The Independent Games Festival has released its shortlist of independently produced video games of merit — the grand prize winner will be announced at the Festival in San Francisco, March 6-9. In an era where games can cost tens of millions of dollars to produce, risk-taking and the vibrancy that accompanies it has faded from the mainstream of the art-form. Indiegames’s emphasis on low-budg, risky and original games makes it the best place to find out about the best games you never heard of.
Other Grand Prize nominees included Queasy Games’ cleverly designed abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed 3 nominations in total – nominees for the top prize were rounded out by Peter Stock’s intelligently complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Three Rings’ Wild West indie strategy MMO Bang! Howdy, and Naked Sky’s Xbox Live Arcade/PC action-puzzler RoboBlitz.
Other notable IGF finalists grabbing nominations for design-related innovation include DigiPen-constructed first-person shooter set in a world of blocks (which act as both terrain and weapons!), Toblo, as well as NABI Software’s extremely original turn-based ragdoll fighting game Toribash. Elsewhere, Best Web Browser Game finalists include Amanita Design’s beautifully drawn adventure title Samorost 2, Visual Art finalists also have a plethora of highlights, including The Behemoth’s Xbox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers.
Finally, the Excellence In Audio category includes Skinflake’s Racing Pitch, in which the player uses a microphone to imitate a car engine in order to power his on-screen vehicle, and Technical Excellence also has a multitude of stand-outs, including Cryptic Sea’s physics puzzler Blast Miner and EvStream’s multiplayer space title Armada Online.
(Thanks, Oliver!)