IGF

... there are waaaaaaaay too many IGF entries, that's why I didn't. (Also, they don't like girly things, or text-based things, or VN-things.)

Just poking through the first third of the entries list, some titles that jump out at me as somewhat interesting...

Ancient Astronut - A stealth game about being an alien. I am amused by the concept.

Beat Buddy - Nice screenshot, but apparently written by people who are either liars or willfully blind. I despise marketing bullshit, especially really obviously false marketing bullshit. "First" music action game? For goodness sake, there are like ten or more in the IGF every single year! (Of course, they're German, and maybe they're doing something different than usual and are just incapable of explaining what they meant. Still, bad first impression.)

Dark Scavenger - This still looks very rough around the edges, but it appears to be trying to create a gamebook feeling in a CRPG... that is, lots and lots of CHOICES and FLAVOR TEXT instead of just clicking your sword icon on the bad guy... at least until halfway through the video where it gives up and goes back into a rather dull-looking combat sequence. Needs a lot of work to be really smooth and fun but there's a nice concept here.

Don't Run With A Plasma Sword - It's one of those endless-rush platformers, but this one has aliens and tentacles, and I'm easy that way.

Drip Drip - I like the sound of this. It's something a little bit Different but still a straightforward concept, casually accessible, about trying to catch and stop drips in big leaky houses. Only a screenshot and an idea are publicly available but I can see this being fun someday.

Eyez - This will likely pick up some attention, as it's a platformer with a weird new mechanic, exactly the sort of thing some people think indie games are all about. The twist in this one is that while you move around a huge level, you can at any point change the way the edges of the screen behave. You can make them solid, so that you can walljump off the sides of your current screen, or form an invisible floor inside a hole. You can also turn them into wraparound mode, so that walking off one side of whatever current screen you framed yourself in will send you walking in from the opposite side. This means you can easily get into areas that are totally sealed off by blocks, by lining the screen up right so that the sealed area leaves an opening against an edge that you can exploit.

Gamestar Mechanic - Apparently, this is only partly a game; it's also a simple drag-and-drop game maker plus online "community" for sharing your levels, intended as an educational tool. So, it's like GameMaker if the tutorial were a GAME instead of a document to read and work your way through. I find myself slightly disappointed by this, though... for something actively aiming at a wide range of kids and showing diverse players in their video footage, it would have been kinda nice if you weren't stuck with Default White Guy Protagonist for your learning game. Yes, it would take a lot more art to be able to choose a protagonist, I KNOW THAT. But if you're wanting to give this to lots of kids to spark their joy of game-making, this is not the time to reinforce the message of 'game making is for non-minority men' which is already too widespread.