Any game chosen as a finalist is up for the vote. If you need to try some of them out to make your decision, that’s easy, even if you’re not able to attend IGF. On the Audience Award page, each game is marked to indicate whether or not there is a version available for you to play now (some games have beta versions, others are available for purchase).

After you’ve played what you can, make your decision and vote. You’ll have to verify your decision through email, but that’s easy enough.

Voting closes at midnight PST on February 19.

Have you played any of the finalists? I’m personally a big fan of Lume and WAY, but I really, really wish Antichamber had a demo. I’ll have to check some more games out for sure!

The UBM TechWeb Game Network has officially announced that submissions are now open for the 2012 Independent Games Festival, held during the 2012 Game Developers Conference next March.

This is the fourteenth annual showcase for independent video games, and all finalists’ games will be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor. The Main Showcase entrants have a due date of October 17, while Student Showcase games have until October 31. All finalists will be announced next January.

The showcased games will be competing for $60,000 in prizes. The big whammy is the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, and its value has been increased to $30,000. On the smaller side, awards for Visual Art, Audio, Design, Technical Excellence, Mobile Game, Student Game and the Audience Award now come with a $3,000 price. No chump change, for sure.

Winners will be announced at the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 7.

All games selected as finalists will be available in playable form at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC show floor from March 7 – 9, 2012, and will compete for nearly $60,000 in prizes, a significant increase from last year. This includes the high-profile $5,000 Nuovo Award, honoring abstract, short-form, and unconventional video game development.

In addition, awards for Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, and Design, Technical Excellence, Best Mobile Game, the Best Student Game, and the Audience Award each now receive a $3,000 prize, and the signature Seumas McNally Grand Prize for the independent game of the year has been increased by 50% to a record $30,000.

IGF also includes a series of lectures and other inspirational material from notable names in the indie gamespace.

A schedule of all IGF events is offered below.

• June 29, 2011 – Submissions are Open
• October 17, 2011 – Submission Deadline, Main Competition
• October 31, 2011 – Submission Deadline, Student Competition
• January 5, 2012 – Finalists Announced, Main Competition
• January 12, 2012 – Finalists Announced, Student Competition
• March 5 – March 9, 2012 – Game Developers Conference 2012
• March 5 – March 6, 2012 – Indie Games Summit @ GDC 2012
• March 7 – March 9, 2012 – IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2012
• March 7, 2012 – IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)

The winner of the award receives:

• A $10,000 cash prize
• Distribution and promotion on Direct2Drive.com
• One “major label” license for GameSpy Technology including:
  • Software development kits for unlimited Daily Active Users
  • Access to professional level developer support
• A GameSpy Technology GDC 2011 swag pack
• Free admission to GDC 2012

The five finalists up for the prize are:

• Flotilla – An intriguing, slow-motion tactical space combat game from Blendo Games
• Confetti Carnival – A puzzle action title where gamers earn style points for smashing and blowing up colorful gummy creatures into confetti bombs, created by   SpikySnail Games
• Hazard: The Journey for Life – A philosophical first-person puzzle game that is as much about exploring abstract schools of thought as it is about gameplay, from Alexander Bruce’s    Demruth
• Night Sky – Originally a finalist from Nicalis at IGF 2009, then called Night Game, this evocative update tasks gamers with navigating a curious crystal ball through challenging yet serene silhouetted environments
• Amnesia: The Dark Descent – An award-winning, first person survival horror game from Frictional Games, the creators of the renowned indie hit, Penumbra

The winner will be announced March 2 at the 13th Annual IGF Awards Show at GDC 2011. 

For more information about this year’s finalists or to purchase their games, please visit: http://www.direct2drive.com/promos/igf-2011

The Independent Games Festival has named their finalists for the 2011 awards at the 25th Game Developers Conference. The award show is held on March 2.

This year there is an addition of Best Mobile Game which will be a tough category!

“From scrappy single person start-ups to more robust indies, and from surprising debuts to surprise successes, this year’s finalist line-up is a perfect showcase of the breadth and diversity of what it means to be ‘independent’,” said IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer. “I’m excited to see all the developers represented gaining more recognition from a wider audience for what they’ve worked so hard to create, as the importance of the independent games community grows even further.”

Winners will receive $5,000 prize and all the games will be on the GDC expo floor in the IGF Pavilion.

