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Doug Wilson, of the game studio GuteFabrik, named Wade Clarke's Six as one of his ten best games of 2011. Congratulations, Wade! Nice to see IF getting recognized by the indie-game designers who usually work with moving pictures.

Six was #6 (naturally) on the top ten, but you can think of it as #3 among the games that were actually released!

Oh man, Hokra! I think the blog post gets it right, in that Hokra is almost underwhelming as a game, but [during the event that I saw it at, at any rate] seems to inspire almost fanatical enthusiasm.

Night Sky, on the other hand, I'm genuinely feeling a little let down by. I haven't seen the ending yet, but so far it seems sort of mishmash-y and inconsistent. The graphics are pretty, yes, but they're also kind of hard to follow (since foreground and background elements are both just black silhouettes). My SO had just finished Limbo before playing it, and thinks that Night Sky basically feels like an inferior and more plotless version of Limbo. Meh.

I have to say, I stopped reading the Hokra entry at "two vs. two Xbox game." Just not relevant to my life.

I'm actually feeling plugged in here, because I've played three of the seven released games (and vaguely intend to give WAY a shot). That never happens. I really like Night Sky -- I'm hoping that the ending is as cursory as the beginning, because for me the point is the pretty graphics, the physicality of the interaction, and the sound design. Though it seems like it's getting a bit difficult now. That would be annoying.

Nice!

I also love GIRP. GIRP is the best.

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we gotta move these refrigerators

The thing that proves that Bennett Foddy is evil is that GIRP takes you immediately back to the start screen without a "try again?" button. It doesn't let you get away cleanly.

...I actually have some design nitpicks on GIRP that I should write up on my blog (for instance: why it would be a good candidate for random generation, and how you would do the ending if you were really a horrible person). I have made it to the top and got my Chick tract.

I made it the top and the frickin bird

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we gotta move these refrigerators

Thanks Matt. Yes, Doug sent me a supportive message during IFComp. So while he's someone who was already interested in IFComp games, I agreed with him in chatting that it would be good for the health of IF games if IF gamers+authors got more into vaunting their new wares in indie games circles. Of course all IF games are already 'indie', using indie to describe the huge scene of individuals and small teams making all kinds of games outside major studios these days, but they're mostly invisible to the rest of that scene. When there's a new game, I see a post here, and maybe on IFDB and that's about it, outside of a competition having its own website. So as I always say, I encourage folks to put their finished IF games in front of more people.