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Gateways is a 2D platform game set in the lab of an inventor called Ed following an outbreak of a number of his more "creative" experiments. Can you help him escape the lab?

Alongside the traditional platform elements such as jumping on enemies heads, spikes and moving platforms are the gateway guns. The gateway guns allow you to place two gateways on the walls, floors and ceilings of the lab so that when you pass through one you emerge out of the other. As progress is made through the game different types of gateway gun are introduced with different effects. After the basic gun, you acquire a gun that creates two gateways of different sizes, passing through one way shrinks Ed to half his size and the other way makes Ed grow to twice his size. Then you find a gun where one gateway doesn't just connect to the others location but also its time, allowing Ed to travel back in time and encounter earlier versions of himself. Finally, the last gun manipulates gravity so passing through allows Ed to walk along walls and on ceilings.

Gateways takes place on a single sprawling map rammed with puzzles and challenges. As power ups are acquired more and more of the map opens up containing more power ups and secrets. In addition to the gateway guns Ed will also find a torch letting him light up the darker areas of the map and a mirror which can be used to deflect lasers.

A sophisticated help system will help Ed along throughout the game. Every puzzle has a help point next to it where Ed can use power orbs to find out if the puzzle can be solved using his current power ups and abilities. If it can be solved and you're still stumped then spending more power orbs will provide you with the solution.

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Blog RSS Feed Report abuse Latest News: IGF Finalists 2013

3 comments by Henley on Jan 8th, 2013

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) juries are announcing the Main Competition finalists for its historic 15th annual awards - nominating nearly 30 outstanding independent game titles to come out of the worldwide community in the past year.  

This year's finalists for the most prestigious independent video game awards and showcase were each picked by
a discipline-specific set of expert juries, following playthroughs and recommendations of the 580+ IGF entries from over 200 top independent game experts.  

Some of the multiple-nominated games for this year's extremely diverse Festival include Cardboard Computer's 'magical realist adventure game'
Kentucky Route Zero, Subset Games' spaceship sim 'Roguelike-like' FTL, and Richard Hofmeier's stark, dense street vendor simulator Cart Life.  

The first-ever Excellence in Narrative Award is also showcasing unique titles such as Blendo Games' quirky 'first-person short story'
Thirty Flights Of Loving, Auntie Pixelante's autobiographical game about a trans woman undergoing HRT, Dys4ia, and The Fullbright Company's abandoned house mystery Gone Home.  

The Nuovo Award, once again honoring 'abstract... and unconventional game development' of all kinds, also saw many standout games competing for its $5,000 prize, including Sleeping Beast's irreverent local co-op sci-fi smartphone game
Spaceteam, Michael Brough's 'one move a day for 100 days' VESPER.5, and Mousechief's multi-generational family history title 7 Grand Steps.  

The full list of finalists for the 2013 Independent Games Festival, with jury-picked "honorable mentions" to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, is as follows:
 

Excellence In Visual Art

Incredipede (Northway Games and Thomas Shahan)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Guacalamelee! (Drinkbox Studios)
Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Asteroid Base)
Year Walk (Simogo)  

Honorable mentions:
Fly'n (Ankama Play); Eleven (Christoffer Hedborg, Datahowler); The Bridge (Ty Taylor and Mario Castaneda); Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell, David Housden and Danny Wallace); Hundreds (Semi Secret feat. aeiowu)

Excellence In Narrative
Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Gone Home (The Fullbright Company)  

Honorable mentions:
Goblet Grotto (thecatamites, j chastain, NEW VADERS); Analogue: A Hate Story (Christine Love); Papo & Yo (Minority Media); The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe); 7 Grand Steps (Mousechief)  

Technical Excellence

StarForge (CodeHatch)
Perspective (DigiPen Widdershins)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Intrusion 2 (Aleksey Abramenko)
LiquidSketch (Tobias Neukom)  

Honorable mentions:
Mobiloid (Monty Melby); Skulls Of The Shogun (17-BIT); Foldit (University of Washington); 140 (Jeppe Carlsen); Gateways (Smudged Cat Games)  

Excellence In Design

Samurai Gunn (Beau Blyth)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth)
Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh)
Super Space ______ (David Scamehorn & Alexander Baard/DigiPen)  

