NEWS: PIETRO RIGHI RIVA AND PAOLO TAJÉ ARE AMONG THE WINNERS OF THE 2021 ITALIAN VIDEO GAME AWARDS

Fron left to right: Paolo Tajé, Nicolò Tedeschi and Pietro Righi Riva (Photo: Courtesy of Santa Ragione)

On July 1 2021, the Italian Interactive Digital Entertainment Association hosted the annual Italian Video Games Awards (IVGA). The event - which took place at the Museum of Ancient Ships in Pisa - was presented by RaiNews 24’s Dario Marchetti - who appeared in-person in Tuscany - and British journalist Aoife Wilson, live from the United Kingdom. Milan-based independent studio Santa Ragione (Pietro Righi Riva, Paolo Tajé and Nicolò Tedeschi) received the Outstanding Italian Company award, while Julian Palacios, who gave an incredible GAME TALK on November 11 2020, won several awards, including Best Italian Game for his poetic Promesa. Lorenzo Redaelli’s Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star - a visual novel entirely developed during the second edition of the Master of Art of Game Design at IULM University and later published by Santa Ragione to wide acclaim - was also nominated in the Best Debut Game category. Funded in 2010, Santa Ragione is currently developing the eagerly awaited horror game Saturnalia. The Italian Video Game Awards are part of First Playable, Italy’s leading B2B event about video games which took place on July 1-2 2021. Above all, the IVGA are a celebration of Italian game design: the nominations exemplify the ingenuity and creativity of Italian game designers. There were five categories overall (see below), and the shortlists were selected by an international panel of judges, who volunteered their time to take part in the selection process.

IVGA 2021 Winners:

Best Italian Game - Promesa - Eremo (watch Julian’s GAME TALK here)
Best Debut Game - Beyond Your Window - Team SolEtude
Best Innovation - Griefhelm - Johnny Dale Lonack
Outstanding Italian Company - Santa Ragione
Outstanding Individual Contribution - Mauro Fanelli (Mixed Bag)
 
The judges recognized Santa Ragione as an Outstanding Italian Company for its groundbreaking visual and interactive design. They also celebrated the studio’s diverse portfolio which includes titles such as Fotonica, Wheel’s of Aurelia, and MirrorMoon EP, among others. The three person team - Pietro Righi Riva, Paolo Tajé and Nicolò Tedeschi - are internationally known for their unique, experimental approach to gaming. Righi Riva and Tajé teach GAME PRODUCTION and GAME STUDIO respectively in the M.A. in Game Design at IULM University.
 
Thalita Malago, Director General of IIDEA congratulated both nominees and winners: “We’re happy for all the creative talent who were nominated and won awards at the 2021 IVGAs. We know that the competition was extremely high and that the judges commented that it was hard to pick winners because there was so much variety, talent and ingenuity expressed by Italian game development this year. To stand out in such a competitive field, and against the additional challenges posed by the ongoing health emergency, is an incredible achievement.”
 
The organization of the IVGA ceremony and panel of jurors follows the recent publication of the fifth biennial Italian Census by IIDEA and IDG Consulting. The census data revealed an extremely young, buoyant, and upbeat sector, which kept growing in 2020 despite the global pandemic. The overwhelming majority of games nominated for the five categories this year were artistic, independent games developed by small studios.

Full list of nominees:

Best Italian Game
A Painter’s Tale: Curon 1950 - Monkeys Tales Studios
Beyond Your Window - Team SolEtude
Griefhelm - Johnny Dale Lonack
Promesa - Eremo
Redout: Space Assault - 34BigThings

Best Debut Game
Beyond Your Window - Team SolEtude
Griefhelm - Johnny Dale Lonack
Milky Way Prince - The Vampire Star - Eyeguys
Promesa - Eremo
Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town - Imaginary Labs

Best Innovation
A Painter’s Tale: Curon 1950 - Monkeys Tales Studios
Change Game - Melazeta
Fly Punch Boom! - Jollypunch Games
Griefhelm - Johnny Dale Lonack
Promesa - Eremo

The winners of the two additional categories - Outstanding Italian Company and Outstanding Individual Contribution were announced during the ceremony without lists of nominees.

