IGF blog

Best of IGF returns to Melbourne's ACMI

Thu, 15 Mar 2012 20:57:28 +0000

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.

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

Thu, 08 Mar 2012 17:40:24 +0000

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:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($30,000)
Fez, by Polytron

Nuovo Award ($5,000)
Storyteller, by Daniel Benmergui

Excellence in Visual Art ($3,000)
Dear Esther, by thechineseroom

Technical Excellence ($3,000)
Antichamber, by Demruth

Excellence in Design ($3,000)
Spelunky, by Mossmouth

Excellence in Audio ($3,000)
Botanicula, by Amanita Design

Best Mobile Game ($3,000)
Beat Sneak Bandit, by Simogo

Audience Award ($3,000)
Frozen Synapse, by Mode 7 Games

Best Student Game ($3,000)
Way, by CMU Entertainment Technology Center/Coco & Co

The Independent Games Festival - which also included a two-day Independent Games Summit on Monday, March 5th and Tuesday, March 6th as part of GDC - was established in 1998 by UBM TechWeb Game Network to encourage the rise of independent game development and to recognize the best independent game titles, in the same way that the Sundance Film Festival has honored the independent film community.

Organizers would like to thank this year's kind supporters of the IGF, including DigiPen Institute of Technology (Platinum Sponsor), Microsoft Studios (Platinum Sponsor), Research In Motion (Gold Sponsor), ENJMIN (Gold Sponsor), ISART Digital (Gold Sponsor) and OnLive (Gold Sponsor). The IGF offers finalists both global exposure and more than $50,000 in cash prizes to each year's winners.

OnLive offering free trials of select IGF 2012 nominees

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 01:12:56 +0000

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.

IGF 2012 Audience Award Opens Voting

Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:21:15 +0000

[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!

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Student Showcase Winners

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 09:22:26 +0000

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:

The Bridge (Case Western Reserve University)
Dust (Art Institute of Phoenix)
The Floor Is Jelly (Kansas City Art Institute)
Nous (DigiPen Institute of Technology)
One and One Story (Liceo Scientifico G.B. Morgagni)
Pixi (DigiPen Institute of Technology - Singapore)
The Snowfield (Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab)
Way (Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center)

Honorable mentions: Be Good (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Lilith's Pet (University of Kassel); Nitronic Rush (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Once Upon A Spacetime (RMIT); Tink (Mediadesign Highschool of Applied Sciences)

This year's Student IGF entries were distributed to an opt-in subset of the main competition judging body, consisting of more than 100 leading independent and mainstream developers, academics and journalists. 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.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival, for which Main Competition finalists were also just announced, please visit the official IGF website -- and for those interested in registering for GDC 2012, which includes the Independent Games Summit, the IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards Ceremony, please visit the Game Developers Conference website.

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 08:21:34 +0000

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:

Excellence In Visual Art

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

Honorable mentions: Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo); Dustforce (Hitbox Team); Fader (Chris Makris); Proun (Joost van Dongen); Toren (Swordtales)

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)

Honorable mentions: Frozen Synapse (Mode 7 Games); Nitronic Rush (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Reflow (Xymatic); Super T.I.M.E Force (Capy); Tiny and Big - Grandpa's Leftovers (Black Pants)

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)

Honorable mentions: Faraway (Steph Thirion); FTL (Justin Ma & Matthew Davis); Johann Sebastian Joust (Die Gute Fabrik); SpaceChem (Zachtronics Industries); Where Is My Heart (Die Gute Fabrik)

Excellence In Audio

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

Honorable mentions: Beatbuddy (THREAKS); Beat Sneak Bandit (Simogo); Fez (Polytron); Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga); Where Is My Heart (Die Gute Fabrik)

Best Mobile Game

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

Honorable mentions: Fingle (Game Oven Studios); Hundreds (SemiSecret and aeiowu); iBlast Moki 2 (Godzilab); Temple Run (Imangi Studios); Tentacles (Press Play ApS)

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.)

Honorable mentions: Deep Sea (WRAUGHK); Four Letter Word (Terry Cavanagh); GlitchHiker (Aardbever); Hundreds (SemiSecret and aeiowu); POP (Rob Lach)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

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

Honorable mentions: Antichamber (Demruth); FTL (Justin Ma & Matthew Davis); Proteus (Ed Key and David Kanaga); SpaceChem (Zachtronics Industries); Where Is My Heart (Die Gute Fabrik)

In addition, the IGF announced last month that the festival program has entered a new multi-year partnership with Microsoft Studios and its Xbox LIVE Arcade publishing team, to offer a new prize to support notable indies. A standalone jury of independent game creators is working with Microsoft to identify possible choices for the 'XBLA Prize'.

