SOWN2024 was held with spectators for the first time in five years at Makuhari Messe International Conference Center from 17:15 on Friday, September 27th
Gateway to Success for Indie Game Developers SENSE OF WONDER NIGHT 2024 Winners Announced!
Grand Prix is "Esophaguys"
Esophaguys Teams (United States of America)
Grand prix : USD 3,000
Audience Award Grand Prix Esophaguys [Esophaguys Team]
Other awards : USD 500
Audience Award Semi-Grand Prix Hyper Wobbler [Wobbly Labs]
Best Technological Game Award Hyper Wobbler [Wobbly Labs]
Best Arts Award Hyper Wobbler [Wobbly Labs]
Best Experimental Game Award Hyper Wobbler [Wobbly Labs]
Best Game Design Award No Case Should Remain Unsolved [Somi]
Esophaguys is a silly party platformer where you play as old folks with elongating necks. Stretch, bite, and swing together to find your lost kin, compete in minigames for long-necked glory, and embark solo on a journey of both past and future!
Judges' Comments
I would like to see how interesting it would be to play with the movement + neck extension operation.
Esophaguys is being created by a team of up-and-coming game developers who met at college. We seek to bring unique aesthetics and wonky gameplay together to create experiences filled with laughter.
“HoooPizza”: Spin Your Way to Pizza Greatness!
Put down the ordinary game controller and pick up a hula hoop! In this interactive video game, you won’t be pressing buttons; instead, you’ll be spinning the hula hoop like a pizza-making maestro. Your mission? Craft the most colossal pizza the gaming world has ever seen.
Judges' Comments
I am curious about the unique form of operation, in which the hula hoop serves as the controller, and the comfort of playing!
I created this interactive game with the goal of providing an enjoyable experience for everyone, regardless of age, gender, or physical attributes. It would make me happy if you could have fun!
The objective of the game is to beat the enemies coming from the left and right by banging the keyboard.
The more keys you press, the more powerful the attack becomes.
This unprecedented control allows the player to experience the keyboard as if it were a physical game.
The game also combines elements that allow the player to change and strengthen the player character and play over and over again.
Judges' Comments
I was attracted to the keyboard-banging game experience and the detailed animations! The durability of the device, including the keyboard bang-mouse gluggle, is also something I would like to try.
I will be playing games and handing out cards at the booth, so please come and visit us.
No Case Should Remain Unsolved is a detective game where players uncover and piece together memory fragments to solve a long-forgotten case. Follow former police detective Jeon Gyeong as she acquires clues and testimony relating to the case of a missing girl.
Judges' Comments
An adventure game in which the player solves a difficult case by relying on information from SNS. This is a much-talked-about game with an excellent storyline.
It's a narrative that can only be told through games, not through novels, movies, or other media. I hope my game proves that 'games can be comforting'.
Manage a game studio making the world’s greatest MMORPG. Hire designers, coders, and testers, create a fantasy world, then welcome hundreds of virtual players. If they get bored they will cancel their subscription and your investors will have your head. You can even play the game you create.
Judges' Comments
The game is aimed at creators who design RPGs by considering the layout of dungeons and entire towns.
The MMORPG Simulator! Design, build and play the RPG of your dreams! Run a game studio your way and see how things develop in this multi-layered management sim.
CINEMA is a first-person adventure inspired by the aesthetic of old silent films and noir thrillers. Players dive into a richly atmospheric world where they control time, moving back and forth at will. By manipulating time, they explore different scenarios, uncover secrets, and create new timelines with unique outcomes and twists.
Judges' Comments
Experimental and artistic game.
CINEMA is a first-person adventure inspired by the aesthetic of old silent films and noir thriller movies, where players wield control over time going back an forward and create new timelines.
Hyper Wobbler is an interactive multiplayer art installation, where 3 participants use bespoke metal spring joysticks to control multi-dimensional beings on a dodecahedron with LEDs and two-way mirror faces. The task of the players is to make sense of this universe and navigate it to reach their goals.
Judges' Comments
It is a development of Line Wobbler with novelty and beauty that goes beyond just adding dimensions.
I love building strange and playful interactive installations that cannot be replicated in a purely digital format, but spark joy using weird analog controls, sensors, and lights.
"Sense of Wonder Night (SOWN)" is an event that aims to discover game ideas that will trigger a "Sense of Wonder" (a feeling of something changing in one's world the moment one sees or hears the concept). This year will be the 17th time for the event. The eight finalists who can present will be selected from the free exhibition project "Selected Indie 80" through a final screening process.
To introduce game with a game design and ideas that are experimental and creative, and that cannot be called conventional or traditional
To raise awareness of the great value of "Sense of Wonder" in games, which may transform the common sense of game, and lead to invigorate the game industry
To provide future opportunities for those who are developing experimental and creative games.
To create new domains in the game industry
Five criteria that match SOWN
1A game that realizes a totally new, never-seen-before gaming experience
A game that employs technologies that have not previously been used successfully, such as natural language processing, physics engines, image recognition or gesture control, to present a new kind of experience.
2A game that challenges the common sense of games
A game that pursues new ways of gaming expressions and changes the player's vision of the world after playing and experiencing it.
3A game with emergent features
A game that brings user's activities into the game world by embedding features such as AI interactions and social elements.
4A game that makes people want to play it immediately
A game that makes everyone thinks that they want to enjoy the new experience for themselves and feel that they want to treasure it.
5An amazing game
Any kind of new, eye-grabbing and impressive game!!
Acknowledgement
The "SENSE OF WONDER NIGHT" event has received a lot of inspiration from the "Experimental Gameplay Workshop" that was started at the Game Developers Conference in 2001. We would like to express our thanks to the many people who helped to make these workshops a success and to all our friends.
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Judges' Comments
I would like to see how interesting it would be to play with the movement + neck extension operation.