Submissions to the contest are due by this November with finalists expected to be announced in January.

In addition to the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the awards the festival already gives out for audio, art direction, design and technology, this time around the IGF will also be presenting a new Innovation Award. The award is "intended to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development."

As always, I expect to see a slew of interesting titles as I help judge the competition. Previous years have seen such greats as Everyday Shooter, Audiosurf and World of Goo.

IGF

Ten titles will be selected for consideration, with the finalists' list to be revealed on September 16th. According to Wired, the committee has warned potential applicants against showing up with more of the same - they want technological and storytelling innovation that directly impacts gameplay. In with the new, then!

Should be interesting to see what turns up - by the by, Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi is one of the people on the selection committee, aptly.

Tokyo Game Show Throws Party for Innovative Games [Wired via GameSetWatch]

"This year was kind of a perfect storm for the IGF," says Wired Magazine editor Chris Baker. "For one thing, we're well-ensconced in the current generation of game consoles, so there were no big surprises."

Independent games, however, are a breath of fresh air. And with digital distribution coming into its own, something that just continues to grow.

"I think this year further reinforced that indie game creators are getting better and better at conceptualizing ideas that likely aren't 'mainstream' enough to thrive in a $60 AAA Xbox 360 game," says IGF judge and Gamasutra editor Simon Carless, "and making them into totally fun, extremely playable titles."

Year after year, indie games are looking more and more polished. Slick, even.

"Tools are only getting easier to use, and digital distribution is increasing in scope and popularity every day," points out Andrew Maneri, character designer and AI developer for Synaesthete. "These were the two big barriers to entry for many developers."

But what about the winners of this year's IGF? Did anyone get any deals? Advance their career? We chatted up some of the winners, and got a glimpse of why deals don't really matter and how IGF changed their lives. Or didn't.

Oh, and we totally forgot to ask about indie gaming groupies. Sorry.

• Crayon Physics Deluxe Seumas McNally Grand Prize
When asked what memories of IGF stick out, Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho replied, "English isn't my first language so I had to google out what "stick out" means. And this is the only definition I found: stick out with my dick out." Purho, a student at Helsinki Polytechnic in Finland, continues, "It might be early Alzheimer symptoms, but I don't remember anything like that happening during the IGF. Or then my mind just wants to shut it down. Or then I was just too drunk to remember my penis hanging out while trying to be important during the IGF. The last sounds like the most probable scenario."

Since he was eight, Purho has been making his own QBasic games. He started up his kloonigames blog in late 2006 to focus more game design. "Idea was (and still is)," he says, "that I'd do one prototype of a game every month to learn and experiment with game design." Leading up to this year's IGF, Purho says getting his Crayon Physics Deluxe ready was a crunch. "I had to grind my way through the dungeon of C++ and fight level 5 bugs there," he recalls. "The end boss, called Change-physics-engines-one-week-before-the-IGF-deadline was particularly nasty. Especially with the lacking a proper save game system and the time limit." Lessons learned? "To spend a little bit more time working on the game, before the last week of the deadline."

While Purho only submitted Crayon Physics Deluxe to get a free GDC pass, his delightful virtual crayon physics title charmed the IGF judges, winning the grand prize. "There have been some emails and contacts from various publishers," he says. But he hasn't gotten any deals out of his IGF win. In the mean time, while the rest of us wait patiently for the long overdue DS version of Crayon Physics, Purho's keeping busy churning out games for his blog and with other things. "I'm planning on growing enough hair to beat John Romero in the hair length contest."

Good luck, Petri. That Romero was a Rapunzel.

• Synaesthete Best Student Game
Is game school the new film school?

"I wouldn't say it's the new film school," says Will Towns, Synaesthete technical director. "Maybe it's film school's illegitimate sibling. The film industry and the gaming industry share a lot of the same aspects: both contain a corporate piece and an independent piece, both fostering the same advantages and disadvantages."

What are these corporate disadvantages you speak of?

"I don't want to work on the next 20 million dollar EA genre game," says Synaesthete's designer Joseph Tkach. "Someday, I would like to have my own dev studio, where I and my team can have complete creative freedom."

Meet the new generation. Armed with gaming degrees and a fierce sense of independence. Knowing that it's possible for small teams to deliver satisfying game experiences, these guys aren't happy to be "fortunate" enough to crunch code on some bland $20 million sequel. No way.