The prize includes 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, and full game funding to complete the title, if desired, and its winner will be announced on stage during the IGF Awards this March.

"While the sheer number of fantastic entries in this year's festival made whittling down this selection of finalists a difficult task for our judges and juries, that overwhelming show of quality is proof that independents truly are driving the future of games," said IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer. "I'm tremendously excited to see a wider audience discovering and getting to experience all of the beauty and brilliance showcased this year."

The Independent Games Festival was established in 1998 by UBM TechWeb's Game Network to encourage the rise of independent game development and to recognize the best independent game titles, in the same way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. Organizers would like to thank sponsors including IGF Platinum Sponsor Microsoft, IGF Platinum Student Showcase Sponsor DigiPen, and IGF Gold Student Showcase Sponsor ENJMIN.

IGF Student Showcase award winners, contending for the Best Student Game award at the Festival, will be announced in the near future, and voting for an IGF Audience Award from participating titles will kick off in late January.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival, please visit the official IGF website at http://www.igf.com - and for those interested in registering for GDC 2012, which includes the Independent Games Summit, the IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards Ceremony, please visit the Game Developers Conference website, http://www.gdconf.com.

2012 Independent Games Festival Finalists: What The Jury Thought

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 07:49:25 +0000

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."

Botanicula

"Botanicula has some of the most charming and surprising animation I've played the entire IGF. I can't imagine anyone playing this and not giggling with wonder at all the hidden things one stumbles upon during a play session."

"My favorite so far, and kinda by a long shot. It has a ton of personality and charm. The music is really well done and interesting. The implementation is great as well. The interactivity is fun and really adds to the world. The more i played of this one, the more i liked the audio."

Dear Esther

"There's a lot of sensitivity to how the world design speaks to the player's emotions, and provokes curiosity."

"Dear Esther is top of my list. Mainly because I feel like it is taking a known genre and game engine and creating something from it that is a total artistic experience."

"There are a lot of games that would be less good as an overall package if their audio weren't as good as it is, but Dear Esther would not work at all if its audio wasn't as good as it is. To me, that warrants special attention."

English Country Tune

"One of the purest, most original, least-contrived puzzle games in years."

"Relatively simple... but its mechanics kept developing into more and more interesting places, and its surface simplicity belied how clever and demanding some of its puzzles could be. It felt like a came from a very pure, unique place. I was surprised by it constantly."

Faraway

"A simple mechanic played out with really beautiful minimal art and sound, it's a good mix of an immediate, responsive control and a confining, broken control."

Fez

"Fez is so epic that i think we'll look back on it as both an homage to video game history, as well as one of the most compelling audiovisual experiences of our times. Such an amazing showcase of craft and talent and design perfection."

Fingle

"A great multiplayer, multitouch iPad game -- with a great shag-carpet, audio-visual style."

Frozen Synapse

"As a model for strategic e-sports, Frozen Synapse is amazing."

"[I'm] still in awe that a small indie developer managed to craft a 1v1 game of such depth. wonderful, asynchronous mind-games."

"The flow and experience of playing multiple asynchronous matches of multplayer X-COM just blows me away."

GIRP

"This game is such an interesting abstraction of rock climbing - it actually manages to reduce the task to one mechanic, and yet maintain a real sense of the tension and frustration of the act."

Gunpoint

"Once you're messing around with the wiring to turn off lights to make guards move, then smacking them in the face with doors, it starts to be a whole lot of fun and I laughed a lot."

"This game did a good job making you feel like a spy. The game did a good job of teaching you the basics by showing you one line of text as you'd mouse-hover over things."

Johann Sebastian Joust

"This game is genuinely innovative (even as it builds on centuries-old playground games) and beautifully elegant. It really does redefine for me what a game can be, while still being well-crafted and enjoyable."

Lume

"Lume is beautiful and fascinating and it's like playing a game in a children's book. Technically, there is some pretty interesting things happening here that you have to see for yourself."

"Lume is such a handsome feast... overall, very lush and touching. The rich contrast, lighting and depth of field made me feel cozy."

Mirage

"Probably my favorite so far, and definitely the first time a game has reminded me of Max Ernst..."

Proteus

"Visually and sonically, it strikes the perfect balance between familiar and unfamiliar, it achieves more with less. Proteus, on the other hand, dispenses little gems with sobriety, giving you a reason to explore and a meaning to your button pushing. It has subtlety which is an extremely rare quality in games, indie and not."

Pugs Luv Beats

"This one took me by surprise. It's super charming and the music integration into the gameplay is really creative here. I was enjoying the audio until I realized that the planet selection screen basically andallows you to play two monosynths and...at that point I was sold!"

