Submissions for the 2012 Independent Games Festival are now open! For those who need a refresher, IGF is the indie-focused competition featured at the annual Game Developers Conference in San Francisco for the past thirteen years, with awards doled out in a ceremony directly preceding the Game Developers Choice awards.

For the 2012 festival, the IGF has revealed that they're amping up the program with some extra prize money and refinements. The Seumas McNally Grand Prize will now come with a $30,000 cash award (50% more than the previous year), and all category winners will receive a $3,000 prize. The one exception will be the Nuovo Award, which will remain at $5,000. and Submissions for the Main Competition end on October 17, and submissions for the Student Showcase end on October 31.

Additionally, the IGF is taking steps to discourage developers from submitting the same game from previous years. It doesn't sound like they'll be prohibiting such submissions at this point, but may be moving in that direction.

"We would like to see the games coming into the festival being prepared for the festival, just as it operates in other creative fields," states a post from IGF Chairman Brandon Boyer. "While some IGF finalists have gone on to win IGF awards when entered in a more complete state, we're making an official stance that finalists of IGF 2012 will be discouraged from re-entering their game in 2013."

All the nitty-gritty details about submitting your indie game to IGF 2012 can be found here.

Last year's IGF top-honors were taken by Minecraft (two awards) and Amnesia: The Dark Descent (three awards). Other popular indies like LIMBO, Braid, World of Goo, and Castle Crashers garnered awards in past years.