2010 Independent Games Festival organizers have revealed the five IGF Mobile category finalists battling it out for Best Mobile Game at GDC, also debuting the IGF Audience award and revealing the hosts for this year's IGF Awards.

IGF Mobile Category Winners

After announcing finalists and honorable mentions late last month, the 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile has named the category winners that will show their games at GDC and battle for the Best IGF Mobile Game prize.

After battling it out from a field of 170 top-notch entries, winners thus far include Secret Exit's physics-heavy Stair Dismount for iPhone, Powerhead Games' cunning color-based puzzle game Glow Artisan for DSi, and Tiger Style's acclaimed action game Spider for Apple's handheld.

The category winners for the 2010 IGF Mobile competition -- an event that celebrates excellence in games for the iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone OSes, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and other handheld devices -- are:

Continue reading "2010 IGF Reveals Mobile Category Winners, Audience Voting, Award Hosts" »

Posted by Staff at 02:58 PM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival has announced the Main Competition finalists for the twelfth annual presentation of its prestigious awards, celebrating the most innovative creations to come out of the independent game development community this year.

Nearly $50,000 in prizes in various categories, including the $20,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize will be awarded on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 11, 2010 during the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

The record-setting 306 Main Competition entries represent a 35% increase over last year's record 226 entries, many of them striking new titles from leading indie developers.

This year's finalists are led by multiple nominations for several notable games, including three nominations for innovative light-centric puzzle platformer Closure, and two nominations each -- including a Grand Prize nomination -- for Pocketwatch Games' stylish co-op heist game Monaco, Hello Games' polished stunt motorbike title Joe Danger, Ratloop Asia's cinematic avian action title Rocketbirds: Revolution!, Krystian Majewski's gestural photographic adventure game Trauma, and Team Meat's cartoon-gory 2D action title Super Meat Boy!.

To ensure the highest-quality judging for the IGF, more than 150 leading indie and mainstream game industry figures -- from 2D Boy's Ron Carmel through Spore's Soren Johnson to ThatGameCompany's Kellee Santiago and beyond -- were recruited to choose finalists via a carefully constructed empirical process.

The Festival is particularly keen to give constructive, written feedback to Main Competition entrants -- even if they did not place as a finalist. As a result, over 1500 written, anonymized judge comments will be passed along to entrants in the next few days, an important part of deriving value and takeaway from entering the IGF.

In addition, for the first year, the IGF's Nuovo Award, intended to "honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games", was judged by a separate, smaller juried panel of notable game and art world figures. These spanned previous IGF Nuovo winner Jason Rohrer (Passage), Area/Code's Frank Lantz, N+ co-creator Mare Sheppard, EA division head and art-game creator Rod Humble, and more.

The jury for the $2,500 Nuovo Award, which allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles, has released a statement about the chosen Nuovo finalists, including several 'honorable mentions', on the official IGF website.

The finalists for the 2010 Independent Games Festival are:

Continue reading "Independent Games Festival 2010 Announces Main Competition Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 12:58 PM | Permalink

The organizers of the GDC 2010 event the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest festival relating to independent games worldwide -- are proud to announce record entry numbers for both IGF 2010's Main Competition and the IGF Student Showcase, with almost 500 games in total.

This year's Main Competition -- just one of the three IGF competitions taking place this year -- amassed 303 game entries, many of them new titles from leading indie developers. Information, screenshots and videos on each of the IGF Main Competition entries are now available on IGF.com. This total entry tally comprises 35% more games than last year's record 226 Main Competition entries, itself a 30% increase on the previous year -- showing the continuing popularity of independent games and the IGF.

Following the record Main Competition entries, organizers have also revealed 193 Student Showcase entries, a record 33% more entries than last year, and bringing the total entries across these two competitions to almost 500. Previous IGF Student Showcase honorees have included DigiPen's Narbacular Drop (evolved into Valve's acclaimed Portal), USC's The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom (now signed by 2K Games for XBLA), Hogeschool van de Kunsten's The Blob (made into a console title by THQ as De Blob), and early USC/ThatGameCompany (Flower) title Cloud.

This year's IGF entries will be checked and distributed to the more than 160 notable industry judges for evaluation, before finalists are announced in January 2010 and winners awarded at the IGF ceremony during Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco next March. This year's IGF Student Showcase entries will be judged by an opt-in subset of the judges.

More than twenty Main Competition finalists and ten Student Showcase winners will be given all-access GDC 2010 tickets to show their games at next March's event, which encompasses the IGF Pavilion on the GDC 2010 Expo floor (March 11th-13th), the high-profile IGF Awards (March 11th, and for which highlights footage is available on the official GDC website), and the related Independent Games Summit (March 9th-10th).

