more than $75 million on the game in the month of December alone between Google Play and the App Store, up from $57.2 million spent during the same month in 2017.

These impressive figures can likely be attributed in part to the regular stream of new Pokemon, events, and features that Niantic introduced to Pokemon Go throughout 2018. Early in the year, the developer kicked off a new monthly series of events called Community Days, which give players around the world a chance to catch rare Pokemon and learn exclusive moves for one day every month.

On top of that, Niantic implemented a host of new features in the game. Last summer saw the long-awaited arrival of friends list and trading, while PvP trainer battles finally arrived in December. Niantic also introduced Adventure Sync, a feature that allows Pokemon Go to track your distance walked even when idle, making it easier to hatch Eggs.

Pokemon Go’s latest in-game event, the Adventure Sync Hatchathon, is currently underway. The event runs until January 15, during which time you’ll earn twice the normal amount of Candy and Stardust for hatching Eggs. Meanwhile, the next Community Day is scheduled to take place on January 12 and will feature the Gen 2 starter Totodile.

Beyond Pokemon Go, Niantic is also co-developing a Harry Potter mobile game with Warner Bros. titled Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. The game was originally slated to launch in 2018, but it will now arrive sometime this year. The studio also recently launched an enhanced version of its original mobile game titled Ingress Prime.

The line between The Walking Dead and its companion series Fear the Walking Dead is about to get a little more blurry. At the beginning of Fear’s fourth season, Morgan (Lennie James) was moved to the series from the original, creating the first crossover between the two shows. Now, based on reports, it looks like he’s getting some company.

ComicBook.com is reporting that Austin Amelio, who appeared in Seasons 6-8 of The Walking Dead as Negan’s right-hand man Dwight, is set to pop up on Fear. The character was last seen in the Season 8 finale of The Walking Dead when he was banned from ever returning to the Alexandria safe zone.

While it remains unclear exactly how major this crossover will be, Entertainment Weekly notes that co-showrunner Ian Goldberg previously revealed that new characters would come into play during Fear’s fifth season. Should Dwight be one of those, he could serve as a very interesting ally to Morgan.

The addition of Amelio takes Fear even further from its origins. At this point, only one of the show’s original cast members–Alycia Debnam-Carey–remains. The first half of Season 4 saw the characters played by Kim Dickens and Frank Dillane killed off. Meanwhile, new cast Maggie Grace, Garret Dillahunt, and Jenna Elfman were added this year to round out the show.

As for future crossovers, that might become tricky. Early in Season 9 of The Walking Dead, following the departure of Andrew Lincoln, the series jumped ahead 6 years. Unless Fear were to match that at some point, chances are it’ll be a while before another character moves from one show to the other.

Fear the Walking Dead will return for its fifth season later this year. The second half of The Walking Dead Season 9 premieres on February 10 on AMC.

The lawsuit that Bethesda brought against developer Behaviour and media giant Warner Bros. over a Westworld video game has come to an end, it seems.

Bethesda and Behaviour announced that they have reached an amicable settlement, though no terms were disclosed. Bethesda initially said Behaviour’s Westworld mobile video game was a “blatant ripoff” of Fallout Shelter.

Behaviour worked on Fallout Shelter, and Bethesda further alleged that Behaviour “illegally” used the same copyrighted source code from Fallout Shelter to developer the Westworld game. Not only that, but Bethesda claimed Behaviour “copied Fallout Shelter’s game design, art, animations, gameplay features, and other elements.

Bethesda was suing Behaviour and Warner Bros. for “copyright infringement, breach of contract, and misappropriation of [Bethesda’s] intellectual property.”

Filings with the United States District Court in Maryland, where Bethesda is located, show that Bethesda and Behaviour came to terms on a settlement in principle back in November 2018. A notice dated December 12 confirms that Bethesda and Behaviour “resolved their dispute.” Bethesda, Behaviour, and Warner Bros. each will bear their own costs, including attorney’s fees; however no other terms of the settlement were disclosed. It is not uncommon for settlement details to remain under wraps.

The Westworld game, which is free and supported by microtransactions just like Fallout Shelter, remains available to download on iOS and Android.