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SAN FRANCISCO – March 1, 2017 – Quadrilateral Cowboy from developer Blendo Games was awarded with the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game at the 19th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards tonight. The ceremony took place as part of the 2017 Game Developers Conference (GDC) at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. In addition to the grand prize, Quadrilateral Cowboy also took home the award for Excellence in Design. Quadrilateral Cowboy is a title set in a retro-tech world of 1980s computer coding and features a series of cyberpunk heist missions with a unique blend of puzzles, computer hacking and a captivating narrative. An archive of the award ceremony can be viewed at http://twitch.tv/gdc.
The night’s other multiple award winner was Hyper Light Drifter, an action adventure role-playing game that pays tribute to classic titles from the 16bit era. Developer Heart Machine received two awards in recognition of their debut title, Excellence in Visual Art and the Audience Award, which is chosen from among all of the IGF finalists through a public online voting process.
Honored for Excellence in Narrative, Ladykiller in a Bind from Love Conquers All Games, is a provocative visual novel about social manipulation, crossdressing, and exploring sexual power dynamics. GoNNER, a challenging action platformer with roguelike elements from developer Art in Heart, won the Excellence in Audio Award for its creative sound design and catchy music. The Best Student Game award was given to Un Pas Fragile, which portrays the story of a little frog who aspires to perform ballet.
The Nuovo Award, which recognizes the artistry behind abstract and unconventional games, was awarded to creator David Kanaga for his game, Oiκοςpiel, Book I. The game playfully utilizes absurd imagery, language and music to create a unique vision of a mythologically-inspired dog opera told in five acts.
All IGF titles, including both finalists and winners, are playable for any GDC pass holder and can be found within the IGF Pavilion located on the GDC Expo Floor in San Francisco’s Moscone Center through Friday, March 3rd.
The following games are the winners of the 19th annual IGF Awards:
Excellence in Narrative ($3,000)
Ladykiller in a Bind (Love Conquers All Games)
Excellence in Audio ($3,000)
GoNNER (Art in Heart)
Excellence in Design ($3,000)
Quadrilateral Cowboy (Blendo Games)
Excellence in Visual Art ($3,000)
Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine)
Nuovo Award ($5,000)
Oiκοςpiel, Book I (David Kanaga)
Best Student Game ($3,000)
Un Pas Fragile (Géraud de Courrèges, Alisée Preud’homme, Gregory Parisi, Gaspard Morel)
Audience Award ($3,000)
Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine)
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Fear Sphere (New Arcade)
Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($30,000)
Quadrilateral Cowboy (Blendo Games)
The Independent Games Festival offers finalists global exposure and more than $50,000 in cash prizes to each year’s winners. The IGF – which includes the two-day Independent Games Summit as part of GDC – was established in 1998 by the UBM Game Network to recognize the best independent game developers and encourage creativity and excellence in independent games.
Organizers would like to thank the generous supporters of this year’s IGF, including ID@Xbox (Platinum Sponsor), Samsung (Gold Sponsor) and Gamasutra.com (IGF Media Partner).
For more information about the IGF, and its finalists and winners, please visit http://www.igf.com.
