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Independent Games Festival Awards 2023 finalists revealed

Tunic and Betrayal at Club Low lead the way with three nominations each.

Ozzie Mejia

January 24, 2023 9:00 AM

Game Developers Conference

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The annual Game Developers Conference is normally capped off by a pair of award shows: the Game Developers Choice Awards and the Independent Games Festival Awards. On Tuesday, the folks at Informa Tech revealed the finalists for the latter, celebrating the best in indie game design.

Breakout hit Tunic and under-the-radar indie gem Betrayal at Club Low collected three nominations a piece. Both are nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize along with The Case of the Golden Idol, Immortality, Neon White, and Not For Broadcast.

Here are the full nominations, all viewable from the Independent Games Festival website:

Best Student Game

• Gevaudan (Nicolas Bernard)
• Mind Diver (Indoor Sunglasses)
• Presenter Slides (Mathias Schifter & Brin Žvan)
• Shutter (ARTFX 2022)
• Skala (Gustav Almström)
• Slider (randomerz)

Honorable 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)
• Tunic (Tunic Team)
• We are OFK (Team OFK)

Honorable 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)

Honorable 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)
• NORCO (Geography of Robots)
• South of the Circle (State of Play)

Honorable 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.)
• To Hell With the Ugly (La Poule Noire, ARTE France)
• Tunic (Tunic Team)

Honorable 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)
• 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)

Honorable Mentions: Atuel (Matajuegos), Ib (kouri), Not For Broadcast (NotGames), Of Moons and Mania (Absurd Walls), RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
• 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)

Honorable 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 Independent Games Festival has recognized and honored many widely recognized indie titles in past years, including last year's Seumas McNally Grand Prize winner, Inscryption. The IGF and Game Developers Choice Awards are expected to run during this year's Game Developers Conference week, which will take place from March 20-24. We'll be watching both shows and we'll report on the big winners, so be sure to follow this story here at Shacknews.

Ozzie Mejia

Senior Editor

Ozzie has been playing video games since picking up his first NES controller at age 5. He has been into games ever since, only briefly stepping away during his college years. But he was pulled back in after spending years in QA circles for both THQ and Activision, mostly spending time helping to push forward the Guitar Hero series at its peak. Ozzie has become a big fan of platformers, puzzle games, shooters, and RPGs, just to name a few genres, but he’s also a huge sucker for anything with a good, compelling narrative behind it. Because what are video games if you can't enjoy a good story with a fresh Cherry Coke?