IMIRT 2016 Game Awards Results

IMIRT: The Irish Game Makers Association is pleased to announce the award winners for its inaugural game awards for games released in 2016. Game of the Year went to Guild of Dungeoneering: Ice Cream Headache Expansion by Dublin-based Gambrinous. Awards were also given for board games, game design, game narrative, game art, game audio and technical achievement.

Brenda Romero, chairperson of IMIRT, was excited to see the results of this year’s competition. “We had a wide variety of entrants from across the sector, including solo independent developers, students and professional development teams,” said Romero. “ It was genuinely a pleasure to see the variety and quality of games being created in Ireland.”

Judges were composed of a national and international team. Scores were submitted blind and tabulated by Imirt’s chairperson and board member Jen Carey.

Being notified of the awards, game developer Robin David said, "Thank you, Imirt, for showcasing how exciting Irish digital and analogue game design is at the moment! I feel honoured that my games are being played and enjoyed by so many people. I'm delighted to be in such sterling company, among several other excellent Imirt 2016 Game Award winners.”  Robin David won the Analog category and their game was second runner-up in the Game of the Year Category.

Imirt board member Jen Carey was similarly enthused. "It's great to see all the amazing games submitted for the awards, and to have the chance to recognize the work being done in Ireland by so many talented creators. The standard of submissions was extremely high and reflects the work put in by the Irish community to make the best games possible.”

Analog

Winner: Movable Type: The Card Game by Robin David
Runner up: Multiuniversum by Manuel Correia

Game Design

Winner: Guild of Dungeoneering: Ice Cream Headaches Expansion by Gambrinous
Runner Up: The Little Acre by Pewter Games Studios

Game Narrative

Winner: The Little Acre by Pewter Game Studios
Runner Up: The Martian Investigations: Deep Fears by Robin David

Game Art

Winner: Guild of Dungeoneering: Ice Cream Headaches Expansion by Gambrinous
Runner Up: The Little Acre by Pewter Games Studios

Game Audio

Winner: Guild of Dungeoneering: Ice Cream Headaches Expansion by Gambrinous
Runner Up: Cellular by Tribal City Interactive

Technical Achievement

Winner: Fungus 3.0 by Snozbot
Runner Up: Action Bowling VR

Game of the Year

Winner: Guild of Dungeoneering: Ice Cream Headaches Expansion by Gambrinous
Runner Up: The Little Acre by Pewter Games Studios

Second Runner Up (Tie): Movable Type: The Card Game by Robin David and The Martian Investigations: Deep Fears by Robin David

Seminar on European Funding for Video Games

The MEDIA Office of Creative Europe Desk Ireland and IMIRT (Irish Game Makers Association) will hold a seminar on European Funding for Video Games with speaker, Jari-Pekka Kaleva, COO of European Games Developer Federation and Senior Policy Analyst at Neogames, Finland.

There will also be a presentation on the Creative Europe Video Game Development Funding Scheme. The seminar will take place in Drury Buildings, Drury Street, Dublin 2 on Wednesday 18 January from 10am – 1pm.

Imirt Inspire Interview 14: Sushama Chakraverty

Sushama has been with Ubisoft since late 2008 in Montreal and then in Toronto since 2010. While with Ubisoft, she has worked on games in the Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell series. She is currently Team Lead Programmer working in stealth mode on an unannounced project. She started her career in game development in 2002, as an intern at Infogrames (formerly Microprose). Prior to Ubisoft, she has worked on titles such as Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes and Playboy: The Mansion, which she still counts as one of the most fun and rewarding (yes, really!) projects of her career.

Imirt Inspire Interview 13: Tanya X. Short

Tanya X. Short is the Director and designer of Kitfox Games, a 7-person studio in Montreal, Canada, responsible for Moon Hunters (2016) and Shattered Planet (2014). Previously she served as an AI Designer and Dynamic System Designer at Funcom on Age of Conan and The Secret World. In her spare time, she co-directs Pixelles, a women-in-games non-profit, and writes short fiction.