Honorable mentions:
Spaceteam (Henry Smith); Helix (Michael Brough); Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation); Rymdkapsel (Martin Jonasson, Grapefrukt Games); Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)  

Excellence In Audio

Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
Bad Hotel (Lucky Frame) 140 (Jeppe Carlsen)
Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
Pixeljunk 4AM (Q-Games)  

Honorable mentions:
Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell, David Housden and Danny Wallace); Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation); Gone Home (The Fullbright Company); Fract OSC (Phosfiend Systems); Dust: An Elysian Tale (Humble Hearts)

Nuovo Award [Designed 'to honor abstract... and unconventional game development'.]
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Spaceteam (Henry Smith)
Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
Bientot l'ete (Tale of Tales)
7 Grand Steps (Mousechief)
MirrorMoon (SantaRagione + BloodyMonkey)
VESPER.5 (Michael Brough)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)  

Honorable mentions:
Renga (wallFour); Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth); Frog Fractions (Twinbeard); Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games); The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe)  

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)  

Honorable mentions:
Gone Home (The Fullbright Company); Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games); The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe); Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh); Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth)

All finalist games will be playable at an expanded IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2013 Expo floor from March 27-29, 2013, at San Francisco's Moscone Center, as part of a week of independent game-related content that also includes the Independent Games Summit (March 25th-26th), and the IGF Awards ceremony itself.  

The IGF Awards, where this year's IGF winners will be unveiled, will be held on the evening of Wednesday, March 27th at the Moscone, alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards. IGF Awards recipients will receive nearly $60,000 of prizes in various categories, including the $30,000
Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
 

As part of this year's event, all IGF Main Competition finalists will receive the opportunity to accept a distribution agreement for Valve's Steam, a leading platform for distribution in today's burgeoning independent gaming market. 

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Post comment Comments  (0 - 10 of 25)
Carnival73
Carnival73 Sep 13 2012, 11:56pm says:

Hi, I purchased the full version and I'm getting a 'No suitable graphics card found' error when trying to run.

I've had this issue before with a couple of other games and Google referenced the problem to be as simple as toggling the 'Reach' option in XNA.

Since I'm using a seven year old AGP card I don't suspect many others with my same issue but if it doesn't affect the features or quality of the game would it be possible to adjust for the next update?

+2 votes     reply to comment
SmudgedCat
SmudgedCat Sep 15 2012, 4:21pm replied:

Unfortunately it's not as simple as just switching it to 'Reach'. The 'Reach' profile doesn't support a large number of features that the 'HiDef' profile does. Features which Gateways uses. I've looked into adding support for Reach before but I couldn't find a solution (it's mainly to do with the lighting used in the game). Sorry!

+2 votes     reply to comment
WeaselOfDeath
WeaselOfDeath Sep 13 2012, 7:46pm says:

So I guess that I somehow am downloading the demo even though I have the full game option selected. Anyone know what to do to stop this?

+4 votes     reply to comment
BGPs
BGPs Sep 13 2012, 6:33pm says:

The demo version is the full the game.. the game I paid for is the demo..

+2 votes     reply to comment
dave_5430
dave_5430 Sep 13 2012, 4:45pm says:

Tried the demo, crashed at the first puzzle, not picking it up again untill the next update.

+2 votes     reply to comment
SmudgedCat
SmudgedCat Sep 13 2012, 4:54pm replied:

Sorry to hear that. Can I ask if an error box was shown?

+3 votes     reply to comment
Kesmolato
Kesmolato Sep 13 2012, 3:07pm says:

just saw it on indie for breakfeast. awesome game

+2 votes     reply to comment
abezombie
abezombie Sep 13 2012, 11:29am says:

The game will **** your brain as you advance onwards and I love it!

+2 votes     reply to comment
Korvi
Korvi Sep 13 2012, 11:24am says:

It says it's still a demo on my version. Even though I bought the full game and Desura claims that's what I'm running. Halp?

+2 votes     reply to comment
SmudgedCat
SmudgedCat Sep 13 2012, 12:23pm replied:

There seems to be a problem with the version from the Desura client. I'm looking into it but if you install the game using the browser it seems to be working for now.

+2 votes     reply to comment
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Gateways
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Windows
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Smudged Cat Games
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Released Sep 12, 2012
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