Full list of jurors:

Chris Dring: Head of B2B at ReedPop, which covers GamesIndustry.biz, B2B events at PAX and EGX, plus other special projects.
Alex Hutchinson: Creative Director responsible for Journey to the Savage Planet, Far Cry 4, Assassin's Creed 3, Spore, Sims 2 and more.
Rami Ismail: Dutch-Egyptian independent video game developer
Ryan Lambie: Editor, Wireframe Magazine
Eugene Maleev: Business Head at Xsolla
Liana Ruppert: Editor, Game Informer
Chris Schilling: Deputy Editor, Edge Magazine

Watch the full ceremony here

Errata corrige: originally the article erroneously stated that Promesa won the Debut Game of the Year. Although nominated, the prize went to Beyond Your Window by Team SolEtude. Promesa received three nominations overall.

NEWS: LORENZO REDAELLI INTERVIEWED BY IGN ITALY

Non perdete l’intervista di Andrea Peduzzi a Lorenzo Redaelli su IGN Italia sul processo di creazione di Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star. Tra gli highlights: “Creare un videogioco in sei mesi è un’impresa titanica”.

Leggi il testo completo

Leggi la recensione di Andrea Peduzzi

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Don’t miss Andrea Peduzzi’s conversation with Lorenzo Redaelli about the making of Milky Way Prince: The Vampire Star. Among the highlights, “creating a game in six months is crazy hard.”

Read more (in Italian)

Read Andrea Peduzzi’s review (in Italian)

NEWS: PIETRO RIGHI RIVA ANNOUNCES NEW GAME, SATURNALIA

On Halloween, Santa Ragione co-founder Pietro Righi Riva (GAME PRODUCTION) announced the studio’s new project, Saturnalia. A survival horror adventure, Saturnalia is set in an isolated village of ancient ritual. The game, which will be released sometime in 2020, has been under development for more than thirty months. Saturnalia features non-linear progression, dynamic and adaptive narrative, an ever changing architectural environment, and roguelite-like features. Paolo Tajé (GAME STUDIO) has been working on the project as well. Ditto for Andrea Pennati, a former student of the M.A. in Game Design, who is now interning at Santa Ragione after graduating a few weeks ago. Saturnalia was partially funded by the Sardinian Film Commission and the European Union, and it was developed in collaboration with Horrible Guild. Santa Ragione is an Italian micro game design studio founded by Pietro Righi Riva and Nicolò Tedeschi in 2010, creators of FOTONICA, MirrorMoon EP, and Wheels of Aurelia.

Click here to learn more about Saturnalia.

MEDIA: EUROGAMER CALLS MIRRORMOON EP "ONE OF THE BEST GAMES OF THE PAST TWENTY YEARS"

To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Eurogamer, one of the finest online game magazines, listed the twenty forgotten gems of the past two decades. Developed by Santa Ragione’s Pietro Righi Riva (GAME PRODUCTION) and Paolo Tajé (GAME STUDIO), MIrrorMoon EP is included in this exclusive selection. As Christian Donlan writes, “If you love games because of their sense of mystery, of discovery, MirrorMoon EP is one of the best there ever was.”

Check the full review below:

LINK: Eurogamer

WHEELS OF AURELIA IS A FINALIST AT INDIECADE 2016

The most important independent game festival in the world, INDIECADE, has just announced the 50 official nominees for the 2016 edition. Among the highlights are two Italian games RIOT - Civil Unrest and Wheels of Aurelia.

The former has been developed by IV Productions/Leonard Menchiari while the latter was produced by Santa Ragione. 

Other highlights include a game about the Holocaust (Keeping The Candles Lit), a game about #Feminism, a game about killer drones (Killbox), and game about Bad News. 

Read more here.

WHEELS OF AURELIA ON THE PLAYSTATION 4 (OCT. 5, 2016)

Pietro Righi Riva, the Coordinator of GAME/PLAY and founder of indie studio Santa Ragione, introduces the PlayStation 4 version of his latest game, Wheels of Aurelia on the Official PlayStation Europe Blog which will be released on October 5, 2016.

To read more, click the image below.