IGF announces main competition finalists, partnership with XBox Live.

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The Independent Games Festival has announced the finalists for its main competition, which will be held on March 7-9th in San Francisco as part of the annual Independent Games Summit. What’s super cool is they’ve signed a multi-year agreement with Xbox Live Arcade to create a new competition, the winner of which will get published on XBLA. It’s called the “XBLA Prize,” because you definitely didn’t see that one coming. It’s not gaming’s version of the Sundance channel yet, but it’s a step in the right direction. Here’s the full list of IGF finalists:

Excellence In Visual Art

  • Botanicula (Amanita Design)
  • Dear Esther (thechineseroom)
  • Lume (State Of Play Games)
  • Mirage (Mario von Rickenbach)
  • Wonderputt (Damp Gnat)

Technical Excellence

  • Antichamber (Demruth)
  • Fez (Polytron)
  • Prom Week (Expressive Intelligence Studio, UC Santa Cruz)
  • Realm of the Mad God (Wild Shadow Studios & Spry Fox)
  • Spelunky (Mossmouth)

Excellence In Design

  • Atom Zombie Smasher (Blendo Games)
  • English Country Tune (Stephen Lavelle)
  • Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)
  • Gunpoint (Tom Francis, John Roberts and Fabian van Dommelen)
  • Spelunky (Mossmouth)

Excellence In Audio

  • Botanicula (Amanita Design)
  • Dear Esther (thechineseroom)
  • Pugs Luv Beats (Lucky Frame)
  • To The Moon (Freebird Games)
  • Waking Mars (Tiger Style)

Best Mobile Game

  • ASYNC Corp (Powerhead Games)
  • Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo)
  • Faraway (Steph Thirion)
  • Ridiculous Fishing (Vlambeer)
  • Waking Mars (Tiger Style)

Nuovo Award
[Designed ‘to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development’.]

  • At a Distance (Terry Cavanagh)
  • Dear Esther (thechineseroom)
  • Fingle (Game Oven Studios)
  • GIRP (Bennett Foddy)
  • Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga)
  • Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)
  • Storyteller (Daniel Benmergui)
  • Way (CoCo & Co.)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

  • Dear Esther (thechineseroom)
  • Fez (Polytron)
  • Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games)
  • Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik)
  • Spelunky (Mossmouth)

That is so many finalists for so many categories! But even though we don’t have a rating system anymore, all of you get 10.0s!

[via] [image]

-Drew Millard