Ninth Annual Independent Games Festival Selects Finalists From Record Number Of Entries
Posted by: EG Admin on December 11, 2006 11:36:14 AM (52 Reads)

Jury of Games Press and Developers Choose Games to Compete for Over $50,000 in Prizes

Independent Games Festival (IGF) has chosen finalists out of a record 141 entries for its ninth annual competition celebrating the most innovative creations to come out of the independent and student game communities. Selected by a jury made up of developers from Foundation 9, Ubisoft, Crytek, Midway, Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi and Gearbox, as well as journalists from Wired, Slashdot, Joystiq, Kotaku, Penny Arcade and the BBC, the finalists will compete for more than $50,000 in prizes, including a $2,500 Audience Award determined by fan votes on a GameSpot-hosted website. Nominated games will be exhibited at the IGF Pavilion, March 7-9, 2007, at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC, CMP Technology's annual conference dedicated to the art, science and business of games, takes place March 5-9, 2007 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Winners will be announced at the Conference's IGF Awards Ceremony on March 7, 2007.

IGF finalists were led by Bit Blot's dreamlike 2D underwater adventure title Aquaria, which garnered four nominations, including one for the Seumas McNally Game of the Year. Game of the Year nominees also include Queasy Games' abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed three nominations in total, as well as complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Wild West strategy MMO Bang! Howdy and Xbox Live Arcade action-puzzler Roboblitz, each of which received two nods.

"It was wonderful, incredible and quite a challenge to have to choose just five finalists per category from what were 141 astounding entries," said Simon Carless, IGF chairman. "It is a huge testament to the success of the IGF over the past nine years that so many inventive developers were inspired to create and submit games into the competition. We salute all entrants, and hope this year's Festival proves to be the launching pad that it has become for so many of our past nominees."

The finalists for the 2007 Independent Games Festival are:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Aquaria - Bit Blot
Armadillo Run - Peter Stock
Bang! Howdy - Three Rings Design
Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games
Roboblitz - Naked Sky Entertainment

Best Web Browser Game
Bubble Islands - dot-invasion
Gamma Bros - Pixeljam
Samorost 2 - Amanita Design

Design Innovation Award
Armadillo Run - Peter Stock
Aquaria - Bit Blot
Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games
Toblo - Digipen Institute of Technology
Toribash - NABI Software

Excellence In Visual Art
Aquaria - Bit Blot
Castle Crashers - The Behemoth
Golf? - Luke Hetherington Company
Roboblitz - Naked Sky Entertainment
Samorost 2 - Amanita Design

Excellence In Audio
Aquaria - Bit Blot
Bone: The Great Cow Race - Telltale Games
Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games
FizzBall - Grubby Games
Racing Pitch - Skinflake

Technical Excellence
Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow - Slitherine Software
Armada Online - EvStream
Bang! Howdy “ Three Rings Design
Blast Miner - Cryptic Sea
Bugs Of War - NinjaBee

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, much the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. Finalists for the IGF Modding Competition and the IGF Student Showcase will be announced in December 2006 and January 2007, respectively.

More than 12,500 game industry professionals will convene during GDC, the world's largest games industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of resources, tools and technologies used to create interactive entertainment. The GDC features more than 300 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts.

To register for the Game Developers Conference and review conference information, please visit www.gdconf.com. Press registration is also currently open.

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