Tkach and Town, along with Zach Aikman and Andy Maneri, are the team behind Rez inspired, music driven arcade-style shooter Synaesthete. Since the team snagged Best Student Game at IGF, it's safe to assume that they are, well, students. All four study at DigiPen Institute of Technology, where they were pulling late night after late night, preparing their game for IGF. After their win, the team says they've been in talks.

"There's exciting news on the horizon," says Zach Aikman.

Game deals or not, the Synaesthete guys are sitting pretty for college kids.

"Getting recognized by such a large industry is the best thing that can happen to us, being soon-to-be graduates," says Towns. "Anything else is just icing on the cake."

Like paying off those student loans, for instance.

• Fez Excellence In Visual Art
When Montreal-based Fez designer and artist Phil Fish took the stage at IGF to accept the Excellence in Visual Art award, he wore, well, a fez. The 2D-meets-3D game stars a fez-wearing character named Gomez. Fish had been kicking around the idea for Fez for ages. He wanted to make an inviting game, built on childhood gaming cliches, but turning them on their ear.

"Having no time or money," says producer and the game's soundtrack composer Jason De Groot. "It was made in our free time." What did they learn from that? "That we'd like to have more time and money."

De Groot first came on board last year. The Japan-based De Groot was in Kyoto on business and on his laptop watched the Fez clip Fish had put together of the prototype.

"It was a "Woah...." kind of moment," recalls De Groot. "Until then, I had only seen concept art and a couple questionable cell phone videos. Right then I knew that I had to be more involved in things."

Post IGF, Fez garnered considerable interest. Not just for an indie title, but for a game — a still very much in development game.

"No moneyhats yet," says De Groot. "But we've been getting a lot of interest."

We're sure of that.

• Iron Dukes Best Web Browser Game
"The IGF seemed very professional this year, both in terms of the competition and production of the festival," says Iron Dukes programmer Darren Koepp. "I was expecting a kiosk next to the sandwich tables."

He and the game's writer and designer Tynan Wales submitted the game to give themselves a deadline. You know, just to finish the damn thing.

Iron Dukes is about 19th century fictionalized treasure hunting made by two guys who ran out of money.

"I ran out of money," says Koepp. "Yes," confirms Wales,"we had money trouble."

Both Koepp and Wales, industry vets, haven't seen big profits from their win yet, but are in talks.

"The Sundance comparison was bandied about a fair amount this year," says Wales. "There was an air of indie camaraderie, but I'm not sure if the IGF is as much of a golden ticket as Sundance is now. I saw no one leaving with bags of money."

Still, the pure acting of winning is in itself satisfying.

Recalls Koepp: "During the IGF, the awards night was really a surprise. I remember one of the volunteers ushering me down to the "VIP" area. He called me sir. That was hilarious. Winning was nice too. I couldn't feel my knees."

Winning is always nice.

• World of Goo Design Innovation, Technical Excellence
Two former Electronic Arts employees make good.

"The first commercial game I worked on was an urban Sims game at EA, and we learned that putting 3D versions of the Black Eyed Peas into a game might not necessarily increase the funk," says World of Goo creator Kyle Gabler. "On the other hand, it has recently been discovered that putting dinosaurs into a game will increase the funk every time."

Blobs of goo work well, too. Gabler and co-designer Ron Carmel created gooey gaming goodness with World of Goo. The puzzle game has players overcome gravity and build goo ball structures that reach the in-game exit. A simple, yet brilliant mechanic.

"World of Goo is one big physics lab, so things move and interact exactly like you would expect," says Gabler. "It's fun just to fling things around."

"We spent most of September in a tizzy, working from the minute we woke up until the minute we fell asleep in order to meet the IGF submission deadline," recalls Carmel. "We didn't touch a computer for two weeks after the submission date."

Crunch time paid off in spades. The game charmed the IGF judges, and World of Goo won not one, but two awards: Design Innovation and Technical Excellence. Two awards? They're on easy street! For like, forever!!

Uh, no.

"I was a little surprised that actually winning an award didn't help us much on the business end of things," says Carmel. "But overall, the IGF really helped us get the word out. In my opinion there's nothing else out there that is doing as much good for the indie game scene as the IGF."

