The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the Main Competition finalists for the twelfth annual presentation of its awards, celebrating the most innovative creations to come out of the independent game development community this year. There are nearly $50,000 in prizes for various categories, including the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize, to be awarded on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 11, 2010 during the 2010 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

There were 301 competition entries this year, an almost 35% increase over last year’s record 226 entries. And many of the entries are striking new titles from leading indie developers. This year’s finalists are led by multiple nominations for several notable games, including three nominations for innovative light-centric puzzle platformer Closure, and two nominations each — including a Grand Prize nomination — for Pocketwatch Games’ stylish co-op heist game Monaco, Hello Games’ polished stunt motorbike title Joe Danger, Ratloop Asia’s cinematic avian action title Rocketbirds: Revolution!, Krystian Majewski’s gestural photographic adventure game Trauma, and Team Meat’s cartoon-gory 2D action title Super Meat Boy!

There are more than 150 leading indie and mainstream game industry figures recruited to choose finalists this year including 2D Boy‘s Ron Carmel, Spore’s Soren Johnson and ThatGameCompany‘s Kellee Santiago (recently named in GamingAngels.com 10 Influential women of the decade). In addition, over 1500 written, anonymized judge comments will be passed along to entrants in the next few days, an important part of deriving value and takeaway from entering the IGF, even if the entrant didn’t place as a finalist.

And for the first year, the IGF’s Nuovo Award, intended to “honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games,” had a separate, smaller juried panel of notable game and art world figures to judge. These judges included IGF Nuovo winner Jason Rohrer (Passage), Area/Code’s Frank Lantz, N+ co-creator Mare Sheppard, EA division head and art-game creator Rod Humble, among others. The jury for the $2,500 Nuovo Award, which allows more esoteric ‘art games’ to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles, has released a statement about the chosen Nuovo finalists, including several ‘honorable mentions’, on the official IGF website.

All 2010 Independent Games Festival finalists will be awarded passes to GDC 2010 in San Francisco this March. They will also be presenting playable versions of their games to all Game Developers Conference attendees at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor from Thursday, March 11th through Saturday, March 13th. The IGF 2010 winners will be announced on stage at the major Independent Games Festival Awards on Thursday, March 11, 2010, at the Moscone Center. The IGF Awards, which kick off in North Hall D at 6:30pm PST on the 11th, are held immediately preceding the acclaimed 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, honoring the best games of the year from mainstream developers.

The finalists for the 2010 Independent Games Festival are:
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Joe Danger (Hello Games)
Monaco (Pocketwatch Games)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Super Meat Boy! (Team Meat)

Excellence In Visual Art
Shank (Klei Entertainment)
Owlboy (D-Pad Studios)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)
Limbo (Playdead)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)

Excellence In Design
Miegakure (Marc Ten Bosch)
Star Guard (Sparky)
AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! — A Reckless Disregard For Gravity (Dejobaan Games)
Monaco (Pocketwatch Games)
Cogs (Lazy 8 Studios)

Excellence In Audio
Super Meat Boy! (Team Meat)
Shatter (Sidhe)
Closure (Closure Team)
Rocketbirds: Revolution! (Ratloop Asia)
Trauma (Krystian Majewski)

Technical Excellence
Closure (Closure Team)
Limbo (Playdead)
Heroes Of Newerth (S2 Games)
Joe Danger (Hello Games)
Vessel (Strange Loop Games)

Nuovo Award
Today I Die (Daniel Benmergui)
A Slow Year (Ian Bogost)
Tuning (Cactus)
Closure (Closure Team)
Enviro-Bear 2000 (Justin Smith)

For more information on the Independent Games Festival, please visit www.igf.com — and for those interested in registering for GDC 2010, which includes the Independent Games Summit, the IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards Ceremony, please visit www.gdconf.com.