Organizers are now officially opening submissions for the 2013 Independent Games Festival, to be held at GDC 2013 in San Francisco next March.

The longest-running and highest-profile independent video game festival, summit and showcase is now accepting entries to the 15th annual Festival, with deadlines in the Main and Student Showcase categories by October 17th and October 31st respectively, and finalists to be announced on January 2013.

Following over 850 entries to IGF 2012, the Festival has expanded each existing category to six finalists, all of which will be available in playable form at a larger, expanded IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor, and will compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes.

These include the $5,000 Nuovo Award, honoring 'abstract, shortform, and unconventional' games, as well as the Excellence in Art, Audio, Design, Technology, Student Game and Audience Award prizes, each worth $3,000, and the crowning $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Notable former Independent Games Festival winners over the previous 15 years include Spelunky, Fez, Minecraft, Limbo, World of Goo, Braid, Castle Crashers, Everyday Shooter and many more of the game industry's breakthrough independent titles.

Winners will be announced on stage at the high-profile Independent Games Festival Awards on Wednesday, March 27, 2013, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, with the IGF Pavilion open from March 27-29, and the sister Independent Games Summit event taking place on March 25 and 26.

All of the Independent Games Festival events take place as part of the 2013 Game Developers Conference, which is held March 25th - March 29th, 2013 in San Francisco, and the IGF continues as the most vital showcase of independent game talent across the wide spectrum of artistically- and commercially-aimed development.

"All of us here at the IGF are eager to see this year's selection of games. Each year, the community manages to outpace itself in innovation and artistry, and we expect nothing less for this 15th anniversary Festival," said IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer.

"In the same spirit of that evolution, we've given our submission system an overhaul that should greatly enhance the experience for both our entrants and our judges alike, and look forward to hearing your feedback. Best of luck to all entrants -- we can't wait to see what you create!"

Submissions to the competition are now open to all independent game developers; important dates for IGF 2013 are as follows:

August 9, 2012 - Submissions are Open
October 17, 2012 - Submission Deadline, Main Competition
October 31, 2012 - Submission Deadline, Student Competition
January 7, 2013 - Finalists Announced, Main Competition
January 14, 2013 - Finalists Announced, Student Competition
March 25 - March 29, 2013 - Game Developers Conference 2013
March 25 - March 26, 2013 - Indie Games Summit @ GDC 2013
March 27 - March 29, 2013 - IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2013
March 27, 2013 - IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)

For a complete list of information on the 2013 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics, frequently asked questions, and more discussion on this year's changes from the IGF Chairman, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website.

August 18, 2012

IGF China seeking indie game submissions for 2012 event

The Independent Games Festival China - which will take place alongside this November's GDC China in Shanghai - has opened its call for submissions and is accepting indie game entries from the pan-Pacific area from now through September 10.

Following its success from previous years, GDC China will once again host all three main elements of IGF China, including the IGF Summit, the IGF Pavilion, and the prestigious IGF Awards.

Now in its fourth year, the IGF Summit at GDC China will feature sessions from some of the world's top developers, while the IGF Pavilion will showcase some of the region's best independent and student games.

And of course the IGF Awards - which are split into both Main and Student competitions - will honor the many talented developers in the pan-Pacific area.

The 2012 IGF China Main Competition will give out awards and cash prizes in five categories, including:

- Best Game (RMB20,000 ~ $3,150 USD)
- Best Mobile Game (RMB10,000 ~ $1,570 USD)
- Excellence in Audio (RMB5,000 ~ $780 USD)
- Excellence in Technology (RMB5,000 ~ $780 USD)
- Excellence in Visual Arts (RMB5,000 ~ $780 USD)

The Student Competition, meanwhile, will offer two awards, for Best Student Game (RMB10, 000 ~ $1,570 USD, 1 Winner) and Excellent Student Winner (RMB3, 000 ~$470 USD, 2 Winners).

Finalists -- who will receive two All Access passes to attend GDC China and the IGF awards ceremony on November 18, 2012 -- will be chosen by a panel of expert jurors including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat Interactive); Monte Singman (Founder/CEO, Radiance Digital Entertainment); Xubo Yang (Director of Digital Art Lab and Assistant Professor; Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Software), Haipeng Yu (Producer, Tencent Shanghai), and jury chairman Simon Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and EVP of the GDC shows, Gamasutra, and Game Developer magazine.

Last year's event saw 112 high-quality entries from regions including Mainland China, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, India, and more. Winners included titles like Best Game recipient Pixel May Cry (Feng Li, China), Void (DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore) for both Excellence in Technology and Best Student Game, and Pixi (DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore) for Excellent Student Winner.

Key dates for IGF China include:

- September 10, 2012- Submission Deadline
- September 28, 2012- Finalists Announced
- November 17-19, 2012 - Game Developers Conference China 2012
- November 18, 2012 - IGF China Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)
- November 17-19, 2012 - IGF China Pavilion @ GDC China

GDC China will take place at the Shanghai International Convention Center from November 17-19, 2012. For more details on the show, please visit GDC China's official website or the information and submission pages for IGF China.

June 18, 2012

Letter From The Chairman: Welcome Back (Soon!) For IGF 2013

[Ahead of opening submissions for the 2013 Festival, IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer goes in-depth on the shifts in policy and rules for this year's 15th anniversary IGF experience, and the ethos and considerations behind them.]

Hello everyone, and a fine hallo to you, as we approach the opening of the 2013 Independent Games Festival. If you're playing along at home, you'll note that this is officially the 15th edition of the IGF, a remarkable landmark that puts into perspective just how far the business and culture of independent games has come since its 1999 debut (see the photos of that year's winners to drive the point home -- also, should we bring back the giant novelty check?).

As you know, each year we take some time following the ceremony to consider how best to improve and evolve the Festival in preparation for the next. It's a discussion we hold along with the community that has brought changes in previous years such as our two-tiered judge and jury system, and this year we'll be introducing a number of new changes as well.

