Duality ZF submitted to Independent Games Festival 2010.  (Full size.)
(Notice enemy bullets drawn on top of the HUD; never hidden.)

We have officially entered Duality ZF into the 2010 Independent Games Festival.  Wish us luck, but we are not expecting to place in this competition.  IGF has had some amazing entries.  Past winners include Machinarium, Osmos, Crayon Physics Deluxe, World of Goo, Castle Crashers, Everyday Shooter, Braid, Darwinia, Gish, and Alien Homind!  These are amazing indie games!

2009-Nov-4 UPDATE (NEW):

There are 306 entries posted on IGF.  Here's Duality ZF.

Indie Spirit:

One of the stand out features of IGF is their dedication to what they call the "indie spirit".  Indie game contests have had issues dealing with non-indie nature of some entries.  This remains me of a few Dream Build Play threads (1,2) where many were displeased with Carneyvale Showtime's 2008 win, due to government and MIT support.  I also questioned the nature of the entry.  Whose "dream" was coming true?  Did they deserve the $40,000 top prize?  That said, if the entry was permitted, and it was, it deserved to win.  It was clearly the most polished game in the 2008 contest and was beyond XBLA quality.  Probably all Xbox LIVE Indie Games are helped by having such a high quality example to showcase.  It represents the XBLIG platform very well.  And, at the time of its release, it did more of a service to the platform than well over 95% of the releases that were sub-par and hurting more than helping.

Anyway, IGF does their best to avoid controversies on the "indie spirit".  Upon entry, I had to check off the following question:

A final question - do you think that your game correctly conveys "the indie spirit"? There are any number of titles which might be technically eligible for the competition, but that are completed with access to corporate financing or with a massive, privately donated budget, and these have occasionally entered in the IGF in the past. Please think carefully about whether you are, by any definition of the word, 'indie' - you probably are, but it never hurts to ask. Tick the box below if you are, and thanks again for submitting!

[ ] I have read and accept these terms and condition

Also See:

• Duality ZF (official developer site)
• CBC News (TV, radio, website)
• Duality ZF Dream Build Play 2009 Top 20 Finalist (2nd in Canada, 7th in the world)
• Interviews (Xona Games, Duality ZF)
• Duality ZF Promo Materials

External Links:

• Duality ZF (official game site)
• Duality ZF Forums (hosted on xbox.com)
• Xona Games (YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Vimeo)
• Dream Build Play (Microsoft's XNA Game Studio Contest)
• Xbox LIVE Indie Games* (xbox.com, Xbox Forums)
• Imphenzia Music (creator of the Duality ZF soundtrack)
• Independent Games Festival

*Xbox LIVE Indie Games formerly known as Xbox LIVE Community Games.

About the Author:  I am Matthew Doucette of Xona Games, an award-winning, team-of-two indie studio concentrating on "intense retro" games (Xbox LIVE, PSN, WiiWare, and Windows PC). We've released Decimation X (XBLIG), a 1-4 player shmup, #1 best selling and #1 top rated XBLIG in Japan. We're working on Duality ZF (XBLA), a groundbreaking 1-4 player shmup, which placed #1 in Canada and #5 in the world in Microsoft's Dream Build Play 2010 contest. It features dual play, the ability to control two fighters at once, and a massively upgradable 32-stage spread/laser weapon system. 4 player dual play allows up to eight fighters at once.  Many of these features are never before seen shoot'em up firsts. Both games feature beautiful electronic Imphenzia soundtracks.  Help spread the word with our official dualityzf.com and decimationx.com websites.

P.S. Watch out for Score Rush (official website scorerush.com), another 1-4 player shmup. Coming soon to XBLIG.

*Shmup also known as: shoot'em up, 2D shooter, scrolling shooter, space shooter, spaceship shooter, retro shooter, etc.