True, true. So instead of waiting for some plum deal, Gabler and Carmel are selling the game through digital distribution on their 2D Boy site.

"I think people are realizing that a game doesn't need to be complex or contain two zillion polys or 193 hours of gameplay in order to be worthwhile, it just needs to be fun," says Carmel. "This allows micro-studios like ours to actually make a living doing this... If I thought we'd need to find a publisher for World of Goo in order to get it out into the world I might not have left my job to work on it."

Gabler and Carmel are developing a Wii version of World of Goo on a profit sharing basis.

"If a team of three people make a game that brings in a million dollars in profits, they should each see a third of that amount, not get a $5k bonus and a round of applause."

Spoken like a true industry vet.

YaYaLuvsCupcakes [Etsy, via A Little Bit of Awesome]

During the course of the handing out of awards at last week's Independent Games Festival, audiences were treated to exclusive Mega64 produced videos between acceptance speeches. They weren't the typical game parodies played out in real life, but clips that spoke to the audience on hand. The production above, shown after the intro after the jump, was my personal favorite.

For a somewhat startling, volume lowering surprise from artist Dan Paladin of Alien Hominid fame, make the jump. Just make sure the kids are out of the room.

Yeah. It certainly got everyone's attention. One more video, featuring some of Mega64's trademark public stunts, is available at the official site.

Mega64

I ended up doing a nearly all-nighter earlier this week so I could play through the finalists for the Independent Games Festival. There are, as always, a number of fantastic games in the mix. Most of them, unfortunately, can't be played by the public. What can be played are the finalists for best Web game. My personal choice for the best of the lot? Tri-Achnid.

In the game you control a three-legged spider by clicking on its feet and moving the legs. The feet cling to things you touch them to and the ball of a body sort of follows along. Later on you also get to spin webs and attack things. The object of the game is to care for your egg sack, typically by carrying it from place to place in your mouth. Yes, the idea gives me the willies too, but at least it doesn't involve accidentally drinking an entire spider.

Tri-Achnid

Parents and co-workers have been overwhelmingly positive about the project, citing its originality as a catalyst for more independent reading and learning ....

Video game development in the classroom is not for everyone and is still very difficult to implement today. A teacher must be not only highly computer literate and programming savvy, but also well versed in a middleware program such as RPG Maker XP. In order for a project such as ours to be applied to an everyday curriculum, teachers would require vast amounts of training, which is a costly obstacle.

The game was submitted to the 2008 IGF Student competition, and Alvarado says the students will be working on the game through the end of the school year. The article is short and sweet, but explains how the project came to be and how the class is putting together their game.

Making Video Games ... With Fifth Graders [Game Career Guide]

Gamasutra got a chance to sit down with the boys and discuss some of the things that make World of Goo what it is. When asked what they felt the most interesting part of their game is, designer Gabler had this to say.

People seem to like "the friendly Sign Painter" - a mysterious tipster leaving you signposts in each level. The Sign Painter becomes increasingly involved and uh... friendly. Anyway, there is a deliberate "story" that happens throughout the game, but it is entirely optional and never explicitly told. I mean, it's just a dumb physics game, and I hate forced story in games! It ends up being more a "suggested emotional journey" through "themes" (giant corporation stuff, booth babes, quest for self discovery, enlightenment, blah blah blah) - see, it sounds stupid when you say it, so we just don't. Forget I said that. It's all about feelings!

If it sounds like there is a lot going on here, there is. Couple Gabler's ebullient explanation with the amazing visuals and you've got pure indie gold. World of Goo is being developed for a Valentine's Day release on the PC and subsequent releases on Mac, Linux and eventually, the Wii. Good luck to Gabler and Carmel on what many consider this years top IGF pick.

Road To The IGF: World Of Goo's 'Suggested Emotional Journey' To Wii [Gamasutra]

The Independent Games Festival today announced the dozen finalists for the Student Showcase. The 12 finalists will all receive a $500 travel stipend to help them get to GDC 2008 in San Francisco and the winner of the IGF Best Student Game Award will receive a $2,500 cash prize.