Finally, IGF 2010 organizers are reminding that entries to the IGF Mobile competition -- encompassing iPhone, mobile phone, PSP, DS, Android and other handheld games -- are due by December 1st, 2009.

Posted by Staff at 10:15 AM | Permalink

Think Services, organizer of the industry-leading Game Developers Conference (GDC) events, is pleased to announce that submissions are now open for the 2010 Independent Games Festival. Entries to the 12th annual festival are due in both Main and Student Showcase categories by November 2009, with Main Competition finalists to be announced January 4, 2010.

Games selected as finalists will be available in playable form on the GDC show floor and will compete for nearly $50,000 in prizes, including awards for Excellence in Design, Art, the Audience Award and the coveted $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Winners will be announced on stage at the prestigious Independent Games Festival Awards on Thursday, March 11, 2010, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

The Independent Games Festival Awards are held alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards and both award shows are part of the 2010 Game Developers Conference. GDC 2010 also includes the 2010 Independent Games Summit, which is entering its fourth year and offers two days of inspiration and practical lectures and rants from the top minds in the independent games world.

Over the years, the Independent Games Festival has recognized the best and brightest indie game developers and their games. As the indie game mindshare continues to grow, thanks to the rise of digital distribution and a compelling aesthetic, the Independent Games Festival has played a key role in putting a well-deserved spotlight on these games. Notable former IGF winners include Everyday Shooter, Audiosurf, World of Goo, Blueberry Garden, Darwinia, Castle Crashers, and many more.

Notable evolutions to this year's Festival include a substantial increase in the number of hand-picked IGF judges - chosen, as always, from notables practicing both mainstream and indie game development, as well as discerning indie-minded games journalists.

The judging pool has more than doubled over last year's event, allowing each individual game entry to be played in much greater depth. The IGF is also adding compulsory (previously optional) written judge feedback alongside scores, an important part of deriving value and takeaway from entering the Festival, even for non-finalists.

Simon Carless, Chairman of the IGF, commented of this year's event: "We're delighted to return for our twelfth year of the Independent Games Festival, and we're really looking forward to see what the independent game community comes up with this time around. Good luck to all entrants!"

Submissions to the competition are now open to all independent game developers; important dates for IGF 2010 are as follows:

July 1st, 2009 - Submissions are Open
November 1st, 2009 - Submission Deadline, Main Competition
November 15th, 2009 - Submission Deadline, Student Competition
January 4th, 2010 - Finalists Announced, Main Competition
January 11th, 2010 - Finalists Announced, Student Competition
March 9th-13th, 2010 - Game Developer's Conference 2010
March 9th-10th, 2010 - Indie Games Summit @ GDC
March 11-13th, 2010 - IGF Pavilion @ GDC
March 11th, 2010 - IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)

Sponsors already confirmed for the 2010 Independent Games Festival include Official Download Partner Direct2Drive and Platinum Student Showcase sponsor DigiPen Institute Of Technology. For a complete list of IGF 2010 event information, please visit the official IGF website.

Posted by Staff at 11:50 AM | Permalink

Erik Svedang's Blueberry Garden, a charming exploration game set in an ever-changing ecosystem, received top honors - the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game - at the 2009 Independent Games Festival Awards.

The winners were announced this evening at the eleventh Annual IGF Awards ceremony, hosted by the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

The IGF awards are often referred to as the Sundance Festival of the video game industry, and offer both global exposure and over $50,000 in cash prizes to each year's winners.

Previous breakout IGF award-winners include titles such as Braid, Audiosurf, Castle Crashers, and World Of Goo, and this year's awards saw 226 Main Competition entries from all over the world - and over 450 entries in total.

Continue reading "11th Independent Games Festival Awards Topped By Blueberry Garden" »

Posted by Staff at 12:47 AM | Permalink

Organizers of the 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) have launched the IGF Audience Award voting website, allowing game fans everywhere to download, play, and choose a favorite all of the eligible Main Competition finalist indie games which submitted a publicly playable demo.

Online voting is open now and continues through Friday, March 20th, with the award given out at the IGF Awards taking place alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards at the 2009 Game Developers Conference on March 25th.

The games with eligible demos or full versions on PC, XBLA, XNA Community Games or PSN are: Retro/Grade, Dyson, Brainpipe, The Maw, IncrediBots, Osmos, Musaic Box, Cortex Command, CarneyVale Showtime, Coil, The Graveyard, PixelJunk Eden, Mightier, You Have To Burn The Rope, and Between.

Continue reading "2009 Independent Games Festival Opens Audience Award" »

Posted by Staff at 09:40 AM | Permalink

The Independent Games Festival Mobile (IGF Mobile), an event that celebrates innovation in games for handheld devices, including mobile phones, DS, PSP, iPhone and iPod touch, has named the finalists for the second annual competition.