Let's kick off the list of changes we're making this year with the one that most directly affects our entrants:

We'll be opening IGF submissions a bit later than our usual schedule.

Traditionally, we open submissions for the festival around this time (mid-June). This year, we're giving our entry and judging backend a major upgrade, so we'll be officially opening our submissions in late July. And though our submissions are usually very light until much closer to the deadline, we're mentioning this change so you can begin planning now.

Our deadline dates, however, will not change: submissions will close on October 17th for the Main Competition and October 31st for Student. We think you'll appreciate the new features that this short delay will bring -- we'll have more details on those as we get closer to opening back up.

Continue reading "Letter From The Chairman: Welcome Back (Soon!) For IGF 2013" »

March 15, 2012

Best of IGF returns to Melbourne's ACMI

Melbourne's Australian Centre for the Moving Image will present the "Best of the Independent Games Festival 2012" exhibition, featuring winners, finalists, and honorable mentions from this year's IGF competition.

Opening on March 27 (the day after its ongoing Best of IGF 2011 exhibition ends) and running until July 8, this annual curated installment invites attendees to play independently-developed games previously featured at San Francisco's IGF event, held by Gamasutra parent UBM TechWeb Game Network. Several of the titles, which visitors can play for free, have not yet released to the public.

The showcase will display 14 games from local and international developers, including IGF's Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner Fez (XBLA) from Polytron, Excellence in Design winner Spelunky (XBLA) from Mossmouth, and Excellence in Visual Art honorable mention Dustforce (Windows) by Australian developer Hitbox Team.

Other games set to be featured at ACMI include PC titles like Amanita's Botanicula (Excellence in Audio winner, pictured), Thechineseroom's Dear Esther (Visual Art winner), and Mode 7's Frozen Synapse (Audience Award winner).

Joost van Dongen's Proun (Visual Art honorable mention), Firebird Games' To The Moon (Audio finalist), State of Play's Lume (Visual art finalist), and Ed Key's Proteus (Audio honorable mention) will be exhibited there, too.

iOS games that will be on display include Powerhead Games' Async Corp (Best Mobile Game finalist), Simogo Games' Beat Sneak Bandit (Best Mobile Game winner), Game Oven Studios' Fingle (Nuovo Award finalist), and Imangi Studio's Temple Run (Best Mobile Game honorable mention).

More information on the event will be made available at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image's official site.

March 8, 2012

14th annual IGF announces winners; Fez gets grand prize, Dear Esther, Spelunky, Antichamber win awards

Montreal-based developer Polytron Corporation proved 2D and 3D environments can get along in Fez, the unique 'perspective-shifting' platformer which earned the Seumas McNally Award for Best Independent Game and the $30,000 grand prize this evening at the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival, hosted by the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Fez and its lead developer Phil Fish make headlines again after the game was chosen by a jury of his peers for the win. Fish was most recently thrust into the limelight as the central focus of the hit documentary at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival, Indie Game: The Movie, which also screened earlier in the week at GDC.

Elsewhere, developer Daniel Benmergui received the Nuovo Award and a $5,000 prize for his comic strip-based narrative game, Storyteller. The Nuovo Award honors abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which "advances the medium and the way we think about games." Storyteller lets the player drop characters into given story panels, where they react according to their personality traits.

Other IGF award recipients for 2012 include thechineseroom's haunting first-person experiential adventure, Dear Esther, which won the award for Excellence in Visual Art for its stunning environments. Demruth's mind-bending puzzle game Antichamber earned the award for Technical Excellence for its creative distortions of time and space, and Mossmouth's update of 2D platformer Spelunky, which custom creates new levels each time it is played, took the award for Excellence in Design. In addition, Amanita Design's point and click exploration game Botanicula received the award for Excellence in Audio with its original soundtrack and sound effects, created by Czech alternative band DVA.

Rounding out the winners list were the recipients of the award for Best Mobile Game which went to Swedish developer Simogo for its rhythmical puzzle game, Beat Sneak Bandit, Best Student Game award winners, and CMU Entertainment Technology Center/Coco & Co for its game Way. Finally, Mode 7's Audience Award winner Frozen Synapse was chosen from nearly 7,000 votes from the IGF game-playing public.

All of this year's IGF games, including both the winners and the finalists, are playable at the Game Developers Conference at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor, which is open through Friday, March 9th.

"The sheer number of fantastic games submitted to the Festival this year was overwhelming, and selecting winners was as tough for our juries as it's ever been," said IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer. "This year's winning games are incredible achievements that showcase just how diverse and innovative the independent game community can be. Congratulations to them, and to all of our finalists and entrants for continually surprising and delighting us with their efforts."

The IGF awarded the following games as winners of the 14th Annual Awards:

Continue reading "14th annual IGF announces winners; Fez gets grand prize, Dear Esther, Spelunky, Antichamber win awards" »

February 28, 2012

OnLive offering free trials of select IGF 2012 nominees

Cloud gaming company OnLive announced Monday that it has partnered with the Independent Games Festival to offer a two-week online event in which users can play many of the titles featured at the upcoming IGF 2012.

From February 27 through March 11, OnLive users across the U.S. and UK can play 16 of the current IGF nominees and honorable mentions via the company's game-streaming service on PC, Mac, television, and mobile devices.

Each game is available as a 30-minute free trial on the OnLive Facebook page, allowing users to check out many of the titles in the show's varied lineup, including nominees Dear Esther, English Country Tune and Frozen Synapse.

The OnLive Indie Showcase will conclude on March 11, when OnLive will tally both the number of Likes and the total number of game sessions played for each game. The top games will be announced online on Monday, March 12.

In addition, starting March 5th, OnLive, which is a Gold Sponsor of this year's event, will also be placing previously honored IGF games on sale for 75% off, with free instant demos available for all.

The 2012 Independent Games Festival will take place alongside this year's Game Developers Conference, which will be held next week, from March 5 through March 9 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco.

