Organizers for the 12th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF), which takes place on March 11 during the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, today revealed the main competition finalists based on 301 entries from the independent gaming community - that's a 35% increase in submissions from 2009.
IGF selected over 150 leading indie and mainstream game industry figures, including 2D Boy’s Ron Carmel, Spore’s Soren Johnson, and ThatGameCompany’s Kellee Santiago, to choose the finalists "via a carefully constructed empirical process." This year IGF also decided to set aside a completely separate, smaller juried panel of notable game and art world figures to select the Nuovo Award, which is meant to "honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games."
"We’re happy to report that the IGF has seen another record-breaking year in volume and diversity of entries, another symptom of the continuing explosion of high-quality titles from smaller development teams and emerging creators," said Simon Carless, IGF Chairman. "Congratulations to this year's outstanding finalists -- we're looking forward to playing their games and honoring the overall IGF winners at Game Developers Conference this March."
Here's the complete list of IGF finalists:
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Joe Danger (Hello Games)
Monaco (Pocketwatch Games)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Super Meat Boy! (Team Meat)
Excellence In Visual Art
Shank (Klei Entertainment)
Owlboy (D-Pad Studios)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Limbo (Playdead)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Excellence In Design
Miegakure (Marc Ten Bosch)
Star Guard (Sparky)
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard For Gravity (Dejobaan Games)
Monaco (Pocketwatch Games)
Cogs (Lazy 8 Studios)
Excellence In Audio
Super Meat Boy! (Team Meat)
Shatter (Sidhe)
Closure (Closure Team)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Technical Excellence
Closure (Closure Team)
Limbo (Playdead)
Heroes Of Newerth (S2 Games)
Joe Danger (Hello Games)
Vessel (Strange Loop Games)
Nuovo Award
Today I Die (Daniel Benmergui)
A Slow Year (Ian Bogost)
Tuning (Cactus)
Closure (Closure Team)
Enviro-Bear 2000 (Justin Smith)
