iPhone sweeps IGF's Mobile Games Awards

[AppleInsider]

Apple's iPhone platform dominated the finalist entries and the prize winners of mobile game awards at the annual Independent Games Festival.

The eleventh annual IGF, held in conjunction with the Game Developers Conference 2009 in San Francisco, has focused new attention on the iPhone as the platform of choice for independent mobile game developers, with nearly every category win being awarded to App Store titles for the iPhone and iPod touch.

This is the second year the IGF has awarded mobile games. In addition to Java and Flash Lite titles for mobile phones, finalists also included titles for the Nintendo DS and Sony PlayStation Portable. Full details on all of the finalists in the Mobile awards are listed on the IGF's finalist and winners site. Winners were announced yesterday and will be presented along with IGF's console and desktop awards today.

IGF Best Mobile Game, Achievement in Art

Subatomic Studios' Fieldrunners, a $2.99 tower defense game, was awarded both Best Mobile Game and Achievement in Art awards.



Fieldrunner beat out Sykhronics Entertainment's Smiles and Mobigame's Edge, two other iPhone finalists for Best Mobile Game, as well as Wardive for the Nintendo DS and Cubic Republic for the Flash Lite platform.

The two other finalists for the Achievement in Art award were also iPhone titles: Igloo Games' Dizzy Bee and Song New Creative's Ruben & Lullaby.

Best iPhone Game, Audio Achievement

Zen Bound's Secret Exit won the $10,000 prize Best iPhone Game as presented by ngmoco, in addition to the Audio Achievement award. Developed exclusively for the iPhone, the $4.99 title is a unique puzzle game.



The other finalists for Best iPhone Game were Igloo Games' Dizzy Bee, Mobigame's Edge, Subatomic Studios' Fieldrunners, and The Iconfactory's Frenzic.

The other two finalists for Audio Achievement were also iPhone games, Studio Radiolaris' Radio Flare and Mobigame's Edge.

Innovation in Mobile Game Design

Hassey Enterprises' Galcon, a $2.99 action strategy game, was awarded Innovation in Mobile Game Design.



The other finalists for Innovation in Mobile Game Design were Wardive for the Nintendo DS and Steph Thirion's Eliss for iPhone.

Technical Achievement

Firemint's not yet released Real Racing title for the iPhone beat out Football Tycoon for Java and Wardive for Nintendo DS.



Next Great Mobile Game

The only award not presented to an iPhone game was in the category for The Next Great Mobile Game, Presented by NVIDIA, which was won by Reflection for the Nintendo DS, created by Team Reflection of the University of Southern California.

Other finalists in this category were VillaVanilla's yet to be released Depict for the iPhone, FastFoot Challenge for J2ME, Rhythm of War for the Sony PSP, and Picopoke for "photo/Internet-capable Mobile Handsets."

[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]

[CU10]

Is there anything the iPhone can't do?

[Mike Eggleston]

Call up Scotty to beam you up. I think that is scheduled for iPhone 4.0 though.

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by CU10

Is there anything the iPhone can't do?

Maintain call connection consistency from state to state. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/te...y/14phone.html

[Ireland]

Zen bound is an amazing work of art and a truly inspired creation. That said, it's a waste of 4 bucks.

[GQB]

Originally Posted by Ireland

Zen bound is an amazing work of art and a truly inspired creation. That said, it's a waste of 4 bucks.

Gotta assume you left the winkie off the end of that.
No great art is a waste of time or $$, particularly that dirt cheap.

[Shogun]

Um... "sweep" means you win them all. When you find yourself writing, "the only category in which the iPhone did not win" then you need to stop right there and change the headline. That's not a sweep.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by Shogun

Um... "sweep" means you win them all. When you find yourself writing, "the only category in which the iPhone did not win" then you need to stop right there and change the headline. That's not a sweep.

While probably most commonly used, in that sense, in the way you mention, the term is not cemented to that sole definition. The trsnsitive verb 'sweep' can also mean an overwhelming victory, which the iPhone did achieve. For instance, you often hear or read about an election being swept but the reporters don't mean that the candidate received every vote.