February 6, 2012

IGF 2012 Audience Award Opens Voting

[In this note to indie game fans, Independent Games Festival Chairman Brandon Boyer announces public voting to pick this year's IGF Audience Award from among all of the Main Competition finalist games for this year.]

It's time to have your say for the best Independent Games Festival game of 2012! We've just opened public voting for this year's Audience Award, with all members of the public and the indie game community eligible to vote.

As we've done in prior years, we're allowing voting for to any game chosen as a finalist in the festival, as opposed to just those with public PC demos. This is because many of the titles have been playable at other indie game events - or have Beta and other OS versions that many indie game fans may have checked out.

To be part of this year's vote, simply visit the IGF Audience Award page, download any of the games or demos that are currently publicly available (each has been marked whether there's a version for you to purchase or otherwise download). When you've made up your mind, return to vote for your favorite.

After voting and inputting your email address, you'll need to verify your vote by clicking on a link sent to that email. Voting will be open from now until Sunday, February 19th at midnight PST -- go check it out now and start making your way through the games!

January 13, 2012

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Student Showcase Winners

The Independent Games Festival has announced the eight Student Showcase winners for the fourteenth annual presentation of its prestigious awards, celebrating the brightest and most innovative creations to come out of universities and games programs from around the world in the past year.

This year's showcase of top student talent include the lithograph-sketched 2D logic puzzler The Bridge, from Case Western Reserve University, Art Institute of Phoenix's magic-moth platformer Dust, and DigiPen Institute of Technology's part-psychological-evaluator, part-boot-camp-instructor, possibly-part-malware action game Nous.

In total, this year's Student Competition took in nearly 300 game entries across all platforms -- PC, console and mobile -- from a wide diversity of the world's most prestigious universities and games programs making the Student IGF one of the world's largest showcases of student talent.

All of the Student Showcase winners announced today will be playable on the Expo show floor at the 26th Game Developers Conference, to be held in San Francisco starting March 5th, 2012. Each team will receive a $500 prize for being selected into the Showcase, and are finalists for an additional $3,000 prize for Best Student Game, to be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 7th.

The full list of Student Showcase winners for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, along with 'honorable mentions' to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, are as follows:

Continue reading "2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Student Showcase Winners" »

January 10, 2012

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) juries have announced their Main Competition finalists for the 14^th annual presentation of its awards, celebrating the brightest creatives and the most influential game designs to come out of the independent community in the past year.

This year's finalists for the most prestigious indie game awards, each picked by a discipline-specific set of expert juries after recommendations from almost 200 top independent game experts, are led by multiple nominations for several standout titles.

These include thechineseroom's experimental first person game Dear Esther -- picking up nominations for Visual Art and Audio, as well as the Nuovo Award and Seumas McNally Grand Prize -- and Mossmouth's procedurally generated platformer Spelunky, which was nominated for the Design and Technical Awards on top of a nod for the Grand Prize.

Other multiple-nominated titles include Polytron's highly anticipated puzzle adventure Fez, Mode 7's turn based tactical shooter Frozen Synapse, and Die Gute Fabrik's digitally-enabled folk game Johann Sebastian Joust, all of which saw nominations for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize on top of nominations for Technical Excellence, Excellence in Design, and the Nuovo Award, respectively.

The Nuovo Award, once again honoring 'abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development' of all kinds, also saw some standout games in addition to some of the above titles among its eight nominees for the $5,000 prize. These include Bennett Foddy's fiendish climbing game GIRP, Daniel Benmergui's evocative title Storyteller, and Terry Cavanagh's two-player puzzle title At A Distance.

Now in its second year fully integrated into the IGF Main Competition, the Best Mobile Game Award saw nominations for Tiger Style's sci-fi action gardening game Waking Mars -- also up for an Excellence in Audio award -- Simogo's rhythm-stealth game Beat Sneak Bandit, Steph Thirion's constellation-crafter Faraway, Powerhead's color-puzzler ASYNC Corp, and Vlambeer's fishing/shooter Ridiculous Fishing.

All finalist games will be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2012 Expo floor from March 7-9, 2012, at San Francisco's Moscone Center, as part of a week of independent game-related content that also includes the Independent Games Summit (March 5th-6^th), and the IGF Awards ceremony itself.

The IGF Awards, where this year's IGF winners will be unveiled, will be held on the evening of March 7, alongside the Game Developers Choice Awards. IGF award recipients will receive $60,000 of prizes in various categories, including the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

The full list of finalists for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, with jury-picked "honorable mentions" to those top-quality games that didn't quite make it to finalist status, is as follows:

Continue reading "2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists" »

2012 Independent Games Festival Finalists: What The Jury Thought

Following the announcement of the finalists for all categories of the 2012 Independent Games Festival, we've sifted through the months of conversations our juries had this year on the merits of each game they considered, and have pulled choice quotes which we hope will help illuminate the thought process behind their respective finalist choices.

While some games were discussed at great length, others found themselves nominated essentially on silent, unanimous nods from the jurists -- either way, presented below is a collection of some of the more interesting comments about this year's nominated games from all of our various juries.

Antichamber

"A lot of what Antichamber does to mess with your head is explicitly subvert all the expectations you have when playing a first person game; it's cutting across the UDK grain and can't have been easy."

"[What] impresses me... is how the tech seems to be directly influencing the game design and art style rather than just being used to achieve a given goal."

ASYNC Corp

"Very satisfying, and strategies emerge really organically as you play with it, much like Tetris, instead of being things you are told and then try to learn..."

"This is one of those games where once you've played a lot, and you truly 'get it', it gets really, really good."

At a Distance

"A successful experiment... truly experimental and beautifully haunting."

Atom Zombie Smasher

"This game has a nice progression and tactics on many scales that all work together. Playing the overworld kind of felt like playing a board game... I had to play this one all the way through and stop the zombie outbreak."

