Saturday 29th of May, the Icelandic Gaming Industry (IGI) and Reykjavik University (RU) hosted a half day conference and awards ceremony. The purpose was to introduce a cooperation agreement between IGI and the university. The awards ceremony was the first annual IGI Awards.
With the agreement, IGI and RU team up to bring together the industry and the academia. The university has built up world-class research labs in computer science. One example is CADIA, the center for analysis and design of intelligent agents. This research is very applicable for games.
IGI Awards was established last fall and several workshops took place over the winter months to assist potential game developers. Elven entries were submitted to the competition with some 30 people participating. The winner was a game called Path to Ares. This is a single player game and a tactical role playing adventure with a twist of horror and mystery as you battle against hopeless odds, in a world that grows increasingly more dark and eerie with each step.
Another game was given special extra awards, Fly on the Wall. In this game, the player – as a fly – must try to survive in an environment with a man that does not like flies. So the fly must try to bring viruses to the man to kill him before he kills the fly.
Finally, the awards committee gave special inspiration awards to three games. Preschool for developing games for small children, Music Missile, an iPhone game where music and games are used in an innovative ways, and The Adventure of the Blue Pigeon simply for a fun game with good humor.
Videos from the event (in Icelandic) are here: IGI Awards