Ridiculous Fishing

"Impossible to lose, it's really all about how your internal, OCD-desire for efficiency, along with the intrinsic fun of the two activities of fishing and blasting. I happily played through (in the sense that I bought everything in the shop and played for a bit longer) in one sitting."

Spelunky

"With Spelunky, you are never learning a 'piece' of music... It's still a game about repetition and learning, but what you are learning is the overall composition, understanding the overall system and how it works, and becoming fluent in that. At first I disliked the way the ghost worked against the other elements of the game, encouraging recklessness in a game where recklessness was fatal. But eventually I came to love this tension, and appreciate it as the beating heart of the game. Spelunky looks like a game of execution, but it's really a game about information and decision-making. How good are you at looking at a situation and understanding what it means? You can't memorize, and you can't take time to carefully analyze, you must rely on your literacy of the system, and this is a kind of holistic knowledge that feels great in my brain, a wonderful new flavor for a single-player game, and a deeply promising direction for further exploration."

Storyteller

"I've not only never seen anything remotely like it, but I've never encountered anyone even imagining anything in this direction. And if I had imagined it, I probably would have said, 'Nah, that will never work.'"

"It's a game about storytelling, one of the few I know, a fortunate Vladimir Propp + Scott McCloud mash-up that takes full advantage of the combinatorial properties of software. It has a greater level of complexity than the simple branching narrative at the core of his previous work and it requires, in my opinion, a more sophisticated intellectual effort from the player."

To The Moon

"What Amnesia's sound design accomplished in emotional terror, this game's music accomplishes in sentimentality and longing, and... thus struck me as having the most memorable audio."

Wonderputt

"Wonderputt literally does inspire a sense of wonder."

"There's no pretense of depth or meaning, it's just surprising and wonderful (and absurdly well-animated) for it's own sake."

Waking Mars

"This one got me instantly, deeply immersed. Really feels exploratory in the way mechanic and story are combined, they're actually going for inspiring some suspension of disbelief in the player instead of just laying out the controls in a literal fashion."

"It's kinda like Another World meets Sim Earth, but with totally different controls and mechanics which are totally suited to the iPad."

"Good atmosphere and player feedback sounds... probably represents some of the most fully realized audio in any of the games in the competition."

Way

"Subtle and very highly structured, but the pointing system is somewhat magical."

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

Sun, 01 Jan 2012 16:44:15 +0000

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)

IGF 2012 Reveals Visual Art, Audio, Mobile Jury Panels

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 21:34:30 +0000

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:

- James Barker (lead designer & engineer at GL33K, the indie audio studio behind games like Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, Epic Mickey & Donkey Kong Country Returns)
- Matthew Burns (founder of Shadegrown Games, behind musical shooter Planck)
- Matt 'Chainsaw' Chaney (audio lead at Gunstringer & Splosion Man creators Twisted Pixel)
- Dylan Fitterer (creator of music-puzzle racer and 2008 IGF Excellence in Audio winner Audiosurf)
- Darren Korb (audio lead at Bastion creators Supergiant Games)
- David Lloyd & Larry Oji (respectively, musician and founder of game music site OverClocked ReMix; OCR head and soundtrack director on Capcom's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.)
- Emily Ridgway (music director and audio designer on games like BioShock, Brutal Legend & Costume Quest)
- Chris Schlarb (Asthmatic Kitty recording artist & composer on Nifflas's NightSky & Erik Loyer's Strange Rain)

The Best Mobile Game Award

The Best Mobile Game Award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality in mobile and handheld gaming, now in its second year as part of the main Independent Games Festival.

Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Mobile awards have gone to entrants which featured impressive displays of handheld gaming, including Ratloop's vibrant puzzler Helsing's Fire, Tiger Style's innovative touch platformer Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and Superbrothers and Capy's Sword & Sworcery EP.

The Mobile Award jury consists of the following:

- Colin Anderson (co-founder of Denki, creators of Quarrel, Denki Blocks, Juggle)
- Eddy Boxerman (founder of Hemisphere Games, creators of the IGF award winning Osmos)
- Kevin Cancienne (game designer & developer at Area/Code, creators of Drop7)
- Phil Hassey (creator of the IGF award winning Galcon)
- Mike Kasprzak (founder of Sykhronics, creators of IGF mobile award finalist Smiles)
- Erik Loyer (creator of innovative iOS games Ruben & Lullaby and Strange Rain)
- Simon Oliver (founder of Rolando & OKABU creators HandCircus)
- Matt Rix (founder of Magicule & creator of IGF finalist Trainyard)
- Wiley Wiggins (founder of Karakasa Games, currently producing iPad adventure Thunderbeam)

All entries in the 2012 Independent Games Festival are currently browsable at the IGF's official site, where you can also find more complete biographical information for the Main Competition juries.

