2017 IGF Presents Main Competition Finalists

30 outstanding independent titles will fight for the grand prize of this year’s Independent Games Festival.

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) now has a list of finalists for its 19th annual awards. The ceremony will take place on March 1, 2017 during the GDC and will be hosted by Nina Freeman, the game designer behind a well-known title called Cibele

More than 650 entries battled for the prestigious awards of IGF. Now there are only 30 different titles with some of them fighting for victory in multiple categories, like Virginia battling in four nominations (Best Audio, Excellence in Narrative, Excellence in Visual Art and The Nuovo Award for innovation). Hyper Light Drifter by Heart Machine, Inside by Playdead and Event[0] will all fight for three different categories. 

Winners will receive over $50,000 of prizes in various categories with Seumas McNally Grand Prize worth of $30,000. 

Check out the full list of finalists below: 

BEST STUDENT GAME

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (Sundae Month)

Lily, Colors of Santa Luz (Lily, Colors of Santa Luz Team)

Un Pas Fragile (PAF team)

FAR: Lone Sails (Mr. Whale’s Game Service / Mixtvision)

Frog Climbers (TeamCrew)

Bamboo Heart (Sokpop Collective)

Honorable Mentions: Awkward Dimensions Redux (StevenHarmonGames); DYO (Team DYO); Code 7 – Episode 0: Allocation (Goodwolf Studio); You Must be 18 or Older to Enter (Seemingly Pointless)

BEST AUDIO

The Flame in the Flood (The Molasses Flood)

GoNNER (Art in Heart)

Virginia (Variable State)

Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine)

Everything (David OReilly)

Inside (Playdead)

Honorable Mentions: 1979 Revolution: Black Friday (iNK Stories); Kingdom: New Lands (Noio); Dropsy (Tendershoot, A Jolly Corpse); Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (Sundae Month); Sentris (Timbre Interactive); TumbleSeed (TumbleSeed Team)

EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN

Imbroglio (Michael Brough)

Ultimate Chicken Horse (Clever Endeavour Games)

Duskers (Misfits Attic)

Overcooked (Ghost Town Games)

Event[0] (Ocelot Society)

Quadrilateral Cowboy (Blendo Games)

Honorable Mentions: She Remembered Caterpillars (jumpsuit entertainment);Elsinore (Golden Glitch Studios); Inside (Playdead); Antihero (Tim Conkling); Replica (Somi);Space Pirate Trainer (I-Illusions)

EXCELLENCE IN NARRATIVE

Ladykiller in a Bind (Love Conquers All Games)

1979 Revolution: Black Friday (iNK Stories)

Virginia (Variable State)

Orwell (Osmotic Studios )

Event[0] (Ocelot Society)

One Night Stand (Kinmoku)

Honorable Mentions: A Normal Lost Phone (Accidental Queens); The Lion’s Song (Mi’pu’mi Games); Far from Noise (George Batchelor); Inside (Playdead); Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe); Burly Men at Sea (Brain&Brain); Sorcery! 4 (inkle / Steve Jackson)

EXCELLENCE IN VISUAL ART

The Flame in the Flood (The Molasses Flood)

Inside (Playdead)

Virginia (Variable State)

Old Man’s Journey (Broken Rules)

Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine)

She Remembered Caterpillars (jumpsuit entertainment)

Honorable Mentions: Inks (State of Play); Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall); Mu Cartographer (Titouan Millet); Future Unfolding (Spaces of Play ); Sundered (Thunder Lotus Games); Un Pas Fragile (PAF team)

NUOVO AWARD

Islands: Non-Places (Carlburton LLC)

Close (Tobias Zarges and Moritz Eberl)

Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor (Sundae Month)

Oiκοςpiel, Book I (David Kanaga)

Everything (David OReilly)

Virginia (Variable State)

Mu Cartographer (Titouan Millet)

Lieve Oma (Florian Veltman)

Honorable Mentions: Memoir En Code: Reissue (Alex Camilleri); Far from Noise (George Batchelor); Ladykiller in a Bind (Love Conquers All Games); Witchball (S.L.Clark); Project Perfect Citizen (Bad Cop Studios); Wheels of Aurelia (Santa Ragione); Quadrilateral Cowboy (Blendo Games)

SEUMAS MCNALLY GRAND PRIZE

Inside (Playdead)

Stardew Valley (ConcernedApe)

Quadrilateral Cowboy (Blendo Games)

Event[0] (Ocelot Society)

Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine)

Overcooked (Ghost Town Games)

Honorable Mentions: 1979 Revolution: Black Friday (iNK Stories); Orwell (Osmotic Studios); Imbroglio (Michael Brough); Virginia (Variable State); Duskers (Misfits Attic); Oiκοςpiel, Book I (David Kanaga)

You can find further details on the official IGF website

 
 
 

Following the announcement, Retronator Magazine has shared an amazing breakdown of pixel art from the games that will fight for this year’s prizes. 

 

The visual styles chosen to illustrate indie games are as diverse as gameplay, from lovely hand-drawn art to low-poly 3D, from abstract shapes to colorful renditions with lush detail. Pixel art represents only a tiny fraction of games featured in the IGF, but they are nonetheless strongly represented among the winners.

Retronator Magazine

You can find a breathtaking rich gallery of still and animated images along with a brief history of past IGF and cool profiles of independent titles like Bamboo Heart, Hyper Light Drifter, Kingdom: New Lands, Dropsy, Replica, and The Lion’s Son that are up for recognition this year.

 

The competition is diverse as always. Most of the games can hardly be sufficiently summarized with a genre label. They range from a cyberpunk hacking heist (Quadrilatelal Cowboy) to developing a relationship with a lonely spaceship computer (Event[0]). Be it a cooking puzzler (Overcooked) or a mysterious action adventure (INSIDE), you can be sure that any of the Grand Prize finalists—and any IGF nominee in general—is in one way or another breathing new soul into what we call video games.

Retronator Magazine

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