The Independent Game Festival Awards and the Game Developers Choice Awards were doled out on Wednesday night in front of three banquet rooms full of GDC attendees (a terrifying prospect for me as one of the presenters), with the bounty of the latter distributed amongst the teams of Half Life 2 and Katamari Damacy, and the former for the Behemoth's Alien Hominid, Chronic Logic's popular Gish and Reflexive Entertainment's Wik and the Fable of Souls. As gongs voted for by game development peers and GDC attendees, it was a rocking night for the winners, with one marriage proposal thrown into the mix and a few Scottish bruised egos making an early exit empty handed.
The marriage proposal came from one of the indie game developers at Chronic Logic, who'd just won $15,000 for their top-voted game Gish. The bruised egos belonged to snubbed Rockstar North, who were denied all titles, from Best Writing (to Half Life 2) to Best Game (to Half Life 2) to Best Technology (to Half Life 2) . While I can't deny them being irked (and was exceedingly surprised at their lack of recognition for such a tremendous title), it was a bit churlish to get up and storm out of the auditorium.
Handbags at dawn.
