The Main Competition finalists for the 2013 Independent Games Festival were announced earlier this month and the Student Competition winners were just announced today. New to the Main Competition this year is an Excellence in Narrative Award to honor “innovation, quality, and impressiveness of storytelling in a game, including, but not limited to, scenario, plot construction, story, dialogue, and other major factors”.
The award show will take place at GDC on March 27th, at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. In the meantime, TIGForums members are discussing the results in this thread.
The lists of nominees and Student winners are reprinted below:
The IGF Winners were announced yesterday; you can watch a video of the announcements above.
Grand Prize: Fez
Design: Spelunky
Nuovo: Storyteller
Technical: Antichamber
Visuals: Dear Esther
Audio: Botanicula
Student: Way
Mobile: Beat Sneak Bandit
Audience: Frozen Synapse
XBLA Award: Super Time Force
The Main Competition finalists for the 2012 Independent Games Festival have been announced! The list is reprinted below and you can read some quotes from the jury here. TIGForums members are discussing the results in this thread.
As part of their ongoing “treasure hunt,” indie studio Introversion Software has given us a brief-yet-tantalizing teaser of their IGF entry and upcoming release, Prison Architect.
One thing I’m really loving is the art style, which is a colorful departure from the studio’s prior titles’ retro wire-frame feel. As a fan of both Introversion’s previous releases and the Dwarf Fortress-esque vibe of community management I get from this teaser, I’m eagerly looking forward to more footage and information as it’s passed to us through the bars.
On the main IGF site you can now view all of the 570 entries to this year’s Main Competition, including mobile games which are also eligible for a special mobile award. In years 2011-2007 there were 391, 306, 224, 173, and 143 entries, respectively. So yeah, a big year for the competition!
A couple weeks ago, I posted some of the new trailers I thought were cool, but TIGForums member esc has assembled a list of lists that makes it much easier to view all of the entries as well as their trailers.
Finalists in the competition will be announced in January 2012.
Some of the new trailers made for the IGF 2012 submission:
The Iconoclasts (Konjak), a non-linear platform game (demo is available from the website).
Weighing in at a hefty 1.36 GB, the 2012 IGF Pirate Kart was assembled as a celebration of the small, quirky freeware titles that often go unnoticed amidst the higher-profile games entered into the Independent Games Festival. Over 100 people contributed over 300 games to the project, which was submitted to the IGF earlier this week. Cool effort on the part of Mike Meyer, the kart’s curator, as well as its numerous participants.
The original Pirate Kart was an entry in TIGSource’s very first competition, the B-Games Compo.
Tonight, onstage alongside the esteemed Game Developers Choice Awards, the winners of the 2011 Independent Games Festival were announced. This lucky thirteenth year’s festivities were kicked off by now-veteran IGF Chairman Brandon “Real Brandon” Boyer, who you may know from Offworld, once one of the finest and most indie-friendly blogs around. (And source of countless aped posts back on TIGSource That Was.)
The ceremony proper was helmed by another Indie Apostle, Anthony Carboni of Bytejacker, perhaps the first host to date with actual hosting experience (nothing personal, Andy). And he did quite the bang up job! Of course, it just wouldn’t be the IGF Awards if the live feed‘s audio wasn’t mixed by a partially deaf clown. Despite Anthony’s every breath being the only thing audible, inside sources have confirmed that, yes, people did in fact laugh at his jokes.
There were quite a few memorable moments peppered throughout the show, some of which I’ve listed at the end of this post. And, while I didn’t stick around to watch, word on the street is Limbo and Minecraft grabbed a number of GDC awards as well. Yet another landmark year in the growing History of Indie Games! But enough prevaricating about the bush.
Indicated by pink superlatives, The 13th Annual IGF Award Winners are…
The finalists for the main competition of the IGF and the Student Showcase Winners have been announced on the IGF website. Also, it has been announced that Bytejacker‘s Anthony Carboni will be hosting the IGF award ceremonies… nude*.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games)
SpyParty (Chris Hecker)
Desktop Dungeons (QCF Design)
Minecraft (Mojang)
Nidhogg (Messhof)
Honorable mentions: Neptune’s Pride (Iron Helmet Games); Super Crate Box (Vlambeer); Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (Carpe Fulgur); Bit.Trip Runner (Gaijin Games); Retro City Rampage (Vblank Entertainment).
I don’t know how it is where you are, but over here the Christmas tunes have already started creeping out of the tinsel-covered woodwork! In light of this, I thought I’d share some of the things in the world of indie game music that have brought holiday cheer to me recently. It really feels like it’s been a stand-out year for indie game composers, who are doing some amazing things in this community. Have a listen!
Plants vs. Zombies OST – One and half years after the release of Plants vs. Zombies, composer Laura Shigihara has been given permission to put out the game’s soundtrack, which includes both English and Japanese versions of her hit song “Zombies on my Lawn”. Laura is also working on Melolune, an RPG based around the concept of collecting song fragments.