Here are the nominees:
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games)
Desktop Dungeons (QCF Design)
Minecraft (Mojang)
Nidhogg (Messhof)
SpyParty (Chris Hecker)

Honorable mentions:
· Bit.Trip Runner (Gaijin Games); Neptune’s Pride (Iron Helmet Games); Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (Carpe Fulgur); Retro City Rampage (Vblank Entertainment); Super Crate Box (Vlambeer)

Excellence In Visual Art
Bastion (Supergiant Games)
Bit.Trip Runner (Gaijin Games)
Cave Story (2010 Edition) (Nicalis)
The Dream Machine (Cockroach)
Hohokum (Honeyslug & Richard Hogg)

Honorable mentions:
· Cobalt (Oxeye Game Studio); Faraway (Steph Thirion); Flotilla (Blendo Games); Helsing’s Fire (Ratloop); Retro City Rampage (Vblank Entertainment)

Technical Excellence
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games)
Confetti Carnival (SpikySnail Games)
Miegakure (Marc ten Bosch)
Minecraft (Mojang)
Neverdaunt:8Bit (Robot Loves Kitty)

Honorable mentions:
· Achron (Hazardous Software); Cobalt (Oxeye Game Studio); Hazard: The Journey Of Life (Demruth); Overgrowth (Wolfire Games); Swimming Under Clouds (Piece of Pie Studios)

Excellence In Design
Desktop Dungeons (QCF Design)
Faraway (Steph Thirion)
Minecraft (Mojang)
Nidhogg (Messhof)
Super Crate Box (Vlambeer)

Honorable mentions:
Bo (Mahdi Bahrami); Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now [B.U.T.T.O.N.] (Copenhagen Game Collective); Flotilla (Blendo Games); Helsing’s Fire (Ratloop); Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale (Carpe Fulgur)

Excellence In Audio
Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games)
Bastion (Supergiant Games)
Bit.Trip Beat (Gaijin Games)
Cobalt (Oxeye Game Studio)
Retro City Rampage (Vblank Entertainment)

Honorable mentions:
Bit.Trip Runner (Gaijin Games); Cave Story (2010 Edition) (Nicalis); Jamestown (Final Form Games); NightSky (Nicalis); Planck (Shadegrown Games)

Best Mobile Game

Colorblind (Nonverbal)
Halcyon (Stfj)
Helsing’s Fire (Ratloop)
Shot Shot Shoot (Erik Svedang)
Solipskier (Mikengreg)

Honorable mentions:
· Flick Kick Football (PikPok); Shibuya (Nevercenter); Spirits (Spaces Of Play); Tentacles (Press Play); Trainyard (Matt Rix)

The 2011 Independent Games Festival is now taking submissions. The Festival awards winners at GDC 2011 in San Francisco.

Entries are due by October 18th for Main categories and November 1st for Student Showcase categories. Finalists will all be announced on January 2011.

There are almost $50,000 in prizes. This year there is an additional award for abstract, shortform, and “otherwise esoteric ‘art games’”.

Brandon Boyer, Chairman of the IGF, said of this year’s event: “Expanding the IGF to include mobile and more artistic experiences is our way of recognizing the constantly evolving landscape of indie game development, and the advancement of the expression possible in the medium itself. I’m more excited than ever to see what the indie community creates for this year’s festival, and wish all the entrants the best of luck!”

Good luck to all those that enter! Find all the information here.

People in attendance were able to attend multiple lectures, the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, and even tutorials and roundtables. Another attraction was likely the keynote speech by Sid Meier.

This comes on the heels of the announcement that GDC will be in the Moscone Center again next year, starting February 28.

Other award recipients for the year include PLAYDEAD’s LIMBO (Excellence in Visual Art and Technical Excellence), and Closure Team’s Closure (Excellence in Audio).

Previous winners include a lot of titles we’ve come to know and love: Braid, Audiosurf, Castle Crashers, and World of Goo. Out of 301 entries, they had to be narrowed down by 170 judges, so the winners this year will likely show up as downloadable games on our consoles and computers at some point.

Congratulations to all the winners from us here at GamingAngels – A full list is below.

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.

It’s a great time for innovation and creativity! The Organizers for the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival announced that they have received a record number of entries for the 2010 contest.

So far there are 306 titles slated for the main competition, with 150 judges that have to play each one. The finalists will be announced in January and the winner will be announced at GDC in March.

The eight major awards to be won are:
Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($20,000)
Excellence In Visual Art ($2,500)
Excellence In Audio ($2,500)
Excellence in Design ($2,500)
Nuovo Award ($2,500)
Technical Excellence ($2,500)
Audience Award ($2,500)
Direct2Drive Award (TBA)

See information on all the entries here. The submission date did pass, so it looks like 306 will be the final tally. Good luck to all those involved!