The winners of the 2023 IGF Awards have been announced, celebrating some of the best independent games from the last year, and really, some of the best games of the last year in general. The full list of finalists and honourable mentions is an incredible primer for some of the most innovative and exciting things happening in video games today.
The singular Betrayal at Club Low took out the Seumas McNally Grand Prize award, as well as the Nuovo award, in a competitive category that included the Australian-developed Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg, which previously took out the Australian Game Developer Award for Excellence In Emerging Games.
Read: The 5 best indie games of 2022 you definitely didn’t play
The Case of the Golden Idol took out the award for Excellence in Design, which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has experienced the game’s fantastic approach to player-driven deduction.
The incredible-looking RPG Time: The Legend of Wright won the award for Excellence in Visual Art, with its pencil-drawn and cardboard cutout collage style, and the brilliant Immortality took out the award for Excellence in Narrative.
Congratulations to all the winners, finalists, and honorable mentions of the 2023 IGF Awards.
IGF Awards 2023 – Full list of nominations
Here’s the full list of Independent Games Festival nominees, courtesy of the IGF.
Best Student Game
- Gevaudan (Nicolas Bernard)
- Mind Diver (Indoor Sunglasses)
- Presenter Slides (Mathias Schifter & Brin Žvan)
- Shutter (ARTFX 2022)
- Skala (Gustav Almström)
- Slider (randomerz) [WINNER]
Honourable Mentions: A Mallard’s Song (Ducky Elford), Error143 (Jenny Vi Pham), Paper Planet (Doodlegames), The Longest Walk (Alexander Tarvet), zenosyne (Ezra Szanton)
Excellence in Audio
- Dome Keeper (Bippinbits)
- Paradise Marsh (LazyEti)
- South of the Circle (State of Play)
- The Forest Quartet (Mads & Friends) [WINNER]
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team)
- We are OFK (Team OFK)
Honourable Mentions: Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios), Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster), Immortality (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid), Melatonin (Half Asleep), Neon White (Angel Matrix), Tinykin (Splashteam)
Excellence in Design
- Against the Storm (Eremite Games)
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
- Mr. Sun’s Hatbox (Kenny Sun)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix)
- Stacklands (Sokpop Collective)
- The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games) [WINNER]
Honourable Mentions: Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age), Cursed to Golf (Chuhai Labs), Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator (niceplay games), Swordship (Digital Kingdom), Terra Nil (Free Lives), Tinykin (Splashteam)
Excellence in Narrative
- Butterfly Soup 2 (Brianna Lei)
- Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games)
- Immortality (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid) [WINNER]
- NORCO (Geography of Robots)
- South of the Circle (State of Play)
Honourable Mentions: Eternal Threads (Cosmonaut Studios), Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg (Fuzzy Ghost), Roadwarden (Moral Anxiety Studio), The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games), The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (Cloak and Dagger Games), The Wreck (The Pixel Hunt)
Excellence in Visual Arts
- Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
- How Deep Is the Dark Water? (Rhett Tsai)
- Potionomics (Voracious Games)
- RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.) [WINNER]
- To Hell With the Ugly (La Poule Noire, ARTE France)
- Tunic (Tunic Team)
Honourable Mentions: I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games), Melatonin (Half Asleep), NAIAD (HiWarp), Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator (niceplay games), Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox), Swordship (Digital Kingdom), Terra Nil (Free Lives), Voodoo Detective (Short Sleeve Studio LLC)
Nuovo Award
- Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
- An Outcry (Quinn K.)
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios) [WINNER]
- He Fucked The Girl Out Of Me (Taylor McCue)
- Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg (Fuzzy Ghost)
- Sylvie Lime (Love Game)
- Time Bandit (Joel Jordon)
- Titanic II: Orchestra for Dying At Sea (Flan Falacci)
Honourable Mentions: Atuel (Matajuegos), Ib (kouri), Not For Broadcast (NotGames), Of Moons and Mania (Absurd Walls), RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)
Audience Award
- Potionomics (Voracious Games) [WINNER]
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios) [WINNER]
- Tunic (Tunic Team)
- The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
- Immortality (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix)
- Not For Broadcast (NotGames)
Honourable Mentions: Tinykin (Splashteam), Terra Nil (Free Lives), RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.), Roadwarden (Moral Anxiety Studio), Hardspace: Shipbreaker (Blackbird Interactive), Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)
The winners of the annual Independent Games Festival Awards will be announced at 6:30 pm PT on 22 March 2023. The show will be live on the GDC Twitch channel.
