Category Archives: News

Last year CEO and creator of ByteJacker, Anthony Carboni, hosted the Independent Games Festival. As you know Fire Hose Games is excited to be part of the record breaking number of entries in the 2011 IGF.

Anthony was able to give us a bit of his time and tell us about his experience as a host and as a gamer at last year’s festival.

You were able to host the 2011 IGF awards, what was that experience like?
Awesome. Amazing. Unbelievably great. It was so wonderful to not just meet the people whose games I’d been talking about for years, but also to have some small part in recognizing and celebrating their work.

Why do you think the IGF awards are important to indie game developers?
Well, in a practical sense, there are a cash awards and obviously a lot more visibility. There are fewer marketing opportunities and a lot less money available for indies to get their name out there – something like the IGF awards can really help with that. On another level, one that I think is just as important, after a hugely grueling project, it’s nice to get the recognition and respect of your peers. Plus you can totally meet Tim Schafer there.

What do gamers get out of the IGF awards?
It’s hard to get into indie games – that’s why I started Bytejacker.[Bytejacker is a review show that only reviews games that are available for download only. It often features Indie titles] Having the IGF awards is a highly visible and accessible way for gamers to see what’s out there and get that sort of gateway into what is essentially another entire gaming industry, with just as many choices as the mainstream one they’re used to.

How is the IGF unique from the GDC?
Indies give you less swag but more high fives when they see you.

What are you looking forward to for this year’s IGF awards?
The whole experience was a whirlwind for me last year – it was my first GDC, my first IGF, I had a show to shoot while I was there and a whole other one to host. This year I’m just looking to go and take it slower and have some more fun.

What do you think about Go Home Dinosaurs?
Looks good! Tower Defense can be a crowded place to make your mark, but if I learned anything from Slam Bolt Scrappers, it’s that you guys can weave genres together in some very unexpected ways.

You can read more from Anthony on his site.

Is that a photo of an engine? Nope. Jacques Pena.

Fire Hose artist Jacques Pena has recently been awarded third prize in the Autodesk 3DS Max Design Hero Contest. 

Yes, this does mean that Jacques is officially a hero. A design hero.

The contest asked designers and artists to:

portray inventive concepts or renderings of architectural design, mechanical, or industrial/product designs—from buildings, bridges and vehicles, to furniture and consumer products.

Jacque’s entry, entitled O.E.M., uses automotive design as its base; but there is more to it than that.

“I went to work with automotive because it opened me up to creating something more…” explained Jacques, “something crazy and abstract. I wanted something overzealous, something that you would never see in the real world.”

And it was also to incorporate robots.

“A good majority of the stuff that I do is mechanical and [with this contest] I was able to show off my love for robots.”

For Jacques one of the main challenges was in the preparation; how to best combine the science fiction and wonder or robotics with the cold yet powerful aesthetic of automotive design.

Over one hundred entries were judged on imagination, innovation, and ingenuity. Jacque’s entry is a clear stand out evoking thoughts of both familiarity and the uncanny. It gracefully combines the known imagery of an engine while also being outlandish in design.

Congrats to Jacques for a well deserved win!

Is not a man entitled to his Chance and Community Chest cards?

As reported earlier this week, the BioShock Monopoly board that is floating around the internet was created by someone right here at Fire Hose.

In celebration of its new-found popularity we are happy to announce that the Community Chest and Chance cards missing from the game set linked to by the Kotaku article are now available on the Fire Hose Games Flickr Photo Stream! The Photo Stream includes a larger game board for easier printing, all money and deeds, plus the brand spankin’ new game cards!

Also, we now have a Flickr page!

Let us know if you like the game by commenting here, on our Facebook page, or shooting us a tweet!

The Independent Games Festival is the longest running and largest independent games festival in the world; and Fire Hose Games just helped to break an IGF record.

The 14th Annual IGF is boasting a record breaking 568 entries into this year’s main Indie Game competition, and of course you know that Go Home Dinosaurs is one of them.

The IGF is like The Sundance Film Festival, but for games. It is held in conjunction with the Games Developers Conference where an Independent Games Festival pavilion is set up to show off the competition finalists.

What does the IGF mean for Fire Hose? It gives us and other indie game developers a chance to give our games a nice spotlight. It also allows us a chance to look at what some other indie studios are up to.

Speaking of other indie studios (slick transition right?) Outer Space Studios caught our tweet about IGF the other day and blogged about it on The News from Outer Space . ^_^

(You are following @firehosegames aren’t you?)

You can check our IGF entry out about half way down the page here!

We just got back from PAX, and the show was AWESOME! We had an absolutely amazing time, and I’ll follow up soon with pictures and stories from the show. But first let’s talk GO HOME DINOSAURS! Or better yet, let’s start off with with a video shot by Stephen Totilo, the rock star reporter over at Kotaku that gives voice to all the small indies with awesome games. Take a look and you can see the game in action!

As you can see we’ve been busy – we’ve already got a few levels and the art style locked down, along with most of the core functionality. It’s been a crazy few months! We’re still going hard, and we’ll be adding in tons more content and features over the months to come. So if you live near Boston now is the time to start bugging us about coming in to try it out!

It was incredible seeing so many people playing and enjoying our game. Especially considering how nervous we were about putting it out at the show too early! We had tons of kids mesmerized by dinosaurs, hardcore gamers who were determined to protect their BBQ, and couples who wound up playing together. SO COOL. I can’t wait to post pictures.

And let’s not forget the press! Here’s what other people are saying about the game:

• Kotaku – Tetris Plus Tower Defense, But Better This Time
• Destructoid – Hands On: Go Home Dinosaurs!
• Joystiq – Go Home Dinosaurs Preview – Steak ‘N’ Shake