Beat Sneak Bandit

"In terms of gameplay, I never would have thought a game where there's a single, simple beat to tap along with could be so interesting... Does it 'flow' like most rhythm titles? Not really. Instead it asks the player to plan a sequence, tap along in their head in preparation, and then go for it -- like playing a 'break' in samba. It's a genuinely unique type of puzzle, with some great level designs."

"This one got more involuntary grins out of me than any other game."

Continue reading "2012 Independent Games Festival Finalists: What The Jury Thought" »

January 1, 2012

Letter From The Chairman: 2012 IGF Finalists Now Coming Jan.10th, 15th

Hey all -- a quick note to kick off the New Year: the 2012 Independent Games Festival finalist announcements will now be made on Tuesday, January 10th for the Main Competition, and Sunday, January 15th for the Student Competition.

The reason? We're taking extra time & effort to make sure that mobile (iOS, Android and other) contenders are given proper consideration in all categories alongside their PC and console counterparts, and aren't just limited to their own section -- the reason we integrated them into the main festival to begin with.

As anyone that's worked with pre-release mobile game distribution or has been reading the news recently will tell you, it's not the easiest process in the world to coordinate, thanks to UDID complexities.

This is especially true on a large scale -- but we feel like it's one worth undertaking properly to give equal consideration to every game in the festival for each of our standalone juries. Apologies if this extends the 'waiting' agony for some, but we'll sure it will be worth it. Please contact us if you have any questions, and thanks again to everyone for their support of the IGF.

- IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer
(chairman@igf.com)

December 21, 2011

IGF 2012 Reveals Visual Art, Audio, Mobile Jury Panels

Organizers of the 2012 Independent Games Festival are pleased to announce the second set of discipline-specific jury panels that will determine the finalists and winner of its various awards, following Design, Tech, and Nuovo juries announced last week.

The jury announcements for this year are beginning with the industry professionals, independent game notables and former IGF award winners that make up its Visual Art award, Audio award, and Mobile award juries.

The Excellence in Visual Art Award

The Visual Art award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality in visuals for indie games.

Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Visual Art award have been entrants which featured impressive displays of the craft of games, including The Behemoth's vibrant cartoon-ish beat-em-up Castle Crashers, Polytron's 2D/3D "trixel"-based puzzle platformer Fez, Amanita Design's hand-painted adventure game Machinarium, and Playdead's equal parts soft and stark monochromatic puzzler Limbo.

The jury consists of the following:

- Steven Burgess (now indie, formerly designer of LostWinds at Frontier)
- Rex Crowle (creative director at LittleBigPlanet creators Media Molecule)
- Grant Duncan (founding member & artist on Hello Games' IGF finalist Joe Danger)
- Auriea Harvey (co-founder of Tale of Tales, the studio behind The Endless Forest, The Path, Fatale and 2009 Nuovo finalist The Graveyard)
- David Hellman (artist on games including Number None's Braid)
- Richard Hogg (artist on Honeyslug games including Poto & Cabenga & Frobisher Says)
- Liselore Goedhart (artist at Bohm creators Monobanda)
- Anders Gustafsson & Erik Zaring (creators & artists behind IGF finalist The Dream Machine)
- Mike Roush (co-founder & artist at BIT.TRIP creators Gaijin Games)
- Ben Ruiz (art director formerly at Flashbang Studios on games like Off-Road Velociraptor Safari & Minotaur China Shop)
- Patrick Smith (as 'Vectorpark', creator of games & interactive toys like Windosill, Feed the Head & Levers)

The Excellence In Audio Award

The Excellence in Audio Award is a category which seeks to highlight the best musical and sound innovation, quality, and impressiveness in independent gaming.

Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Excellence in Audio award have gone out to games which took an entirely new and unique to approach to sound in games or otherwise excelled at their craft, including Queasy Games' abstract acoustic guitar shooter and 2007 award winner Everyday Shooter, 2008 finalist guitar-controller platformer Fret Nice, 2009's ultra-stylized finalist PixelJunk Eden from Q-Games and Osaka musician/DJ Baiyon, and the 2010 award winning Closure.

The jury consists of the following:

Continue reading "IGF 2012 Reveals Visual Art, Audio, Mobile Jury Panels" »

December 14, 2011

IGF 2012 Reveals Design, Technical Excellence, Nuovo Jury Panels

Organizers of the 2012 Independent Games Festival are pleased to announce the first discipline-specific jury panels that will determine the finalists and winner of its various awards.

The jury announcements for this year are beginning with the industry professionals, independent game notables and former IGF award winners that make up its Design award, Technical Excellence award, and Nuovo award juries.

The Excellence in Design Award

The Excellence in Design award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality of the underlying blueprint of each entered game -- component parts like its mechanic design, level design, and difficulty balancing.

Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Excellence in Design Award have included 2D Boy's cartoon construction puzzler World of Goo, KranX's music construction puzzler Musaic Box, Pocketwatch Games' abstracted multiplayer heist game Monaco and QCF's rogue-like puzzler Desktop Dungeons.

The jury consists of the following:

- George Fan (PopCap game designer & creator of Plants vs. Zombies)
- Steve Gaynor (writer & designer on games including BioShock 2, Minerva's Den, and BioShock Infinite)
- Kyle Gray (co-founder of Experimental Gameplay Project, Tomorrow Corporation, creator of Henry Hatsworth in the Puzzling Adventure)
- Ricky Haggett (co-founder of Hohokum creators Honeyslug)
- Robin Hunicke (designer at Journey creators thatgamecompany)
- Frank Lantz (creative director and co-founder of Area/Code)
- Edmund McMillen (creator of games including Super Meat Boy & The Binding of Isaac)
- Alex Neuse (co-founder & designer at Bit.Trip creators Gaijin Games)
- Andy Schatz (creator of Monaco)
- Loren Schmidt (creator of Star Guard)

The Technical Excellence Award

The Technical Excellence award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality in game engines and code.

Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Technical Excellence award have gone to entrants which featured impressive displays of the craft of games, including Dylan Fitterer's sonic-landscape racing/puzzle category finalist Audiosurf and that year's winner from 2D Boy, World of Goo, Data Realms' 2009 2D platforming-action winner Cortex Command, 2010 winner Limbo, and Frictional Games' 2011 winner Amnesia: The Dark Descent.

The jury consists of the following:

Continue reading "IGF 2012 Reveals Design, Technical Excellence, Nuovo Jury Panels" »

December 5, 2011

IGF Announces Multi-Year Partnership With Microsoft For 'XBLA Prize'

The organizers of the Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and highest profile showcase and awards for independent video games -- are announcing a new multi-year partnership with Microsoft Studios and its Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing team, providing notable new prize opportunities for IGF entrants.

A standalone jury of independent game creators will work with Microsoft to identify a shortlist for the new 'XBLA Prize'. The prize will consist of a guaranteed first-party publishing deal to release the selected title on Microsoft's LIVE-enabled platforms, including the Xbox LIVE Arcade service, Windows Phone, and Windows. The sponsor-supported prize includes full game funding to complete the title, if desired.

The first honoree for the award, picked from one of the 2012 Independent Games Festival entrants from either Main Competition or Student Showcase, will be announced on stage at the IGF Awards during Game Developers Conference in San Francisco on March 7th, 2012.

If the creator of the selected game opts to accept the prize and associated contract, they will also get access to IGF Platinum Sponsor Microsoft's extensive suite of first-party publishing services.

This includes best in class usability, testing, and production aid to help complete their game, as well as the game gaining a sought-after 'slot' to officially release the title on Xbox LIVE Arcade and other platforms.

As part of the announcement, in a related weblog post at Gamasutra, Microsoft's head of first-party publishing for Xbox LIVE Arcade, Ted Woolsey revealed a previously unreleased statistic - that "Microsoft Studios invests more than $20 million dollars per year to fund Xbox LIVE Arcade games", not including this incremental opportunity.

This much prized first party funding and publishing contract adds to the already impressive prize roster at IGF 2012, which has nearly $60,000 in cash prizes, including the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize and will showcase over 30 of its finalists on the GDC 2012 show floor next March.

The 2012 Independent Games Festival and associated Independent Games Summit (part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website) takes place from March 5th-9th 2012 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. More information on the contest, including lists of entrants and upcoming announcement dates, please visit the official IGF website.

November 13, 2011

2011 Independent Games Festival China Winners Announced

Organizers of the third annual Independent Games Festival China have announced the winners for this weekend's indie showcase in Shanghai, with Feng Li's 2D action beat-em-up Pixel May Cry (pictured) taking home the prize for Best Game, in addition to a host of other notable winners.

Following the announcement of the IGF China finalists in September, the selected teams attended a special awards show at the Shanghai Exhibition Center during GDC China on Saturday night, where the winners took home a prestigious IGF award, and a cash prize ranging from RMB3,000 ($450 USD) to RMB20,000 ($3,060 USD).

Guest presenters from the independent games community on hand to help give out awards included GDC China Independent Games Summit speakers such as Amir Rao (Bastion), Baiyon (PixelJunk Eden/4am) and Jenova Chen (Flower/Journey).

Winners announced at the show include aBit Games' rhythm counting game Super Sheep Tap, WitOne Games' fantasy RPG Pocket Warriors, and Ant Hive Games' The Line HD, which took home the award for Best Mobile Game.

The full lineup of winners at the 2011 IGF China is as follows:

Main Competition

Best Game: Pixel May Cry, by Feng Li, China [RMB20, 000 ~ $3,060 USD]
Best Mobile Game: The Line HD, by Ant Hive Games, China [RMB10, 000 ~ $1,530 USD]
Excellence In Audio: Super Sheep Tap, by aBit Games, China [RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD]
Excellence In Technology: Void, by DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore [RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD]
Excellence In Visual Arts: Pocket Warriors, by WitOne Games, China [RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD]

Student Competition

IGF China Best Student Game: Void, by DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore [RMB10, 000 ~ $1,530 USD]
IGF China Excellent Student Winner: Pixi, by DigiPen Institute of Technology, Singapore [RMB3,000 ~$450 USD]
IGF China Excellent Student Winner: Robotany, by Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab, Singapore [RMB3,000 ~$450 USD]

As the event took shape, IGF China received high-quality submissions from multiple Chinese provinces, Hong Kong, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macao, Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Iran and beyond.

The winners were chosen by a panel of expert jurors, including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat Interactive), Monte Singman (CEO, Radiance Digital Entertainment), Xubo Yang (director of digital art lab and assistant professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Software), Haipeng Yu (producer, Tencent Shanghai), and jury chairman Simon Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and EVP of the GDC shows and Gamasutra.

The Independent Games Festival's outreach into Asia is part of GDC China, which is taking place at the Shanghai Exhibition Center in Shanghai, China from November 12-14.

November 7, 2011

2012 Independent Games Festival Reveals Student Entries

The organizers of the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest festival relating to independent games worldwide -- are proud to announce another year of record entry numbers for IGF 2012's Student Competition.

In total, this year's Student Competition took in nearly 300 game entries across all platforms -- PC, console and mobile -- from a wide diversity of the most prestigious universities and games programs from around the world.

Together with the record Main Competition entries, this year's IGF has taken in over 850 total entries -- the largest number in the festival's history across the Main and Student competitions.

This year's Student Competition includes entries like Roadeo, from a team at the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, a two player racing game where the car races in competition (or cooperation) with the road itself, and Fingle, an iPad game in which you "playfully encounter the touch of another's fingers" and experience "the thrills of touching each other on a multi-touch device", from a student team at the Utrecht School of the Arts.