All of the games will also be shown off at the IGF Pavillion during the show. Here's the list:

Crayon Physics Deluxe, by Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, Finland
Empyreal Nocturne, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
Gesundheit!, by Sheridan Institute
Galaxy Scraper, by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Mayhem Intergalactic, by The Australian National University
Poesysteme, by ENJMIN, France
Polarity, by Carnegie Mellon University
Ruckblende, by Uni Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Synaesthete, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom, by University of Southern California- School of Cinematic Arts- Interactive Media Program
Flipside (Half-Life 2 Modification), by National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment, Denmark
Foamzilla (Unreal Tournament 2004 Modification), by Vancouver Film School

Among the short-list is a Half-Life 2 mod called Flipside which has me very intriguied. I haven't had a chance to play it yet... mostly because I'm sitting in a van writing this on an energy-efficient, but graphicically-crap laptop. But I plan to check it out in the new year just as soon as I get back home. You should do the same, same with the rest of these finalists. Remember, these are the sorts of games that can sing on the Playstation Network or Xbox Live Arcade.

10th ANNUAL INDEPENDENT GAMES FESTIVAL REVEALS STUDENT SHOWCASE FINALISTS

Best Student Game Award to be Announced at GDC 2008

The 2008 Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the twelve finalists in the Student Showcase for its 10th annual set of awards. Chosen from a record 125 entries by a jury of experts from leading game design programs at universities across the world, these games will go on to compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, to be awarded at the IGF Awards Ceremony on February 20, 2008.

Some of the finalists this year include USC Interactive Media Program's quirky The Misadventures of PT Winterbottom, Sheridan Institute's stylish booger-busting Gesundheit, and The National Academy of Digital Interactive Entertainment's dual-perspective Half-Life 2 modification Flipside.

All IGF finalist games will be exhibited at the IGF Pavilion, Feb. 20-22, 2008 at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC) Expo. GDC, CMP Technology's annual conference dedicated to the art, science and business of games, takes place February 18-22, at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Each finalist in the IGF Student Showcase will receive a $500 travel stipend to help aid expenses for the trip to GDC 2008. The winner of the IGF Best Student Game Award will receive a $2,500 cash prize during the ceremony.

The Student Showcase games and game mods that will be considered for the 2008 Best Student Game Award are all highlighted on the IGF website, www.igf.com. The list of finalists is as follows:

Crayon Physics Deluxe, by Helsinki Polytechnic Stadia, Finland
Empyreal Nocturne, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
Gesundheit!, by Sheridan Institute
Galaxy Scraper, by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain
Mayhem Intergalactic, by The Australian National University
Poesysteme, by ENJMIN, France
Polarity, by Carnegie Mellon University
Ruckblende, by Uni Duisburg-Essen, Germany
Synaesthete, by DigiPen Institute of Technology
The Misadventures Of P.B. Winterbottom, by University of Southern California- School of Cinematic Arts- Interactive Media Program
Flipside (Half-Life 2 Modification), by National Academy of Digital, Interactive Entertainment, Denmark
Foamzilla (Unreal Tournament 2004 Modification), by Vancouver Film School

The IGF was established in 1998 by the CMP Game Group to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, in the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. This year, the contest is supported by sponsors including Platinum Sponsor Gleemax.com, Silver Sponsors Sony and Microsoft, and Platinum Student Showcase Sponsor DigiPen Institute Of Technology, as well as IGF Mobile Platinum/Founding Sponsor Nvidia.

GDC 2008 will continue its support of independent gaming with the return of the Independent Games Summit February 18-19. The IGF Pavilion, where GDC attendees can experience the finalist games in the IGF Main, Student, and Mobile Competitions, is open on the GDC show floor February 20-22. For more information on the Independent Games Festival and to register for GDC, please visit www.gdconf.com.

Official Aquaria Web Site [Bit Blot - Thanks Kyle!]

The 2008 Independent Games Festival finalists for the main competition have been named and it doesn't look like a single one of the games I helped judge in the initial round made it to round two. Fortunately, now I, along with all of the other judges, get to play the finalists, something I'm quite looking forward to. Hit the jump for the breakdown of finalists.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize:
* Audiosurf
* Crayon Physics Deluxe
* Hammerfall
* Noitu Love 2: Devolution
* World of Goo

Best Web Browser Game:
* Globulos.com
* Iron Dukes
* Tri-Achnid

Design Innovation Award:
* Battleships Forever
* Fez
* Fret Nice
* Snapshot Adventures: Secret Of Bird Island
* World Of Goo

Excellence in Visual Art:
* Clean Asia!
* Fez
* Hammerfall
* Synaesthete
* The Path

Excellence in Audio:
* Cinnamon Beats
* Fret Nice
* Audiosurf
* Clean Asia!
* OokiBloks

Technical Excellence:
* World of Goo
* Goo!
* Audiosurf
* Axiom: Overdrive
* Gumboy Tournament

Sounds like I have some fun judging in store for me over the coming weeks.

