Spencer

We won an IGF award! It was a shock. The day before the awards Kyle asked me if i finished writing the thank you speech. I had not. I don't know why, I had so long to do it. I think I thought the chances were so low on us winning (SPECIFICALLY BECAUSE OF MY INDIVIDUAL CONTRIBUTION LETTING US DOWN I MEAN, EVERYONE ELSE ON THE TEAM IS 10/10 (i believe i have also improved, but the game still has some of my crusty work from literally 10+ years ago)), that it made me procrastinate because i didnt want the waste of putting all my effort into something that would never be said... also considering the pure calibre of the other nominees with such atmospheric sound design, the culture and homages in Venba's music...

So I finally finished writing it like 2 hours before the awards.
But some people told me it was a nice thank you speech. I really appreciate it. So i attach the speech here. The outpouring of love the past day, lots of old friends coming out of the woodwork to celebrate or send me a message. It's been really nice!

I was also nervous about mentioning Gaza at all, but I talked to someone on the 1000xRESIST team who turned out wrote a whole speech mentioning it, and that made me feel a lot more confident. My mom who is the real activist helped me ghostwrite that section basically, she worded it so well. Everything i do that turns out cool has always had someone else behind it, i'm very grateful.

Here's what i was reading from my phone's notes app. But you can also watch it here (dont perceive me...):
https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2096784078?t=00h56m40s

Thank you

I was sitting here in these tables exactly 10 years ago, in 2014, because we got nominated for the Student IGFs. It was for rhythm doctor as well. We didnt win - we lost to this game called Risk of Rain.

But that experience of being nominated made us realise we had something special. So here we are, 10 years of work later, finally with an award! We've been waiting for so long for this. We're happy enough to be nominated among such amazing games and hope we can all stay in touch.

For the audio in particular, our sound designer Celesti isnt here today, but this ones yours, congratulations.

On behalf of the audio team, celesti and myself..

Thanks to our collaborators and friends who worked on the music with us: david fu, imba interactive, ashwin gobinath, hameer and kai zawawi, patricia taxxon, yeo and many others.

This award also unfortunately has come a year too late for Jyi Sim, the voice of the nurse in rhythm doctor, and the singer in two of our songs. She was a kind enough friend to lend her talents to us and we miss her dearly.

We'd like to thank the igf organizers, because that gdc in 2014 was where we met our lead programmer Giacomo. Thank you to our publisher indienova and the governments of Malaysia and Peru, MDEC and innovate peru, for the funding.

I'd like to pass on some special thanks from some of our team members:

Winston would like to give a shout out to his parents for their support in spite of not knowing what he's doing.

Giacomo would like to thank his parents, brother and everyone who trusted him that making games was an actual viable career path

Kyle would like to thank his Mom, Dad, and his brother Jack for all of their love and help along the way.

Celesti thanks her mom and sister Jane.

Morph wants to thank their two best friends, Deni and Octavian for always being by their side.

Jenny her partner Octavia for all her love and support and pushing her to be the best she can be.

Auth thanks all our players and community creators for getting us this far.

And from myself, thanks to the whole team, incl those arent here, winston jose, jci huantian nocallia alberto sora and more

Thank you to my beautiful wife Deanna, we got married this month. Thanks for letting gdc be our honeymoon destination. Thank you to my parents for supporting my gamedev path. Im sorry for not being real doctor, but look at our igf award!

And our final thank you is to Nintendo SPD production group 1 for making Rhythm Heaven, the game whose shoulders our game stands on.

While we are here we would like to remember the real doctors in Gaza trying to save lives in the worst conditions. Our hearts beat for you.

Thank you.

Some extra thanks I regret not fitting in: our localizers! Daniel Wong for the amazing key art and UI work! notDonte for the bug reporting. Fancybread / 3T for some Act 5 VFX work! Everyone on the adofai team for taking care of that game to let us focus on this one during those intense periods!