This year's entries also include Harmonic Flight -- from the School of Art and Design Kassel team that previously entered games like Ute and 2010 Student Showcase finalist Ulitsa Dimitrova -- a unique Facebook game in which individual players work together to keep a flight attendent happy and ensure a safe arrival of their flight.

The above are just a small selection of the games now available for browsing via IGF.com, where you'll find more information, screenshots and video for each of the IGF Student Competition entries.

Now in its tenth year as a part of the larger Independent Games Festival, the Student Showcase highlights up-and-coming talent from worldwide university programs, and has served as the venue which first premiered numerous now-widely-recognized names including DigiPen's Narbacular Drop and Tag: The Power of Paint, which would evolve first into Valve's acclaimed Portal, with the latter brought on-board for Portal 2.

Others include USC's The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom (later released by 2K Games for XBLA); Hogeschool van de Kunsten's The Blob (later becoming one of THQ's flagship mobile/console franchises as De Blob); and early USC/ThatGameCompany title Cloud, from the studio that would go on to develop PlayStation 3 arthouse mainstays like Flow, Flower, and their forthcoming Journey.

This year's Student IGF entries will be checked and distributed to a host of notable industry judges for evaluation, before finalists are announced in January 2012, and winners awarded at the IGF ceremony during the Game Developers Conference 2012 -- part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website -- in San Francisco next March.

October 31, 2011

Reminder: 2012 IGF Student Competition Submissions Close Today

Organizers are reminding that there are less than 24 hours until the Student Competition deadline for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, being held at the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco next March 5-9.

The Independent Games Festival is the longest-running and highest-profile independent video game festival, summit, and showcase, and the deadline for the IGF 2012 Student Competition is Monday, October 31st at 11:59pm PT.

The IGF has already revealed record numbers of entrants for the Main Competition, with nearly 570 games competing, a more than forty five percent jump over 2011's total entries.

Student Competition finalists will be announced in January 2012, and will be available in playable form at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor from March 7-9, 2012.

Notable former student game finalists include Narbacular Drop, the precursor to the acclaimed Portal, as well as Cloud from the embryonic Thatgamecompany team, recent cult hit Octodad, and more.

Newly submitted student titles will compete for $7,000 in prizes, which includes prizes for eight Student Showcase Winners and one prize for Best Student Game. 2012 Independent Games Festival prizes for both Main and Student Competitions total more than $50,000.

As noted above, submissions to the Student Competition are still open to all student game developers, with many entrants waiting until the last minute to polish versions of their game for more than 150 IGF judges. A full list of student entrants will be released on the IGF website in the days following the submission deadline, as also happened with the Main Competition.

Continue reading "Reminder: 2012 IGF Student Competition Submissions Close Today" »

October 25, 2011

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Record Main Competition Entrants

The organizers of the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest festival relating to independent games worldwide -- are proud to announce another year of record entry numbers for IGF 2012's Main Competition.

In total, this year's Main Competition took in nearly 570 game entries from both leading indie developers and first-time entrants, a more than forty five percent jump over 2011's total entries. Entries for mobile hardware like the iPhone, iPad, DS, PSP and Android devices alone -- now fully integrated into the festival and eligible for their own unique Best Mobile Game award -- nearly doubled over the prior year, proving the platform's increasing importance for independent development.

Some of the titles entered in the IGF Main Competition this year include Ed Key and David Kanaga's Proteus, an adventure game that dynamically generates its ambient soundtrack as you explore, Waking Mars, the action-gardening game from former IGF Mobile winner Tiger Style, and Super T.I.M.E. Force, a time-twisting shooter from Critter Crunch, Clash of Heroes and Sword & Sworcery EP developer Capy.

In addition, a number of returning developers previously honored at the Independent Games Festival have entered new games including Prison Architect, a previously unannounced game from 2006 Seumas McNally Grand Prize winners Introversion, Jesus Vs Dinosaurs, an arcade game co-developed by Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho and two new games from the team behind 2007 Grand Prize winner Aquaria: Infinite Ammo's Alone and Spelunky, a revamped version of Mossmouth's cult favorite rogue-like platformer.

Other notable entries this year include ____ (Four Letter Word) from VVVVVV developer Terry Cavanagh, Storyteller, an experimental visual-narrative game from former Nuovo finalist Daniel Benmergui, and mobile debuts from a number of beloved indie regulars: Vlambeer's Ridiculous Fishing, Rockfish, from Cave Story creator Daisuke 'Pixel' Amaya, and English Country Tune from Stephen 'Increpare' Lavelle.

In-depth information and entrant-provided screenshots and videos are now available on IGF.com for careful perusal of all titles from entrants both established and those making their first appearance at the festival.

"The continued growth of both the Independent Games Festival and of independent games as a cultural force is incredibly heartening," said festival chairman Brandon Boyer. "The diversity -- and the plain overwhelming number -- of entries in the festival this year is proof positive that we're in the midst of a true renaissance in games history."

This year's IGF entries will be distributed to more than 150 notable industry judges for evaluation, and their highest recommendations passed on to a set of discipline-specific juries for each award, who will debate and vote on their favorites, before finalists are announced in January 2012.

In turn, winners will be awarded on stage during the IGF Awards ceremony during the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco next March, and all finalists in the Main Competition (including the art-centric Nuovo Award) and the Student Showcase (which is due for submission by October 31st) will be showcased in the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor from March 7th-9th, immediately following the 5th Annual Independent Games Summit on March 5th and 6th.

October 19, 2011

Best of the Independent Games Festival Now At Brisbane

The Australian Centre for the Moving Image has once again brought the "Best of the Independent Games Festival" to Australia with a free exhibition at South Brisbane's digital culture center The Edge, as part of the "Games: Body and Console" program.

From today until November 27, attendees can explore and play 14 finalists and winners from past Independent Games Festival competitions, including Mojang's Minecraft, Frictional Games' Amnesia, Messhof's Nidhogg, and Steph Thirion's Faraway.