IGF Finalists

I've spent the tail end of my vacation working through the games assigned to me for judging for the upcoming Independent Game Festival. The games run the gambit from amazing to pedestrian. One of my favorites among the batch of entries was Pocketwatch Games' Venture Arctic.

In Venture Arctic you control an arctic ecosystem as you try and meet goals liking increasing the population of the Timber Wolves or unlocking a particular animal. The game progresses through four seasons. Each season has special actions, such as making it snow, warming up an area, making animals mate. Each action can be performed at any time of the year, but if you perform it during it's season, it doesn't cost you anything.

Perform it out of season and you have to spend spirits, which you accrue from the animals that have died in the arctic. The whole thing has a very give-and-take feel to it. If you make too many rabbits they'll eat up all of your berries and your caribou will starve to death, but not enough and the timber wolves will start hunting the caribou because they're aren't enough rabbits around.

On top of that heating up and cooling down the land has a direct impact on how the animals and plants survive and thrive. It's all a very delicate balancing act. The whole game is played from a sort of Sim City, slanted top-down perspective and features over-sized, but well animated animals. It's certainly not high-def graphics, but I felt myself getting attached to the animals and their off-spring as I worked to try and, say, bring my caribou population up to 15.

With 22 different animals, all with realistic behavior, the game has a lot to teach you, but the thing is, you don't feel like you're learning things, instead you feel like you're having fun and that's where this game best succeeds, it makes learning about a very important and often forgotten part of the world entertaining.

Venture Arctic

2008 IGF Student Showcase Competition

Who Is Eligible: Open to all student game developers worldwide, including student mod makers (see student-specific rules).
Competing For: 12 'Student Showcase' winners for top game ($500 travel stipend), and for the second year, an overall 'Best Student Game' ($2,500 cash prize).
Entry Fee: None.
Submissions Due: October 15th, 2007 at 11:59pm PDT - submit here.
The IGF's Student Showcase, for which the entry deadline is October 15th, 2007 at 11.59pm PDT, will highlight a total of twelve games this year.

IGF Student Showcase Winner ($500)

In addition, for the first time this year, there will be a prize for best overall IGF Student Game awarded as part of the IGF Awards, with the finalists comprising all of the Student Showcase winners:

Best Student Game ($2,500)

The jury for the IGF Student Showcase is headed by student-experienced game veterans, and consists of a number of indie experts committed to picking the best student games, given that games created for educative reasons often have a different emphasis than commercially released titles. [Please note that both games using middleware engines and mods of existing games are both eligible this year, but the judges will take whether the engine was coded from scratch into account when judging.]

Mousechief Co. announces its next, innovative game of industry defying mischief, "Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!"

Here's the crux:
1. First RPG of literary, social satire.
2. Re-imagined combat systems are the heart a new kind of RPG: Taunt, Fib, Flirt, Expose Secrets, and Gambit. Mix in branching dialog, powerful prizes, and stat leveling for complete RPG nutrition.
3. Build a party of adventurers from high school girls inspired by classic cinema divas: Mae West, Marlena Dietrich, Myrna Loy, Barbara Stanwyck, Clara Bow, etc.... Unleash them upon the intolerant and hypocritical elders of their hometown. Flush out Brigiton's absurd secrets and crazy power-brokers. Win, use, and discard a dozen boyfriends along the way. (or keep some around for pleasure.)
4. Set in 1920s small town USA, your girls begin by making a pet project of their school's new maintenance man. They first expose his crimes and then fight to save him from the gallows. The full epic pits 'girl-rilla' subversion against cultural tyranny. It's "Planescape: Torment" meets "Peyton Place" as if told by Sinclair Lewis.
5. The world is presented as a beautiful but vintage board game. Battle from the halls of their high school, through downtown businesses, across suburb streets, to wilds beyond city limits. It's the parlor game your great-grandmother will deny ever playing.
6. Designed for folks who love RPGs and for advanced, casual gamers.
7. This is the game with girls that ISN'T about courage, friendship, trust and the joy of discovery. It's more like—survival of the sassiest.
"Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!" is an industry breakthrough. It exemplifies gameplay suited to genres of fiction where conflict is not bloody. It has fine production values for its miniscule budget. It's filled with terrific artwork, real music from the 1920s, a story of epic satire, and gameplay that will make your ancestors blush. Rated: TEEN, using the T.I.G.R.S. rating system.
A demo of "Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble!" is now available at the Mousechief.com website, just in time for the Independent Game Festival.

