Every year, several hundred evaluators and judges help decide the recipients of a number of awards from the Independent Games Festival, a small part of the larger Game Developers Conference that’s hosted in San Francisco. The IGF today revealed the list of finalists for the 18th annual awards, including the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
The IGF Awards are intended to honor “the most influential, innovative and exemplary projects in independent game development” — and there’s certainly lots of all three qualities spread across the nominees. Mini Metro, Her Story and Darkest Dungeon, among others, received numerous nominations in several categories, and the style and genre of the games varies wildly from turn-based role-playing games to autobiographical simulation.
One interesting turn of events? A number of award nominees received high-profile praise this year beyond from what might be considered the indie game-specific media. Her Story, for example, ranked #1 on Polygon’s list of the best video games from 2015, and Undertale has seemingly captured the hearts and minds of a very active set of fans — evidenced by the game’s controversial win in last year’s major GameFAQs poll.
The 2016 IGF Awards will be announced at an event immediately preceding the Game Developers Choice Awards, which is much the same but with a broader focus to include larger developers, on March 16 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The full list of awards nominees can be found on the IGF website, but we’ve included those nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize below.
Seumas McNally Grand Prize Nominees
- Mini Metro (Dinosaur Polo Club)
- Darkest Dungeon (Red Hook Studios Inc.)
- Her Story (Sam Barlow)
- Keep Talking & Nobody Explodes (Steel Crate Games)
- Superhot (Superhot)
- Undertale (Toby Fox)