Imirt Inspire Interview 11: Jesse Schell

Jesse Schell is the CEO of Schell Games, a team of one hundred people who strive to make the world’s greatest educational and transformational games, including Yale Medical's PlayForward: Elm City Stories, Water Bears VR, Superchem VR, the Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood games, and Happy Atoms. Schell Games also creates pure entertainment content, such as the award-winning VR game, I Expect You To Die, and the comedy space game Orion Trail. Jesse also serves as Distinguished Professor of the Practice of Entertainment Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.

Imirt Inspire with Brian Upton - Jan 27th 2017 at DIT

Imirt: The Irish Game Makers Association is pleased to announce its first invited Imirt Inspire speaker, Brian Upton of Game on the Rails (gameontherails.com). Upton, an award-winning freelance game designer based in Los Angeles, advises clients worldwide on pitching, prototyping, design, narrative, and production and has worked on such titles as Ghost Recon, Everybody Has Gone to the Rapture, Bound and Here They Lie.

The talk will be held at the School of Media, DIT Aungier St on January 21, 2017 at 3pm.

Creative Stories seminar - Galway, Fri 4th Nov

Imirt and The Centre for Creative Arts Media are proud to present the first afternoon seminar in the ‘Creative Stories’ series on Friday 4th Nov at GMIT, Galway.

The Creative Stories series provide the opportunity to share valuable lessons and insights from leading experts from the creative world. It features successful practitioners from a variety of creative sectors telling their stories, which could be about themselves, their career/business highs and lows, a specific creative project, or their take on topics of importance to their creative practice, enterprise or sector.

This event is focused on stories from creative practitioners in Games and Animation and is co-organised by Imirt (The Irish Game Makers Association), GMIT (Centre for Creative Arts & Media, Galway & Mayo Institute of Technology) and Design Galway 2016 (organised by Design Network West).

The speakers include Moe Honan (Moetion Films), Alan Duggan (Tribal City Interactive), Colm Larkin (Gambrinous), Chris Gregan (Snozbot, Fungus) and Brenda Romero (Romero Games, University of Limerick).

DATE AND TIME
Fri 4 November 2016 from 14:00 – 17:00 GMT

LOCATION
Centre for Creative Arts & Media
GMIT, Cluain Mhuire Campus, Galway

The Imirt AGM and Galway Game Dev meetup are on nearby later the same day.

If you would like to attend this seminar, please register for a free ticket on the event page.

Imirt AGM 2016

Please join us for the Imirt AGM 2016, 6pm Fri 4th at Startlab Galway. Find out about Imirt and our plans for the coming year, meet the recently elected board and have your say about how Imirt can help represent game creators in Ireland. Let us know on the Facebook event page if you're planning to come along.

Both members and non-members are welcome to attend and we will also live stream the event on the Imirt twitch channel.

The Imirt AGM is on after the "Creative Stories - From Practitioners in Games and Animation" session in GMIT from 2-5pm and there will be a Galway Game Dev meetup later on nearby. If you have any questions you would like us to address at the AGM please email: contact@imirt.ie

Imirt Board Election 2016 results

Here are the results of the recent Imirt board election. Jen Carey and Alan Duggan will be joining the board, and Stephen Kelly has been reelected. The 7 members of the Imirt board are now:

Jen Carey, Alan Duggan, Chris Gregan, John O' Kane, Stephen Kelly, Colm Larkin, Brenda Romero

We would like to once again thank departing board members Owen Harris and John Halloran for their huge contributions to Imirt over the last couple years.

Thanks also to Elaine Reynolds and Ian Dunbar who helped with the election process. Many thanks to everyone who voted in the election and a special thank you to everyone who put their names forward.

Imirt Board Election 2016

Nominations are closed and voting for Imirt's new board will take place from Friday 23rd to midnight on Friday 30th September 2016. Details of how to vote will be sent to members by e-mail on Friday 23rd. You can get details about this years fantastic nominees here: http://www.imirt.ie/election-2016

Important note: As a present to everyone who's helped us along so far, all existing members will have their membership extended until the end of 2017! \o/ So there's no need to sign up again! :D New memberships also last until the end of 2017.