More than 173 games are competing in next year's Independent Games Festival, the 10th annual, and the full list just hit the web. GDC 08 will see $50,000 in prizes handed out to indie game developers, many of whom will end up landing publishing deals. It's all very exciting.

Once again, I am among the growing list of IGF judges this year, meaning I get to play a bunch of exciting new games and then give my impressions to both the festival organizers and the developers. Hit up the link to see the full list, or the jump to see the list of the game's I've been asked to take an early look at.

Independent Games Festival

My Assigned Games

Invader
GYM!
Supernova Shootout
Discs of Mayhem
Artisan
Venture Arctic
Regnum Online
Polychromatic Funk Monkey
Gate

Each of the games need to be scored based on innovation in design, excellence in audio, excellence in visual art, technical excellence and an overall rating.

Once the votes are tallied, the finalists are selected the judges play all of the finalists and vote for the winner.

The 10th annual Independent Games Festival, to be judged at the 2008 Game Development Conference (February 20-23), is open for submissions in both the 'main' and 'student' categories. The mod contest will not be taking place at the 2008 GDC , though they've included in the student category.

The 2008 IGF Main Competition will again be open to all independent developers to submit their games - whether it be on PC, console digital download, Web browser, or other more exotic formats. The prizes again total nearly $50,000, with a $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and the deadline to enter the Main Competition is Monday, October 1st 2007.

You can find more information at the official website; indie developers, start your engines. Maggie Greene

GameZebo has news that web game, and personal flash heart-throb, Samorost 2 was just named the best webby online game of the year.

As I've mentioned before this game is as beautiful as it is intriguing. Basically you have to click around the screen to figure out how to move from one level to the next. Its a lot of fun to play and even more fun to watch. Brian Crecente

Samorost 2: Best Webby Online Game of the Year [Gamezebo]

About 3,500 people are packed into a sizable ballroom tonight to honor the best and most innovative game developers in the world.

The Game Developers Choice Awards and Independent Games Festival is, in my opinion, the single best award show honoring games in the world, but I have had a bit to drink.

Hit the jump for the hot live blogging action. Brian Crecente

We're underway with the a dive into indie game development.

We'll be looking at the best mods first. The finalists for best mod are:

Alan Miranda. Darkness Over Daggerford (NWN)
Spawns of Deflebub (UT)
Eternal Silence (HL2)
Weekday Warrior (HL2)

And the winner is: Weekday Warrior.

Student Showcase finalists are:
Base invaders
Invalid Tangrams
Opera Slinger
Gelatin Joe
And Yet it Moves
Toblo
Euclidean Crisis
The Ball of Bastards
The Blob

And the winner is: Toblo

Wow, oh wow. The team leader for the winning game just proposed to the game's voice actor on stage. Nice, an award and a wife all in one night.

Excellence in Audio finalists:
Aquaria
Bone: The Great Cow Race
Everyday Shooter
Fizzball
Racing Pitch

And the winner is: Everday Shooter.

Finalists for Excellence in visual arts:
Aquaria
Golf?
Samorost 2
Castle Crashers
Roboblitz

And the winner is: Castle Crashers

The finalists for Design Innovation Awards:
Aquaria
Everyday Shooter
Amradillo Run
Toblo

And the winner is Everyday Shooter

Finalists for Technical Excellence:
Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow
Armada Online
Bang! Howdy
Blast Miner
Band of Bugs

And the winner is: Bang! Howdy

Best Web Browser Game finalists:
Bubble Islands
Gamma Bros.
Samarost 2

And the winner is: Samarost 2

Now on to the first ever Indie GameTap award. The three winners of this prize will share $50,000 and have their game published on the service.

But first, a really long ad.

