From Gamasutra:

The IGF organizers have announced the Main Competition finalists for the 2007 Independent Games Festival, from an amazing field of 141 entries this year. Nominations are led by Bit Blot' s dreamlike, innovatively controlled 2D underwater adventure title Aquaria, which garnered 4 nominations, including one for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

According to a statement: " Other Grand Prize nominees included Queasy Games' cleverly designed abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed 3 nominations in total - nominees for the top prize were rounded out by Peter Stock' s intelligently complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Three Rings' Wild West indie strategy MMO Bang! Howdy, and Naked Sky' s Xbox Live Arcade action-puzzler RoboBlitz.

Other notable IGF finalists grabbing nominations for design-related innovation include DigiPen-constructed first-person shooter set in a world of blocks (which act as both terrain and weapons!), Toblo, as well as NABI Software' s extremely original turn-based ragdoll fighting game Toribash. Elsewhere, Best Web Browser Game finalists include Amanita Design' s beautifully drawn adventure title Samorost 2, Visual Art finalists also have a plethora of highlights, including The Behemoth' s Xbox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers.

Finally, the Excellence In Audio category includes Skinflake' s Racing Pitch, in which the player uses a microphone to imitate a car engine in order to power his on-screen vehicle, and Technical Excellence also has a multitude of stand-outs, including Cryptic Sea' s physics puzzler Blast Miner and EvStream' s multiplayer space title Armada Online."

In the Excellence in Visual Art category, I will be pulling for Samorost 2. But I also have a lot of admiration for the style and strange humor in Golf?

Check out the article here for specific links to the nominees, or proceed directly to the Independent Games Festival website.

None of you are hardcore gamers if you have no interest in this... you' re just hardcore consumers.

Hey cool, Samorost was great. Haven' t played any of the others but, that should definitely win something if not the visual treats prize..

The IGF winners were announced yesterday!

Grand Prize: Aquaria by Bit-Blot.



" Lonely, restless Naija has spent her entire life wrestling with questions about her identity. We join her as she takes her first steps away from the comfort of home and into new, potentially dangerous waters. Through exploration and magical combat, Naija will unearth the history of Aquaria and connect with beings lost in the depths of time. On the search to discover the fate of her people, her destiny and that of Aquaria' s will be forever altered.

Aquaria is an action-oriented, non-linear 2D side-scrolling game. Using an intuitive and fluid mouse control system, Naija can deftly swim through and explore a massive, handcrafted world that is teeming with undersea life. Along the way, she will encounter literally hundreds of different types of plants and animals and explore many ingame miles of hidden caves, lost ruins, and other strange places."


Design Innovation & Excellence in Audio: Everyday Shooter by Queasy.



" Everyday Shooter is an album of games exploring the expressive power of abstract shooters. Dissolute sounds of destruction are replaced with guitar riffs harmonizing over an all-guitar soundtrack, while modulating shapes celebrate the flowing beauty of geometry."


Excellence in Visual Art & Audience Award: Castle Crashers by The Behemoth.



" Castle Crashers supports four player offline cooperative play where you and your friends can take control of four different colored knights. Each knight has a sword or mace for melee attacks and the capability to bust out four types of magical assaults, though the magic is different for each color of knight. The game continues the same kind of layered 2D side scrolling style that made Alien Hominid so appealing, but adds a deeper combat system to make things more interesting."


Best Web Browser Game: Samorost 2 by Amanita Design.



" The sequel to the hit online Flash game Samorost, Samorost 2 is every bit as visually stunning as its predecessor, and just as minimalist in its design and mouse-based control. This world is all about manipulating the environment to solve puzzles, and is hugely compelling... if a little short."


Technical Excellence: Bang! Howdy by Three Rings Design.



" Set in the Wild West, Bang! Howdy is a multiplayer online tactical strategy game. Each player has a team of units with different abilities, and there' s an in-game micro-currency system that rewards players with the ability to buy new units, gameplay affecting cards and custom avatars."


(Text sources: from developers' sites, or IGN AU)