3 out of the 7 board seats are being contested in this election. These spots have been made available by board members Owen Harris, John Halloran, and Stephen Kelly. Owen and John shall both be stepping down after excellent work advising Imirt since before the Steering Committee was formed. Owen has coordinated initiatives like the ID2015 fund for GDC 2016, has run Imirt panels at multiple events, has highlighted Irish work with the press and he has been instrumental in engaging community nationally and internationally. John has organised funding from EI, managed Imirt events including the Unity event, talked with press, and handled our bank and accountancy interactions. Stephen unfortunately drew the unlucky short straw (sorry Stephen!) and he is also involved in this years nominations.

If you have any questions please email contact@imirt.ie and thank you for supporting Irish game developers!

Dr Aphra Kerr - DiGRA Distinguished Scholar

Congratulation to Dr Aphra Kerr on being selected for the inaugural class of DiGRA Distinguished Scholars! Dr Kerr has and continues to be instrumental in leading the Irish Games community and getting it to where it is today. Well done Aphra!

 

Digital Games Research Association

DiGRA is the association for academics and professionals who research digital games and associated phenomena. It encourages high-quality research on games, and promotes collaboration and dissemination of work by its members.
http://www.digra.org/the-association/about-us/

2016 Imirt Board Elections

Update: The deadline for nominations is Wed 31st Aug 2016

The 2016 Board elections for Imirt will happen in late September. There will be three seats available for nominees (next year the remaining four board spots will be available). One is being vacated by Owen Harris after a lot of excellent work setting up Imirt and helping to run it ever since. After a draw of straws the two remaining seats will made available by John Halloran and Stephen Kelly who will both join in this years nominations.

To become a nominee you simply need to be a member of Imirt and e-mail contact@imirt.ie expressing an interest (i.e. you self nominate). We will then ask for a bio and optional photo to put on the Imirt website in the run up to the elections. Also if you have any other questions or suggestions please get in touch!

Imirt Game Developer Survey 2016

Well, it's been a busy first year for Imirt!

In this years survey we'd love to get your feedback on the work that's been done so far and find out what you think Imirt should focus on in the future.

The survey is open to anyone involved in the games industry in Ireland, you do not need to be an Imirt member to participate. The survey will finish on 19th Aug 2016 and we will share the results on the Imirt website.

The survey form is available here, thank you for your support!

 

Imirt Inspire 9: Ryan Morrison

Ryan Morrison has made a name for himself within the legal industry as someone focused on making sure the law protects everyone, not just the financially superior. Whether it be matters of intellectual property, complex contract issues or just making sure you are comfortable as you take your company forward into the future, Ryan has handled it all. Deemed “The Video Game Attorney” by the countless developers he has helped through his free online legal Q&A’s, Ryan understands that this new and innovative industry requires a new and innovative approach to law. 

Imirt Inspire 8: Drew McGee

Drew McGee is a freelance writer currently working in video games. He is the lead writer for Stoic’s recently-released Banner Saga 2 and was the quest writer on the BAFTA-nominated original Banner Saga. He worked at Bioware on Star Wars: The Old Republic and wrote for small published indie games before that (Domain of Heroes, and Bumble Tales). When he’s not writing, he’s traveling and strumming a ukulele.

Imirt General Meeting + The Galway Game Expo

We're co-hosting the next Imirt General Meeting with The Galway Games Expo on Sat 7th May 2016. You can find more info about the Galway Games expo on their Facebook page. The expo runs from 2pm to 6pm, with the Imirt GM following straight afterwards.

The GM is open to members and non-members, all welcome. Hear from the Imirt board about what’s coming up, ask us questions, and give us your feedback! Special guest speaker on the night will be George Thomson from EA Galway. 

If you have any questions or suggestions you would like the board to address at the GM please send an email to contact@imirt.ie.