The Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists in the seventh annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) competition. Selected by a panel of industry professionals, game development teams will compete for more than $40,000 in cash prizes. These finalists will exhibit their titles at the Game Developers Conference, to be held March 7-11 in San Francisco. Winners will be announced at the conference’s Game Developers Choice Awards Ceremony on March 9.
The IGF was established in 1998 by the CMP Game Group to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers. With more than 78 entries from all over the world, the IGF reflects how global the game development community has become.
The 10 games selected for the “Open” category are:
Alien Hominid by The Behemoth of San Diego, Calif.
Dark Horizons Lore by Max Gaming Technologies of Strongsville, Ohio Gish by Chronic Logic LLC of Santa Cruz, Calif.
Hyperbol by Iocaine Studios of Yorba Linda, Calif.
Kisses by DigiPen Institute of Technology of Woodland Hills, Calif.
Legion Arena by Slitherine Strategies of Epsom, Surrey, U.K.
Protothea by Digital Builders, Santa Fe of Santa Fe, Argentina
Supremacy: Four Paths To Power by Black Hammer Game of New York, N.Y.
War! Age of Imperialism by Donohoe Digital LLC of Castle Rock, Col.
The 10 games selected for the Web/downloadable category are:
Creatrix by Ultrafish Games of Los Angeles, Calif.
Detective Brand Gold by Detective Brand Videogames with Chronic Logic of New Westminster, B.C.
Global Defense Network by Evertt.com LLC of Kirkland, Wash.
LUX by Sillysoft of Montreal, Canada
N by Metanet Software Inc. of Toronto, Canada
RocketBowl by Large Animal Games of New York, N.Y.
Rotation by Alter Ego Games Studio of Sammamish, Wash.
Star Chamber by Nayantara Studios LLC of Charlottesville, Virginia
Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space by Digital Eel of Kirkland, Wash.
Wik and the Fable of Souls by Reflexive Ent. of Lake Forest, Calif.
Games in each category are eligible for six awards–Innovation In Audio, Innovation In Game Design, Innovation In Visual Arts, Technical Excellence, The Audience Award and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Independent Game of the Year.
“The quality of games submitted for this year’s competition showed range and creativity; the selection process gets more difficult each year,” says IGF Chairman Alex Dunne. "We’re pleased to see developers take chances and explore new types of gameplay.”
To register for the Game Developers Conference and review conference information, go to www.gdconf.com. Press registration is also available at this time. More information about the finalist games can be found at www.igf.com.
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