All finalists will be announced -- along with a jury statement detailing the thought process behind selecting its lineup -- in early January 2012. All finalists will be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the show floor during Game Developers Conference 2012, with the winner announced on the evening of March 7, 2012, at the IGF Awards.

IGF 2012 Reveals Design, Technical Excellence, Nuovo Jury Panels

Wed, 14 Dec 2011 19:23:31 +0000

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:

- Scott Anderson (creator of experimental game prototype Shadow Physics)
- Brett Douville (LucasArts veteran and lead programmer at Skyrim creators Bethesda)
- Ryan Doyle (former programmer on Criterion's Burnout series and Geometry Wars: Galaxies; co-founder and Technical Director of Joe Danger creator Hello Games)
- Paul Du Bois (senior programmer at Psychonauts Brutal Legend creators Double Fine)
- Tyler Glaiel (creator of IGF award winner Closure)
- Anna Kipnis (AI and game play programmer for Double Fine)
- Ichiro Lambe (founder and president of AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! -- A Reckless Disregard for Gravity creators Dejobaan)
- Andy Nealen (assistant professor of computer science at Rutgers University & core team member of Hemisphere Games, creators of the IGF award-winning Osmos)
- Tommy Refenes (Team Meat engineer behind 2010 IGF Finalist Super Meat Boy)
- Dan Tabar (founder of Data Realms, creator of 2009 Technical Excellence award-winning Cortex Command)

The Nuovo Award

Now in its fourth year, the Nuovo Award -- which allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles -- has previously been awarded to Jason Rohrer's abstract multiplayer title Between, Tuning -- the perception-warping platform puzzler from Swedish indie Cactus, and Messhof's low-res tug-of-war battler Nidhogg.

This year's Nuovo Award jury has been selected to represent a diverse body of developers (both independent and mainstream), academics, art world notables, and -- in general -- some of our industry's top thinkers on the future of the videogame medium.

The Nuovo Award jury consists of the following:

- Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology professor and Director of the digital media graduate program, founding partner of Persuasive Games, and creator of 2010 Nuovo finalist A Slow Year)
- Tracy Fullerton (professor & director of the Game Innovation Lab at the USC School of Cinematic Arts)
- Rod Humble (CEO of Second Life creator Linden Lab, and experimental game creator behind The Marriage and Stars Over Half Moon Bay)
- Jesper Juul (author of the MIT Press book 'A Casual Revolution', visiting professor at NYU Game Center)
- Heather Kelley (founder of interaction design studio Perfect Plum, co-founder of Kokoromi)
- Paolo Pedercini (game developer at Molleindustria [Phone Story, Every Day The Same Dream], artist and educator at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University)
- Jason Rohrer (independent developer and creator of Inside a Star-filled Sky, Sleep Is Death, Passage and 2009 Nuovo winner Between)
- Michael Samyn (co-founder of Tale of Tales, the studio behind The Endless Forest, The Path, Fatale and 2009 Nuovo finalist The Graveyard)
- Eddo Stern (Los Angeles-based artist and game designer behind exhibits like Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament and Darkgame, and Director of the UCLA Game Lab.)
- Jeroen D Stout (co-founder of Stout Games, the studio behind IGF 2011 Nuovo nominee Dinner Date)
- Eric Zimmerman (formerly co-founder of independent studio and Diner Dash creator Gamelab, now NYU Game Center educator and co-author of notable game book 'Rules Of Play'.)

All entries in the 2012 Independent Games Festival are currently browsable at the IGF's official site, where you can also find more complete biographical information for our first three juries.

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

Mon, 05 Dec 2011 17:28:58 +0000

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.

2011 Independent Games Festival China Winners Announced

Sun, 13 Nov 2011 01:28:52 +0000

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.

2012 Independent Games Festival Reveals Student Entries

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 23:35:47 +0000

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.

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.

Reminder: 2012 IGF Student Competition Submissions Close Today

Mon, 31 Oct 2011 19:32:12 +0000

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.

Important dates for IGF 2012 - organized by the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website - 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.

Both multi-thousand person attendee award shows are part of the 2012 Game Developers Conference, taking place March 5th - March 9th, 2012. GDC 2012 also includes the 2012 Independent Games Summit, which is entering its sixth year and offers two days (March 5-6) of inspiration, practical lectures, and rants from the top minds in the independent games world.

For more information on the 2012 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics, frequently asked questions, and more discussion on this year's contest from the IGF Chairman, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website.

2012 Independent Games Festival Announces Record Main Competition Entrants

Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:00:59 +0000

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.