SAN FRANCISCO – August 6, 2014 – The call for submissions are now open for the 17th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF), the longest running festival, summit, and showcase for indie games. The 2015 IGF will be held at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco March 2-6. Entries for the Main Competition are now being accepted through October 22, 2014; entries for the Student Showcase categories are due October 31, 2014. Finalists will be announced in January 2015.
All IGF finalists will be playable at the IGF Pavilion March 4-6 at the 2015 Game Developers Conference Expo Floor, and will compete for over $50,000 in prizes. The Independent Games Summit, which is a series of lectures, postmortems, and roundtable sessions centered on the dialogue and best practices for indie developers, will take place at GDC March 2-3.
Winners will be announced live onstage at the IGF Awards ceremony on Wednesday, March 4, 2015 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. The categories for the IGF Awards include Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, Design, and Narrative, with the winning developer or team in each category receiving a $3,000 prize. The winner of the Seumas McNally Grand Prize is set to receive a prize of $30,000. There will be six finalists for each of these categories.
Two special categories will feature eight finalists, those being for Best Student Game ($3,000 prize) and the Nuovo Award ($5,000 prize), which honors abstract, shortform, and unconventional games. Additionally, a public vote by the Main Competition finalists will determine the winner of the IGF Audience Award ($3,000 prize).
Since being launched in 1998, the IGF Awards have served as the largest and longest-running annual event for independent video game developers, celebrating the finest in indie game development. In that time, the IGF Awards have become an avenue to propel indie games into major commercial and critical success, with notable past winners that include Minecraft, Limbo, Castle Crashers, Braid, Everyday Shooter, Oasis, and 2014’s Seumas McNally grand prize winner Papers, Please.
“The IGF continues to be one of the most exciting events of the year for showcasing the range and scope of what videogames can be,” said IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer. “All of us here look forward to celebrating the work of some of the artform’s best-known talent, as well as discovering bold new voices that will continue to evolve the way we think about games in the years to come. Best of luck to all entrants — we can’t wait to see what you create!”
Submissions to the competition are now open to all independent game developers; important dates for IGF 2015 are as follows:
– August 6, 2014 – Submissions are Open
– October 22, 2014 – Submission Deadline, Main Competition
– October 31, 2014 – Submission Deadline, Student Competition
– January 6, 2015 – Finalists Announced, Main Competition
– January 20, 2015 – Finalists Announced, Student Competition
– March 2 – March 6, 2015 – Game Developers Conference 2015
– March 2 – March 3, 2015 – Independent Games Summit @ GDC 2015
– March 4 – March 6, 2015- IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2015
– March 4, 2015 – IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)
For more information on the 2015 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics and frequently asked questions, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website: http://www.igf.com. IGF Main Competition entries can be submitted at the following website: http://submit.igf.com. IGF Student submissions can be entered here: http://students.igf.com.