[hill60]

Originally Posted by teckstud

Maintain call connection consistency from state to state. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/te...y/14phone.html

That article points out it's a network related issue, rather than an iPhone hardware issue.

The writer could have equally used the headline "Modern smartphones expose... etc" but I guess iPhone is more attention grabbing.

[mrochester]

Originally Posted by CU10

Is there anything the iPhone can't do?

Take decent photos would be one of them! Plus all of the other things it still can't do pre-OS3 launch.

[hill60]

Originally Posted by mrochester

Take decent photos would be one of them! Plus all of the other things it still can't do pre-OS3 launch.

By my standards the iPhone does take decent photo's although my first camera was a Kodak Brownie box, it's not what you've got it's how you use it.

As far as the other "missing" features go I and many others would have considered their importance before making a buying decision, guess what, the iPhone won over sixteen million times.

[jnjnjnjn]

Originally Posted by Shogun

Um... "sweep" means you win them all.

No, that's a "clean sweep". So he used it correctly.

[mrochester]

Originally Posted by hill60

By my standards the iPhone does take decent photo's although my first camera was a Kodak Brownie box, it's not what you've got it's how you use it.

As far as the other "missing" features go I and many others would have considered their importance before making a buying decision, guess what, the iPhone won over sixteen million times.

Your value judgement is entirely irrelevant since the iPhone still can't do those things!

[hill60]

Originally Posted by mrochester

Your value judgement is entirely irrelevant since the iPhone still can't do those things!

About as irrelevant as your post in a thread on what an awesome gaming device the iPhone has turned out to be.

If I was in the market for a new phone today that would have more impact than features I don't use or care about, thus I would hand my money over in a flash (Not the Adobe proprietry one.).

I noticed a distinct lack of N-Gage games among the finalists and winners, do you think Nokia will bring out an update on this obviously poorly implemented feature?

[teckstud]

Originally Posted by hill60

That article points out it's a network related issue, rather than an iPhone hardware issue.

The writer could have equally used the headline "Modern smartphones expose... etc" but I guess iPhone is more attention grabbing.

I know that, I can read. I just answered CU10's question- "Is there anything the iPhone can't do?" If it can't keep a connection - it can't keep a connection. I'm not puttting blame on anyone- just stating the facts Ma'am.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by teckstud

I know that, I can read. I just answered CU10's question- "Is there anything the iPhone can't do?" If it can't keep a connection - it can't keep a connection. I'm not puttting blame on anyone- just stating the facts Ma'am.

It does read like you are putting the blame solely on the iPhone when you don't qualify your response. If you had stated, "It can't keep connection, at least not on AT&T's network n NYC, but neither can any of their 3G phones", then I don't think hill60 would have made that comment.

I have not been to NYC yet with my iPhone but I have traveled most of the contiguous 48 states since owning my 3G. I dont' recall any dropped calls and have only experienced very, very slow 3G in only a few places. There have a been places between towns where I get no coverage at all when others have had a signal with Verizon or Sprint, but I've experienced the same situation reversed, with me having as signal and others without. Though I'd say that Verizon is the anecdotal winner with coverage.

[KenC]

Decent photos?!? If your iPhone does not take decent photos, perhaps it's the photographer and not the phone? The iPhone takes decent photos, it does NOT take great photos, but decent? Yes. Give it plenty of light, hold it steady, done. Decent photo.

[mrochester]

Originally Posted by KenC

Decent photos?!? If your iPhone does not take decent photos, perhaps it's the photographer and not the phone? The iPhone takes decent photos, it does NOT take great photos, but decent? Yes. Give it plenty of light, hold it steady, done. Decent photo.

Clearly our ideas of 'decent' differ! I have absolutely no interest in using a camera built into a phone, but I'm certainly not going to defend the iPhone picture quality. The few times I have tried it and transferred the results to my computer, they frankly just look quite awful. So, in that light, it's not really decent at all.

[hill60]

Originally Posted by mrochester

Clearly our ideas of 'decent' differ! I have absolutely no interest in using a camera built into a phone, but I'm certainly not going to defend the iPhone picture quality. The few times I have tried it and transferred the results to my computer, they frankly just look quite awful. So, in that light, it's not really decent at all.