The number of entries more than doubled – to over 100 – compared to last year’s inaugural competition, bolstered by a strong showing from the emergent iPhone and iPod touch platform – so much so that a special ‘Best iPhone Game’ category has been designated for the titles which best use the unique possibilities of the device.

Winners of the 2009 IGF Mobile competition, who will get a share of $30,000 in prize money, will be announced at a special ceremony during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) Mobile conference on March 24, and additionally honored during the main Independent Games Festival Awards on March 25, 2009.

Some of the leading finalists for this year’s competition include stylish iPhone cube movement puzzler Edge (3 nominations), the technologically cunning Wardive on Nintendo DS, which uses local WiFi hotspots to generate enemies (3 nominations), and elegant iPhone ‘tower defense’-style title Fieldrunners (3 nominations).

Games also nominated multiple times include Secret Exit's touch-controlled iPhone rope wrapping game Zen Bound and iconic tilt-controlled iPhone puzzler Dizzy Bee, with a number of Flash Lite and Java cellphone games, including the innovative Cubic Republic, also finalists. Read on for the full list:

Continue reading "2009 IGF Mobile Reveals Competition Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 09:04 AM | Permalink

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the ten winners in the Student Showcase for its 11th annual awards, with games from three continents spanning ecological, paint-splattering and fantasy exercise games to be shown at GDC this year.

Chosen from a new record of 145 Student Showcase entries (up over 15% on last year's 125 entries), these games will go on to compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, to be awarded at the IGF Awards Ceremony on the evening of March 25th, 2009.

Some of this year's Student Showcase winners include CMU's 'active play' exercise-centered game Winds Of Orbis, quirky Danish first-person dish cleaning game Dish Washington (pictured), and ecological management puzzle game City Rain from Brazilian students.

Also honored are titles including USC's abstract painting game The Unfinished Swan and reality-manipulating German side scrolling shooter Zeit Squared:

Continue reading "2009 IGF Student Showcase Winners Announced" »

Posted by Staff at 10:43 AM | Permalink

The 2009 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has revealed the finalists for this year's ninth installment of the pre-eminent indie game competition, with finalists showcased at the 2009 Game Developers Conference. From a record field of 226 entries, 30% over last year’s totals, a number of notable games scored multiple nominations this year.

These include orbital osmosis sim Osmos (3 nominations), abstract PSN action-er PixelJunk Eden (3 nominations), time-reversing guitar-compatible antishooter Retro/Grade (2 nominations), and atmospheric ball-ambulator Night Game (2 nominations).

Other examples of the finalists, which are viewable on the official IGF website, include charming exploration-game Blueberry Garden and music-based block puzzler Musaic Box, both double nominees, and several of the finalists for the new Innovation award, including Ratloop’s Mightier, Jason Rohrer’s Between and Tale Of Tales’ The Graveyard.

Finalists were decided by a panel made up of over 40 industry-leading game creators and journalists, including the makers of previous IGF honorees World Of Goo, Braid, Aquaria and N+; industry veterans from studios including Maxis, Big Huge Games, and SuperVillain Studios; and noted writers from Wired, Newsweek, and MTV.

Continue reading "2009 Independent Games Festival Announces Finalists" »

Posted by Staff at 07:19 AM | Permalink

The organizers of the 2009 Independent Games Festival have announced a record turnout for this year's IGF competition, with a total of 226 entries in the Main Competition (an increase of 30% on last year's 173 entries), and a total of 145 Student Showcase entries (up over 15% on last year's 125 entries).

Information on the 226 separate IGF Main Competition entries, including screenshots, descriptions, and links to official game websites, are now available to view on the official IGF website.

Examples of the entries span already announced indie titles, including Jason Rohrer's Between, alternate reality RPG Barkley Shut Up and Jam Gaiden, visually lush point and click adventure Machinarium, and art-game I Wish I Were The Moon, through previously little-discussed titles such as Pieces Interactive's "first walk'em up" Walkie Tonky, new Nifflas-designed title Night Game, and Lexaloffle's "ecological action game" Conflux.

Continue reading "2009 IGF Announces Record Entries For Main, Student Competitions" »

Posted by Staff at 03:47 PM | Permalink

Join us as we celebrate innovation in mobile games during the IGF mobile competition. This event will take place during the GDC Mobile 2008 conference and will be highlighted at the main IGF 2008 awards.

The Independent Games Festival Mobile website now includes a full list of finalists. Access screenshots and links to videos and demonstration versions where available. Finalists were chosen from a field of over 50 entries, with nominations led by titles including Punch Entertainment's social networking game Ego and Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab's waste disposal strategy puzzle game Backflow.

All games will be showcased for play at the IGF Pavilion during GDC 2008! Click here to view the full list of finalists today!

Posted by GDC Staff at 04:39 PM | Permalink