The 20th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards took place as part of the Game Developers Conference on March 21st, 2018.
The show starts in the importance of exposing the creativity of different minds with a variety of experiences through indie games and the story that indie developers make. With a few jokes out of the way and a nice roundup of a few nominated games, the Independent Games Festival awards ceremony commences.
You can see the stream archive for the awards show:
Watch 2018 IGF & Game Developers Choice Awards from GDC on www.twitch.tv
Here are the nominee in the order the awards were presented and highlighted are the winners of each category.
BEST STUDENT GAME
10 Interloper (DANG!)
Don’t Make Love (Maggese)
Penny Blue Finds a Clue (DigiPen Team Cactus Curse)
We Were Here (Total Mayhem Games)
Baba is You (Hempuli)
Guardians of the Gears (DigiPen Team Studio 76)
Going into the IGF awards, Baba is You definitely had one of the most nominations being a contender in four categories. Both a student and debut game, this student definitely must have a lot to be happy about as he steps onto the stage to take his first award at the show for Best Student Game. Baba is You is a unique puzzle game to say the least however it was up with some tough competition as all the games here had a variety of themes and genres and style.
EXCELLENCE IN VISUAL ART
Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall)
Cuphead (Studio MDHR)
Echo (Ultra Ultra)
Luna (Funomena)
The Gardens Between (The Voxel Agents)
Chuchel (Amanita Design)
While there were some obvious titles like Night in the Woods and Cuphead that were much more popular options noted for their visual art, this year’s winner went to one of the more recently released games in this category called Chuchel, developed by Amanita Design, that features a little furry monster in a point and click comedy adventure on a quest to get back his cherry in a various of different levels. Looking at the visuals of this category, all of them stood out in their own way particularly with Luna which had a beautiful art style as well while the upcoming The Gardens Between definitely felt like it excelled more in their game design than the visual art aspect.
EXCELLENCE IN AUDIO
Tormentor X Punisher (E-Studio)
Cuphead (Studio MDHR)
Vignettes (Skeleton Business)
Rain World (Videocult)
Uurnog Uurnlimited (Nifflas Games)
Celeste (The Celeste Team)
Uurnog Uurnlimited, developed by Nifflas Games, absolutely seems like the obvious choice to be a winner in this category. Its game has a specific program that links actions to create the sound to begin with. You can find a video that talks about all of that online which shows off how neat the program itself is and how much love was put into this whimsical puzzle game.
You can watch our podcast review of Rain World here.
ALT.CTRL.GDC AWARD
Bot Party
Puppet Pandemonium
Wobble Garden
Too Many Captains and Not Enough Wires
Mark Wars
EXCELLENCE IN DESIGN
Into the Breach (Subset Games)
Shenzhen I/O (Zachtronics)
Wilmot’s Warehouse (Hollow Ponds)
Baba is You (Hempuli)
Uurnog Uurnlimited (Nifflas Games)
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy)
One look at the nominations and there is a great variety of designs from hacking to organizing to climbing impossible mountains and solving puzzles. Coming back for the second award is Baba is You which has us looking forward to what their full game has to offer which is due for release later this year.
NUOVO AWARD
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy)
Tarotica Voo Doo (TPM.CO Soft Works)
10 Mississippi (Karina Popp)
A Mortician’s Tale (Laundry Bear Games)
Cosmic Top Secret (Klassefilm And Those Eyes)
Everything is Going to be Ok (Nathalie Lawhead)
Baba is You (Hempuli)
Kids (Playables)
Nuovo Award is given for innovation and the winner goes to Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, the game that tore out the souls of many gamers last year over and over again or simply made them rage as they struggled towards sweet victory. With the incredible success of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, it is hard to deny its win for innovation to create a game that delivers a certain balance that has its players wondering whether its shotty controls or their own ineptitude.
EXCELLENCE IN NARRATIVE
Tacoma (Fullbright Games)
Attentat 1942 (Charles University & Czech Academy of Sciences)
Where the Water Tastes Like Wine (Dim Bulb Games & Serenity Forge)
Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall)
Butterfly Soup (Brianna Lei)
Tooth and Tail (Pocketwatch Games)
The narrative category had some poignant stories to tell with games that dives into all kinds of experiences. However, Night in the Woods finally takes home the award for this category and rightfully so as its positive reviews have always highlighted the great story that it delivers in this adventure game.
ID@Xbox GAMING FOR EVERYONE AWARD – SpecialEffect Charity
It’s always a heartwarming moment to highlight the efforts of people in the society working hard to deliver gaming to everyone in the society and this year, SpecialEffect gets this honor as its UK based charity organization strive to deliver gaming to people with disabilities, a noble cause that deserves recognition.
IGF AUDIENCE AWARD- Celeste
Recently released this year, Celeste is a mountain climbing platformer that takes home the Audience Award. Not surprising as the reception has been incredibly positive with full scores from IGN and Steam and 93% on Metacritic.
SEAMUS MCNALLY GRAND PRIZE
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy)
Night In The Woods (Infinite Fall)
West of Loathing (Asymmetric)
Into the Breach (Subset Games)
Heat Signature (Suspicious Developments)
Baba is You (Hempuli)
The final award of the night, which highlights the indie game of the year goes to Night in the Woods. They may have lost on a few smaller categories but they nab the Grand Prize. As they talk about the game, it definitely shows a game built from a lot of heart and love and personal experiences which always helps to reach out to its audience. This category also includes some strong competition, all of which having their own style especially with the other big IGF winner Baba is You. Not to mention some quirky ideas like West of Loathing featuring stick people art with a lot of love from its players as well as Into the Breach, a follow-up game from the team behind FTL: Faster Than Light.
With this, the 20th Annual IGF Awards comes to close. Baba is You and Night in the Woods are the big winners of the evening both taking home two awards. However, the evening did reveal a lot of indie game titles that are worth a look from all aspects from visual art, narrative design, audio and innovation. Which indie game stood out for you?