Google and Ideas United announce Infinite Deviation: Games winners

Posted by Kate Brennan and Mathilde Cohen Solal, Google Play and Daraiha Greene, CS in Media

Google Play is committed to empowering new and existing voices in gaming. Earlier this year, we hosted the Indie Games Festival and sponsored the Girls Make Games href="https://plus.google.com/u/0/+GoogleDevelopers/posts/fH3NMC6gSRT">summer camp. We also href="https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/09/google-and-ideas-united-launch-program.html">announced a collaboration between Infinite Deviation and Google Play.

Infinite Deviation is an initiative created by Google Computer Science (CS) in Media and href="http://ideasunited.com/">Ideas United in order to tackle issues of representation in computer science. The collaboration between Google Play and Ideas United brought the Infinite Deviation program to gaming, called Infinite Deviation: Games. The program invited game designers from all backgrounds to pitch an original mobile game concept that resonates with underrepresented audiences.

Today we are excited to announce the three teams selected for the Infinite Deviation: Games development program.

A select panel of industry experts reviewed applications and chose the top three ideas. The judging panel included Colleen Macklin (Founder and Co-Director, PETLab), Jeremy Vanhoozer (Senior Creative Director, Plants vs Zombies), Molly Proffitt (CEO, Ker-Chunk Games), Shirin Laor-Raz Salemnia (Founder and CEO, PlayWerks), and Sarah Thomson (Global BD Lead, Indies, Google). These judges scored and delivered personal feedback for each submission, with the three highest scoring games moving into further development.

Here's a closer look at the three games we'll be funding and supporting development over the next six months:

Historic Gay Bar Tycoon

Mo Cohen & Maria Del Castillo Infantas - Queermo Games

Historic Gay Bar Tycoon (name pending) starts you off with a brand new queer bar in the 1920s. This game explores the role bars played in LGBT history. Will your bar survive revolutions, epidemics, and the rise of dating apps?

Queermo Games is pretty much what it sounds like: a scrappy and small indie game developing team just trying to make more LGBT games. Conveniently, they are also next door neighbors. Maria is a queer Latina who handles the art and the music, and Mo is a non-binary Jewish queer who tackles the programming and writing. Together, they also work on another longer-term project called Queer Quest with their buddy Hagen.

Burn Ban

Harrison Barton & Morgan Rowe - Pride Interactive

Burn Ban is an interactive visual novel in which you assume the role of Twig, a mentally ill queer girl. After showing destructive tendencies to cope with the death of a close friend, she is sent to Camp Sisquoc, a summer retreat for misguided students. After attending the camp for a few days, her dead friend's online social media page mysteriously starts posting again, and Twig and friends are set with determining the mystery behind the posts.

Pride Interactive is currently made up of two developers, Harrison Barton and Morgan Rowe. Pride Interactive was started as a student game team, and is now continuing on to develop independent projects. Pride Interactive endeavors to further their mission of creating a more diverse environment in the industry through games that deal with serious themes, and diverse character driven narratives.

Ghost in the Graveyard

Adnan Agha, Vivian Allum, and Armand Silvani - Ghost Stories

Ghost in the Graveyard is a story-driven mobile mystery game where you snoop through your missing brother's old phone to try and find him. "Can you find a missing person when all you have is their phone?"

Ghost Stories is a three member team from NYC with a mission to create genuine and unique experiences that connect with players. The team consists of Vivian, the lead designer and programmer, Armand, the artist and writer, and Adnan, the programmer and resident ghost. They've previously published a school project to the Xbox One and are thrilled to be able to work with Infinite Deviation to publish to Google Play.

You can find more information about the program at InfiniteDeviation.com/Games. Congratulations to the three winners and thanks to all the people who have entered the competition for their continuous work to push the boundaries of gaming design and providing a unique voice to the industry.

Komentar

Posting Komentar

Postingan populer dari blog ini

Google Play Referrer API: Track and measure your app installs easily and securely

Gambar
it is crucial to helping you make the right product and marketing decisions. This is especially important when you're deciding your advertising strategy and budget. "> Posted by Neto Marin, Developer Advocate Understanding how people find your app and what they do once they've installed it is crucial to helping you make the right product and marketing decisions. This is especially important when you're deciding your advertising strategy and budget. Today many app measurement companies and ad networks offer ad attribution solutions based on referral data. As such accurate install referral data is vital for correctly attributing app installs, as well as discounting fraudulent attempts for install credit. To help you obtain more accurate and reliable data about your installs, we're introducing the Google Play Install Referrer API , a reliable way to securely retrieve install referral content. Using this API, your app will get precise information straight from the P...
Baca selengkapnya

Boosting developer success on Google Play

Gambar
Posted by Sameer Samat, VP, Product Management Helping developers build sustainable businesses is a core part of Google Play’s mission. We work with partners every day to understand the challenges they face and help them bring their innovative ideas to life. Getting a new app off the ground and into orbit is not easy! To aid their quest for growth we provide a broad range of support, from powerful marketing tools and actionable data in the Play Console , education via Play Academy , "> best practices and thought leadership resources, programs such as the Indie Games Festival , Indie Corner , and accelerator programs around the world. We’re always looking for new ways to give them an added boost. Starting on July 1, 2021 we are reducing the service fee Google Play receives when a developer sells digital goods or services to 15% for the first $1M (USD) of revenue every developer earns each year. With this change, 99% of developers globally that sell digital goods and servic...
Baca selengkapnya

And the 2019 Google Play Award nominees are...

Gambar
Posted by Purnima Kochikar, Director, Apps and Games Business Development, Google Play Drum roll please! To kick off Google I/O this year, the 2019 Google Play Awards will take place on Monday, May 6th. We’re excited to highlight nine categories this year, some familiar and some new, to recognize developers that continue to set the bar for quality apps and games on Google Play. Building on previous years, we celebrate our fourth year by recognizing some of the best experiences available on Android, with an emphasis on overall quality, strong design, technical performance, and innovation. The nominees were selected by various teams across Google, and meet criteria thresholds covering high star rating, Android vitals, and have had a launch or major update since April 2018. Congratulations to this year’s nominees below and remember to check them out on Google Play at play.google.com/gpa2019 . Stay tuned as we announce the winners of each category at Google I/O. Standout Well-Being App App...
Baca selengkapnya