If your bet during last year's Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) wasn't able to nab first place, then perhaps you'll have better luck this year as the Game Developers Conference has opened up the nominations for the 2008 GDCA event to be held this coming February 20.

Read more about it in the full article after the jump!

Nominations for the Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) will soon be open for ten regular awards, with nominations for the three special awards - the Ambassador Award, Pioneer Award, and the Lifetime Achievement Award - opening soon at the end of this month. Read on for more details.

  

At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2007, Gears of War already took the Best Game Award (GDCA). The game's lead designer Cliff Bleszinski, who goes under the moniker Cliffy B, also gave a talk at the GDC. Here are some pretty interesting snippets of his lecture on making Gears of War.

• The team wanted to call the Locusts "Geist" but didn't since Nintendo has a game with the same name.
• They at first designed a first-person shooter (FPS) without cover, but changed into a sort of "Resident Killswitch" type of game design based on Resident Evil and Killswitch.
• Some of the ideas that did not make it to the game: "Combat Cash" that allows players to loot and get cash and "Morale Meter" that allows players to commit suicide when they're depressed.
• The ideas the team stuck to in designing are: slower paced game, no aliens from space, low tech and high tech and embracing cliches and shedding others.
• Camera inspiration came from Resident Evil 4.
• They decided to go with a toggle cover system instead of using the left stick to cover because the latter can get pretty annoying.
• The Y button was originally unassigned, but the team decided to turn it into the cool button. Thus, it was born.
  

A legend known for his single most addicting puzzle game Tetris, Alexey Pajitnov demonstrates how the most simple of solutions can be the most attractive of all. It's no wonder he'll be receiving the First Penguin Award at the 2007 GDCA.

Pitting him up against game designers Harvey Smith (Midway Games) and David Jaffe (God of War, Twisted Metal), the contest was called "The Game Design Challenge: The Needle and Thread Interface."

In honor of the innovative control interfaces for games today, the contest armed contestants with a needle, some thread and a piece of fabric to be used as the input device. All three designers were to conjure up a hypothetical game, which should use all three instruments as an way of input for the game.

Pajitnov's design, called Stitch & Cross, was a basic sewing racing game where two players have at each other in an effort to reach the one side of a common playing field. One player stitches horizontally, while the other stitches vertically. A player could thwart the other's efforts by crossing the opponent's stitch with his own.

Smith involved a much more elaborated version for a control interface, dividing the fabric into different patches of cloth which would represent a certain task of control. When the player poked the any patch, the corresponding command would be called - like a joystick with needles for fingers. His game concept was called The Tailor's Daughter, an action adventure game with an actual story.

Jaffe devised a game that would allow the player to manipulate the fabric into paper airplanes, which can be flown to see which travels faster or further. In the end, Pajitnov was able to steal the win from reigning champion Smith, after the audience supported him with cheers right from the beginning of his participation. The friendly contest was hosted by GameLab's Eric Zimmerman, who said:

There’s nothing stopping us from conceiving of games and from having exercises like the game design challenge. There’s nothing to stop you from making a game inspired by what you’ve seen today ... it’s up to us at the Game Developers Conference to make games better.

At this year's Game Developers Choice Awards, Gears of War stood head and huge padded shoulders over other nominees as it took home the Best Game award. Epic Studios' hit next gen videogame title also bagged awards for Visual Arts and Technology.

Clover Studio's PS2 title Okami and Nintendo's Wii Sports also got high accolades. Both games took home an award each for Innovation along with Bostjan Cadez's Flash title Line Rider. Okami also got an award for Character Design, while Wii Sports bagged a Game Design award.

Other major award winners included Harmonix and RedOctane's Guitar Hero II, which won an award for Audio. Nintendo's The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess walked away with the Writing award and Titan Quest developer Iron Lore Entertainment picked up the award for New Studio.

The Game Developers Awards are the only peer-based, open nomination awards program in the videogame industry today. Nominations are open to all members of the International Game Developers Association. The finalists chosen by the Choice Awards Advisory Board and the winners are finally voted on by IGDA members.