It was the 20th annual Independent Games Festival award show tonight at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. Infinite Fall’s rust belt gothic adventure game Night in the Woods won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize as well as the Excellence in Narrative Award. Arvi Teikari’s Baba Is You also won big — it was up in four categories and took home two awards. The winners were selected from 35 finalists.
The event kicked off with a short speech from IGF chairperson Kelly Wallick, who delivered a message in support of diversity. She gave a shoutout to games like Mulaka by Mexican developer Lienzo and Cameroon-based studio Kiro’o Games’ Aurion: Legacy of the Kori-Odan as examples of titles by creators from different cultures.
“The ability to share and create your stories and experience the stories of others is what makes games so powerful,” said Wallick. “The next step is to open the doors to more communities, to create more opportunities for diversity.”
In additional to the usual raft of awards, the U.K. nonprofit SpecialEffect received the ID@Xbox Gaming for Everyone Award for its work to empower disabled people to play games. The Celeste Team’s action-packed platformer Celeste also took home the Audience Award.
Here are all the winners:
- Best Student Game: Baba Is You (Arvi Teikari)
- Excellence in Visual Art: Chuchel (Amanita Design)
- Excellence in Audio: Uurnog Uurnlimited (Nifflas Games)
- Excellence in Design: Baba Is You (Arvi Teikari)
- Excellence in Narrative: Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall)
- Nuovo Award: Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (Bennett Foddy)
- Alt.Ctrl.GDC Award: Puppet Pandemonium (Terence Tolman, Nicky Breshon, Kathleen Kamali, Dustin Harris, Simon Manning)
- ID@Xbox Gaming for Everyone Award: SpecialEffect
- Audience Award: Celeste (The Celeste Team)
- Seumas McNally Grand Prize: Night in the Woods (Infinite Fall)
GamesBeat
GamesBeat's creed when covering the game industry is "where passion meets business." What does this mean? We want to tell you how the news matters to you -- not just as a decision-maker at a game studio, but also as a fan of games. Whether you read our articles, listen to our podcasts, or watch our videos, GamesBeat will help you learn about the industry and enjoy engaging with it. How will you do that? Membership includes access to:- Newsletters, such as DeanBeat
- The wonderful, educational, and fun speakers at our events
- Networking opportunities
- Special members-only interviews, chats, and "open office" events with GamesBeat staff
- Chatting with community members, GamesBeat staff, and other guests in our Discord
- And maybe even a fun prize or two
- Introductions to like-minded parties
