IGF 2013 Finalists (Independent Games Festival, Winners TBA)

[Family Fry]

Every year a thread kinda creeps up and disappears....wait a sec!

http://www.bordersdown.net/threads/113226-IGF-2012-Finalists-and-Winners-(Independent-Games-Festival)?highlight=Independent+Game+Festival+2012

There will be a live stream again from GameSpot on Wednesday, March 27, 2013 from 6:30pm - 8:30pm PST, link has countdown timer.

http://uk.gamespot.com/shows/gamespot-live/?event=2013_igf_gdc_awards_live20130327

So lets take a look at the finalists, also I'm going to put in some predictions for a laugh.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize: (Prediction - FTL)
• Cart Life
• FTL: Faster than Light
• Hotline Miami
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Little Inferno

Excellence in Visual Art: (Prediction - Kentucky Route Zero)
• Guacamelee!
• Incredipede
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime
• Year Walk

Technical Excellence: (Prediction - Perspective)
• Intrusion 2
• LiquidSketch
• Little Inferno
• Perspective
• StarForge

Excellence in Design: (Prediction - Super Hexagon)
• FTL: Faster than Light
• Samurai Gunn
• Starseed Pilgrim
• Super Hexagon
• Super Space ____

Excellence in Audio: (Prediction - Hotline Miami)
• 140
• Bad Hotel
• Hotline Miami
• Kentucky Route Zero
• PixelJunk 4am

Excellence in Narrative: (Prediction - Gone Home)
• Cart Life
• dys4ia
• Gone Home
• Kentucky Route Zero
• Thirty Flights of Loving

Nuovo: (Preditcion - Cart Life)
• 7 Grand Steps
• Bientot l'Ete
• Cart Life
• dys4ia
• Little Inferno
• MirrorMoon
• Spaceteam
• VESPER.5

Student Showcase Finalists: (Prediction - Back to Bed)
• ATUM
• Back to Bed
• Blackwell's Asylum
• Farsh
• Knights of Pen & Paper
• Pulse
• the mindfulxp volume
• Zineth

All IGF 2013 Main Competition entrants are once again eligible for Microsoft Studios' second annual sponsored prize -- a guaranteed first-party publishing deal (including funding if desired) to release the selected title on LIVE-enabled platforms, including the Xbox LIVE Arcade service, Windows Phone, and Windows. (Last year's winner was Capy's frantic retro platform shooter Super T.I.M.E Force)

There are only a few games I could see MS picking for the XBLA pirze.
One was Hotline Miami (announced for Vita and PS3, so can't see that happening now) next up is Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime prime for online co-op action and local multiplayer or Gone Home as it's something different.
The rest I'm not sure about for XBLA.

[Pikate]

Great Post! Hadn't heard of a few of those but love Indie games, for me they're the future.

I'm not reading too much into Hotline Miami being announced on PS3/Vita myself. Indie darlings like Braid, Fez and Limbo all were XBLA first but have now popped up on PS3 so I live in hope Hotline Miami and Guacalmelee! will go the other way. I believe they're both self-published so it's probably more an issue with the cost of going multi-platform and PSN being more attractive than XBLA now since it has the PS3 and Vita. I imagine PSN sales will go to pay for an XBLA release down the line.

As for the prize, Guacamelee! and Little Inferno are the two I'd most like on XBLA but Kentucky Route Zero is soooo beautiful and I'd like to see that on a console (we have Broken Sword so why not?) it would also bode well for my hope "Double Fine Adventure" will appear on XBLA too. FTL or Hotline Miami are probably the safest bets but we know what a bunch of Hipsters the Indie community are and FTL and HLM are pretty mainstream already which could go against them, I wouldn't be surprised by a surprise winner...

[Family Fry]

I always see MS being really arsey about games being on other console platforms before theirs.
Kentucky Route Zero is a fantastic game, personally would love to see it on XBLA just to allow console owners access to it.

[Pikate]

Well there's that but it's Microsoft, any morals or issues they have are always trumped by "will it sell" so you can throw a six to start when second guessing them. I never bothered after the first instalment of Kentucky Route Zero since I don't really like gaming on my MBP (Keyboard/Mouse... Urgh) but I would complete it if it popped up on XBLA. I hope most of those games can get XBLA releases one way or another really.

It's sad that for the cost of developing one Gears of War or Halo they could publish all those games and Double Fine Adventure and... Yet they'd rather give us another instalment of the same tired franchises. Oh well Battleblock Theatre and Duck Tales will cure my Modern Gaming Ennui.

[Family Fry]

Here are your winners.

Excellence in Visual Art ($3,000)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)


Nuovo Award ($5,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)


Excellence in Audio ($3,000)
140 (Jeppe Carlsen)


Excellence in Narrative ($3,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)

Technical Excellence ($3,000)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)


Best Student Game ($3,000)
Zineth (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)


Audience Award ($3,000)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)


Excellence in Design ($3,000)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($30,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)

[H-Man]

FTL consumed me for weeks - playing on the train on my commute, when I got home, over the weekend. It's one of those 'whoops, it's 5am games'. Well deserved!

[EvilBoris]

This is a record of 6 posts in an IGF awards thread!

['Press Start']

I want Zineth..... my laptop is rubbish though!

[EvilBoris]

Surely it has to be spectacularly rubbish not to run Zenith?