The full list of games on display -- which have been created by talented indie developers from all over the world, from the U.S. to South Arica -- is available here. Attendees are invited to chalk up their scores on a public board at the exhibit for prizes.

Other upcoming highlights from "Games: Body and Console" include free workshops for Alternate Reality Games on October 25 and November 1, and an International Animation Day festival taking place on October 29 and 30.

October 17, 2011

Reminder: 24 Hours To 2012 IGF Main Competition Deadline

Organizers are reminding that there are 24 hours until the Main Competition deadline for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, being held at the Game Developers Conference 2012 in San Francisco next March 5-9.

The Independent Games Festival is the longest-running and highest-profile independent video game festival, summit, and showcase, and the deadline for the IGF 2012 Main Competition is Monday, October 17th at 11.59pm PT.

Finalists will be announced in January 2012, and will be available in playable form at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor from March 7-9, 2012. The titles will compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes, a significant increase from last year.

This includes the high-profile $5,000 Nuovo Award, honoring abstract, short-form, and unconventional video game development, as well as a $30,000 Grand Prize and a host of other notable awards.

Submissions to the competition are still open to all independent game developers, with almost 260 games entered already, and many entrants waiting until the last minute to polish versions of their game for more than 150 IGF judges. A full list of entrants will be released on the IGF website in the days following the submission deadline.

Important dates for IGF 2012 are as follows:

- June 30, 2011 - Submissions are Open
- October 17, 2011 - Submission Deadline, Main Competition
- October 31, 2011 - Submission Deadline, Student Competition
- January 5, 2012 - Finalists Announced, Main Competition
- January 12, 2012 - Finalists Announced, Student Competition
- March 5 - March 9, 2012 - Game Developers Conference 2012
- March 5 - March 6, 2012 - Indie Games Summit @ GDC 2012
- March 7 - March 9, 2012 - IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2012

Winners will be announced on stage at the high-profile Independent Games Festival Awards on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The Independent Games Festival Awards are held immediately before the wider Game Developers Choice Awards.

Continue reading "Reminder: 24 Hours To 2012 IGF Main Competition Deadline " »

October 3, 2011

2012 Indie Games Summit Opens Submissions, Reveals Special GDC Pass

[Continuing his posts on the Independent Games Festival and related events, IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer calls for 2012 Independent Games Summit lecture submissions, also unveiling a new indie-centric pass for GDC 2012.]

A quick note in case you missed the news: the call for submissions has officially been opened for all Summits at the 2012 Game Developers Conference -- including the new Games for Change @ GDC Summit and the Game IT Summit -- but, most relevantly, the latest edition of our Independent Games Summit.

The Independent Games Summit represents the voice of the independent game developer at GDC. It features lectures, postmortems and roundtables from some of the most notable independent game creators, including many former and current Independent Games Festival finalists and winners.

Next year's sixth edition, the 2012 Independent Games Summit, takes place at Moscone Center in San Francisco on March 5th-6th, 2012 during GDC 2012 (March 5th-9th), seeks to highlight the brightest and the best of indie development, with discussions ranging from game design philosophy, distribution, business, marketing, and much more.

Have a presentation in mind you think would be a good fit for the 2012 Indie Summit? Head to the official GDC 2012 website, where you can find information on submission guidelines, restrictions, and more. Submissions will remain open though Monday, October 31 at 11:59pm ET.

To get a sense of what Indie Games Summit content is like, you can browse a large section of free archived talks from prior GDCs in the free section of GDC Vault, including Wolfire's Humble Indie Bundle breakdown and Monaco dev Andy Schatz on "How To Win The IGF In 15 Weeks Or Less" from the 2011 Indie Games Summit.

There's also more free content from the GDC Europe's debut Indie Games Summit, including B.U.T.T.O.N. co-creator Douglas Wilson on "deputizing the player", and Amnesia co-creator Thomas Grip's super crowd-pleasing talk on breaking game design rules to evoke emotions and achieve success.

Looking forward to seeing what you come up with! Let us know at chairman@igf.com if you've got any comments or questions about the 2012 Indie Games Summit, which I help to program alongside indie game veterans Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink.

And one more thing... GDC organizers have announced that there will be a special Independent Games Summit pass for Game Developers Conference 2012. We've listened to the community, and we're trying this limited-edition pass, available at a special reduced price for indie game creators worldwide.

The GDC 2012 Indie Games Summit pass will be purchasable as soon as GDC registration opens in the next 2-3 weeks. It'll get you in to the March 5th-6th Indie Games Summit, as well as the IGF Awards, Expo show floor and Game Career Seminar, among other things. We'll blog about it again as soon as it's available.

September 28, 2011

IGF China 2011 Announces Main Competition, Student Finalists

The Independent Games Festival China has announced the Main Competition and Student finalists for its third annual awards ceremony celebrating the most innovative indie and student games from throughout the Pan-Pacific area.

This year, the finalists offer an extremely broad range of game types and genres, from action brawlers like Pixel May Cry to mobile arcade titles like Super Sheep Tap, with developers hailing from throughout China and its surrounding regions.

Drawing from a prize pool totaling 45,000 RMB (roughly $7,000), IGF China's Main Competition will give away five distinguished awards, covering Excellence in Audio, Technology, and Visual Arts, as well as the Best Mobile Game and Best Game awards. In addition to the prestige and prizes, winners will also receive two All-Access Passes for the upcoming GDC 2012 in San Francisco.

Alongside IGF China's Main Competition, the ceremony will also host the Student Competition, which honors six of the top regional student games, with teams hailing from DigiPen Singapore, the China Central Academy of Fine Arts, and more.

This part of the competition includes two awards -- for Best Student Game and Excellent Student Winners -- and offers roughly 13,000 RMB (roughly $2,000) in cash prizes.

Winners in both competitions will be chosen by a panel of expert jurors including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat Interactive), Monte Singman (CEO, Radiance Digital Entertainment), Xubo Yang (director of digital art lab and assistant professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Software), Haipeng Yu (producer, Tencent Shanghai), and jury chairman Simon Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and EVP of the GDC shows and Gamasutra.