Au contraire, I have found the photo's I've taken with the iPhone to be excelent and people I have shown the photo's to have been sceptical that the photo's were taken with an iPhone, until I've shown them the exif data, methinks you have a faulty camera unit, perhaps a trip to the Apple store is called for.

Have you had the misfortune of seeing what happens to photo's when they are processed and sent through the MMS mill?

I look forward to experimenting with this once MMS is enabled on the iPhone, I've tried it with a photo taken with a SonyEricsson C902 and sent via MMS to an email and a photo of the same subject taken with an iPhone and emailed to the same address needless to say the iPhone won hands down, however there were too many variables for my liking and I look forward to duplicating the experiment with the same photo.

[addabox]

Originally Posted by hill60

Au contraire, I have found the photo's I've taken with the iPhone to be excelent and people I have shown the photo's too have been sceptical that the photo's were taken with an iPhone, until I've shown them the exif data, methinks you have a faulty camera unit, perhaps a trip to the Apple store is called for.

With plenty of light, without trying to get to close to a subject, and a generally stationary scene, the camera can do fine.

Otherwise, not so much. Most of the (reasonable) criticism I've seen of the iPhone's camera focuses, at it were, on its performance under suboptimal conditions.

[hill60]

I just noticed Galcon dropped it's price to 99c for one week to celebrate their win.

I've already got the other games mentioned, Fieldrunners is a great game with hours of replay value, if you like stopping things with defensive towers.

[dfiler]

Originally Posted by Shogun

Um... "sweep" means you win them all. When you find yourself writing, "the only category in which the iPhone did not win" then you need to stop right there and change the headline. That's not a sweep.

Exactly. The headline is an indication of sensationalized journalism.

[hill60]

Originally Posted by dfiler

Exactly. The headline is an indication of sensationalized journalism.

As was pointed out before there is sweep='large majority of' and clean sweep=all.

[dfiler]

Originally Posted by hill60

As was pointed out before there is sweep='large majority of' and clean sweep=all.

That was asserted... but was false.

The generally accepted meaning of "sweep" is all. It only means majority when referring to things that are decided by never unanimous percentages, like elections. At least that is the connotation in America. I'm not sure about how the phrase is used in other English speaking nations.

[hill60]

I use English English, with a sprinkling of convict and sheep, where making a clean sweep means winning overwhelmingly.

Which seems to be the case in this instance.

In a few months I will be able to paste a link to confirm this, perhaps some emoji will make up for it:- 

Originally Posted by dfiler

That was asserted... but was false.

The generally accepted meaning of "sweep" is all. It only means majority when referring to things that are decided by never unanimous percentages, like elections. At least that is the connotation in America. I'm not sure about how the phrase is used in other English speaking nations.

[dfiler]

So it seems the usage might be acceptable in Britain but not in America.

With this in mind, it would be better to not use the colloquialism since it conveys a sensationalized portrayal of events to the majority of this web site's readers.

Admittedly this sets the journalism bar pretty high. But it is critical feedback such as this that motivates journalists to perfect their craft. Well, that and probably enraging them slightly at the same time.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by dfiler

That was asserted... but was false.

The generally accepted meaning of "sweep" is all. It only means majority when referring to things that are decided by never unanimous percentages, like elections. At least that is the connotation in America. I'm not sure about how the phrase is used in other English speaking nations.

Generally accepted doesn't apply to all definitions of all words. It, as you point out, only applies to what is generally accepted. Another term would colloquial speak. If you look in any reasonable dictionary you'll find that the definition for sweep and clean sweep clearly describe what has been discussed on this thread.

[solipsism]

Originally Posted by dfiler

So it seems the usage might be acceptable in Britain but not in America.

Nope, it's American English, too. Check any reasonable dictionary, including the New Oxford American Dictionary that ships with with every copy of Mac OS X.

[dfiler]

After checking a few dictionaries and googling the term... I'll stick to the assertion that it was a poorly worded headline.

A good percentage of the people reading that headline will interpret it as the iPhone having won ALL of the awards.