If the Independent Games Festival awards are the Oscars of video gaming, then that absolutely makes Rock Paper Shotgun’s yearly Advent Calendar the BAFTAs. I’m justifying this spurious comparability as a result of the games we picked as our favourites of 2022 have confirmed a powerful indicator of what you may discover on this 12 months’s checklist of IGF finalists. Among the selectees are Tunic, Betrayal At Club Low, Norco, Neon White and The Case Of The Golden Idol.
The IGF has been working for years and does higher than most videogame awards at highlighting attention-grabbing, distinctive work. As at all times, this 12 months’s final winners will probably be chosen by a jury of game builders and introduced throughout the Game Developers Conference, which runs March Twentieth-Twenty fourth. The awards ceremony is on Wednesday, March twenty second and also will be broadcast on Twitch.
Here’s the complete checklist of nominees:
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)
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 Okay.)
- 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.)
The apparent absentee from this checklist is, in fact, Vampire Survivors. It was arguably 2022’s greatest indie hit and it was our most favouritest game of final 12 months. Maybe its builders did not submit it for consideration? That’s the one legitimate excuse for it not that includes among the many finalists or honourable mentions.