Second runner up: Not quite sure, sorry couldn't hear it.
First runner up: Blast Miner
Winner: Everyday Shooter

The Audience Award winner is Castle Crashers.

The Darwinia team, the winners of last year's Seumas McNally Awards, just took the stage dressed to the nines in suites decorated with sequin Darwinia symbols. They're introducing the finalists for this year's SMAs.

Aquaria
Armadillo Run
Bang! Howdy
Roboblitz
Everyday Shooter

And the winner this year is: Aquaria.

That's it for the Indie Game Fest. Now on to the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Before getting into the major awards, the show honored three people for innovation in game development:

Bostjan Codets for Line Rider
Atsushi Inaba and Hideki Kamiya for Okami (Oh man, Capcom took the stage for the award. Ouch.)
Keizo Ohta, Takayuki Shimamura, Yoshiki Yamashita for Wii Sports... Oh, classy, Shigeru took the stage to say thanks personally. He said he's got plenty to say tomorrow (!!) so he'll spare us tonight.

Now Double Fine's Tim Schaeffer is taking the stage to hand out the night's GDCAs.

New Studio:
Gastronaught Studios for Small Arms
Naked Sky Entertainment for Roboblitz
Iron Lore Entertainment for Titan Quest
Ready at Dawn Studios for Daxter
Wadjet Eye Games for The Shiva

Winner: Iron Lore Entertainment

Best Writing:
Bully
Dreamfall: The Longest Journey
Sam & Max Ep. 1: Culture Shock
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Winner: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

Best Game Design
Bully
Okami
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Viva Pinata
Wii Sports

Winner: Wii Sports

Best Audio
Company of Heroes
DEFCON: Everybody Dies
Guitar Hero II
Tomb Raider: Legend
LocoRoco

Winner: Guitar Hero II

Character Design
Final Fantasy XII
LocoRoco
Okami
Rayman Raving Rabbids
Viva Pinata

Winner: Okami

First Penguin, given out to an innovator who paved the way for others to follow, is being awarded to Alexey Pajitnov. He is known, by many, the man who gave birth to casual games.

Wow, he's actually here. He just strolled slowly across the stage, arms at his side, wearing a pinstripe jacket and an enormous smile.

"Thank you very very much,. I share the honor of this award with every Tetris publisher Especially I am grateful to Blue Planet software. Thank you very, very, much."

Best Technology
Company of Heroes
Dead Rising
Gears of War
Rockstar Presentes: Table Tennis
Wii Sports

Winner: Gears of War

Best Visual Arts
Final Fantasy XII
Gears of War
Okami
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
Viva Pinata

Winner: Gears of War

Community Contribution Award
George "The Fatman" Sanger

Lifetime Achievement Award
Shigeru Miyamoto

"Getting this award makes me feel old and like you want me to retire soon. But I personally feel very young and like I can do this for a long time now. I've always had a certain fondness for America and the spirit of America."

Game of the Year Award
Gears of War
Okami
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess
Wii Sports

Winner: Gears of War

CliffyB: "Holy Shit. This is absolutely unbelievable. Thank you so much frst and formost eveyrone at home who worked so hard to make this happen. I want to thank Microsoft. I want to thank my family. My girlfriend for putting up

Thank you Shigeru Miyamoto for inspiring me to do what I do everyday."

I've been frontal lobe deep in the wonderful assortment of indie games that make up this year's list of Independent Games Festival finalists these past weeks as I help pick the winners for the awards and it has been mostly a joy.

One game in particular, last night, was such a pleasure to play that I felt compelled to share it with Kotaku. Samorost 2 is one of three finalists for Best Web Browser game and it is just spectacular from visual and audio design to the mechanics of the game.

You need to hop on over to the site right now and play through the first, free, level of the game. If you like it, you really should buy the thing to dig into the whole game as well. Brian Crecente

Samorost 2

Over the weekend we posted the full list for the 2007 Independent Games Festival finalists.

But if you're really interested in finding out more about these interesting and innovative games, you have to hit up the official site where details about the games are available. The site also has links to download the ones that are downloadable and even a number of interviews with the games' creators.

I was lucky enough to be asked to help judge this year's entries and was very impressed with the games I got to check out. You owe it to yourself to try some of these indie titles. Brian Crecente

Finalists and Winners [IGF]