While the Game Developers Conference isn’t taking place this week, postponed by Covid-19 well being considerations, its two massive awards reveals went forward on livestream. The vile waterfowl of Untitled Goose Game ran off with the coveted Game Of The Year Award on the Game Developers Choice Awards (extra on that later), and the coolness A Short Hike scooped the Grand Prize on the Independent Games Festival Awards. A Short Hike and fellow winner Mutazione are each free for keepsies on one other few hours too. If you get pleasure from having your preferences validated by awards from distinguished-sounding our bodies, learn on!
The IGF lineup is simply games who pay to submit (or are accredited to have charges waived), so it’s not each indie game beneath the solar and infrequently consists of games which aren’t completed but. They’re then performed and voted on by an enormous variety of builders and different trade figures then despatched to a smaller panel of class jurors. On the dimensions of video game awards, it’s a fairly respectable sense of what builders’ friends suppose. Which makes them fairly good to win.
Your winners from the 22nd annual Independent Games Festival Awards are:
Excellence in Visual Art – Knights And Bikes ($2000)
That’s the beautiful journey of two youngsters on a Cornish-ish island. “It’s such a warm game,” Matt mentioned in our Knights And Bikes review. “Touching and heartfelt, masterfully capturing the cosy excitement of the places and stories we explore as children.” Chuffing fairly too.
Excellence in Audio – Mutazione ($2000)
Visit an island of mutants, make mates, turn out to be tangled of their lives, and fear about overstepping your bounds on this cracking cleaning soap opera. It’s obtained an incredible soundtrack, characters converse with musical noises, and you may plant your individual songs with seeds.
“Mutazione allows you to be an artist, as you choose where your plants will grow, perhaps with a big splash of pink leaves on the left and a smattering of bright mushrooms across the ground, and also a composer,” Alice Bee mentioned in our Mutazione review. “Then you can sit and watch, and listen to it. It’s a miracle that all the little sounds come together to make music.”
We declared it the best games of 2019 too. My favorite half was something involving swimming, Miu, or swimming with Miu.
Also! Mutazione continues to be free for keepsies for one more few quick hours on the Epic Games Store, till 3pm UK time. Hop to!
Excellence in Design – Patrick’s Parabox ($2000)
Huh, this one is new to me! A puzzle game about pushing packing containers into packing containers in packing containers in packing containers in packing containers with infinite recursion? I’ll maintain an eye fixed open for when it’s completed and out.
Excellence in Narrative – Heaven’s Vault ($2000)
Sail the rivers between stars, study and translate languages of long-dead civilisations, and see the place that takes you.
“You pull at threads and you tease out the meaning of a whole civilisation, the most satisfying unravelling imaginable,” Alice mentioned in our Heaven’s Vault review “And I already know that there are secrets I didn’t properly uncover, because it was a bit of history I didn’t chase down far enough.”
Nuovo Award – The Space Between ($2000)
Also new to me, this. Drifting right into a dreamy, surreal play at night time? I’m game.
The Nuovo award is for games which make of us “think differently about games as a medium”. It’s beforehand been gained by games together with Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Oikospiel Book I, Cart Life, and Tetrageddon Games.
Best Student Game – Bore Dome ($2000)
Another new one to me, cool! A… first-person puzzle game about experiencing boring and medicocre moments with bizarre simulated senses and actions? I’ll play this when it’s out, little doubt.
Audience Award – A Short Hike ($2000)
“I did want to keep exploring, and once I’d found everything there was to find, I kept playing just to hang out for longer in its world,” our Graham mentioned when declaring it one among last year’s best games “Just as Claire found more than she expected on her mountain climb, I found more in A Short Hike. It’s a spiritually refreshing videogame – and how many of those are there?”
Seumas McNally Grand Prize – A Short Hike ($10,000)
You once more? Hello! In that case, I’ll present you in the direction of Katharine saying “A Short Hike is the best Animal Crossing game this side of New Horizons.”
And! A Short Hike can be free for keepsies on the Epic Games Store in case you seize it by 3pm at the moment.
I’m glad to see three games I don’t know this 12 months. The IGF Awards might not be as wild and thrilling as they as soon as have been however I’m at all times glad to be launched to evidently-pretty-good games I’d missed up to now.
While the Game Developers Conference is among the many events cancelled by coronavirus concerns, with a alternative occasion tentatively deliberate for summer season, most of the talks deliberate for this week are being streamed online for free.
Disclosure: Hannah Nicklin, a former RPS contributor and pal of mine, wrote Mutazione.