This year's IGF China will take place on November 12, 2011 alongside GDC China, which will be held at the Shanghai Convention Center in Shanghai, China.

Here are the finalists for this year's IGF China:

Main Competition

Billy Makin Kid!, by SLAB Games, Indonesia [Website, Video]

Clay's Reverie, by SuperGlueStudio, China [Video]

FTL (Faster than Light), by Matthew Davis & Justin Ma, China [Website]

One Tap Hero, by Coconut Island Studio, China [Video]

Pixel May Cry, by Feng Li, China [Video]

Pocket Warriors, by WitOne Games, China [Website, Video]

Super Sheep Tap, by aBit Games, China [Website, Video]

The Line HD, by Ant Hive Games, China [Website, Video]

Continue reading "IGF China 2011 Announces Main Competition, Student Finalists" »

September 11, 2011

Six Weeks Reminder: IGF 2012 Deadlines Approach

[Continuing his posts on the 2012 Independent Games Festival competition, IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer reminds on the upcoming deadline for the IGF competitions, also detailing some important specifics on entries.]

Hello everyone! As we did last year, we're dropping a quick note here that the deadline for Independent Games Festival 2012 Main Competition entries is October 17th at 11:59pm PST -- that's six weeks from today.

On the Student Competition side, you've got a bit more leeway: submissions for entry there must be made by October 31st at 11:59pm PST -- an additional two weeks from the Main deadline.

For our part, we've been quietly working behind the scenes -- as promised -- to make your experience with the IGF even smoother than it has been before.

To that end, you may have already spotted that the initial "submission received" emails you get on successful entry into the festival contain a new link. It's just above the information for uploading your entry.

This new page -- look for a link, and mail us if you didn't get it -- will be your personal hub throughout the remainder of the festival. That way, you can update your entry's public and private description, modify instructions for judges, link to newer videos and trailers, and upload updated screenshots with ease.

We're still working on making other updates to this page, to keep you better informed about the festival's process & progress throughout the judging and jurying period. You'll be hearing more about that in the coming weeks as they're completed and added.

As an additional reminder, (because it's a question I still get asked quite often): that initial deadline does not mean your IGF-entered game has to be content complete by the 17th. It simply means that your initial, playable game submission needs to be in our system by that time. Judges may play the game at any time from that date onwards.

Throughout the judging process, you'll be free to polish and upload newer builds of your game, and judges will play the newest version available. (However, we can't guarantee exactly when they will get to play a title, so try to submit early, near-finished, and update often if not!)

That's all for now -- very much looking forward to seeing what you've been cooking up over the past year! As usual, don't hesitate to get in touch at brandon@igf.com with any questions or concerns!

September 9, 2011

Indie Games Summit At GDC China 2011 Reveals First Speakers

GDC China has debuted the first group of lectures in the show's Independent Games Summit, featuring talks from thatgamecompany co-founder Jenova Chen, Capybara Games on Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP, and Supergiant Games on its indie hit Bastion.

The event, which is co-located with the IGF China, will take place November 4-6 at the Shanghai Convention Center in Shanghai, China, and will once again serve as the premier game industry event in China, bringing together influential developers from around the world to share ideas, network, and inspire each other to further the game industry in this region.

This year, the show will feature two Summits in addition to the Main Conference, covering Independent Games and Mobile Games.

The following are the first lectures to be announced for GDC China's Indie Games Summit:

- While video games are undoubtedly a significant form of entertainment media, they are often treated more like software or technology than a valid means of expression.

In "Video Games as a Medium for Entertainment & Artistic Expression," Jenova Chen, co-founder of Flower and Journey developer thatgamecompany, will look at the medium from an artistic perspective, demonstrating how games can deliver substantial experiences, feelings, and messages.

- Occasionally, business and design decisions that look awful on paper can lead to surprising success. This certainly held true for Capybara Games' Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (pictured), an eccentric iOS title that forced the team to take major risks with its design, business, and production processes.

In "Perhaps a Time of Miracles was at Hand: The Business & Development of #Sworcery," Capybara Games co-founder Nathan Vella will provide an in-depth look at how this unusual game grew into a critical and financial success.

Continue reading "Indie Games Summit At GDC China 2011 Reveals First Speakers" »

September 1, 2011

2011 IGF China Extends Submissions Until Sept. 5th

Organizers of the Independent Games Festival China, which runs in conjunction with the Game Developers Conference China, have officially announced that the call for indie game submissions from the pan-Pacific area will remain open through Monday, September 5.

Following on its success in past years, GDC China will continue to host the three main elements of IGF China, including the Independent Games Summit, which provides valuable conference sessions specializing in the challenges of independent game development.

These include the Independent Games Festival Pavilion, an onsite exhibition of the very best in local indie games, and the Independent Games Festival Awards, which honors the work of the talented pool of local independent game developers.

The 2011 IGF China Main Competition will give out awards and cash prizes in five categories, including:

- Best Game (RMB20,000 ~ $3,060 USD)
- Mobile Best Game (RMB10, 000 ~ $1,530 USD)
- Excellence In Audio (RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD)
- Excellence In Technology (RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD)
- Excellence In Visual Arts (RMB5,000 ~ $760 USD)

Finalists -- who will receive VIP and expo passes to attend GDC China and the IGF awards ceremony on November 12, 2011 -- will be chosen by a panel of expert jurors including Kevin Li (CEO, TipCat Interactive); Monte Singman (CEO, Radiance Digital Entertainment); Xubo Yang (Director of Digital Art Lab and Assistant Professor; Shanghai Jiaotong University's School of Software), and jury chairman Simon Carless, IGF Chairman Emeritus and EVP of the GDC shows and Gamasutra.

Continue reading "2011 IGF China Extends Submissions Until Sept. 5th" »

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