10-770: The Seumas McNally Grand Prize is the main award given at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), an annual event that takes place during the Game Developers Conference , one of the largest gatherings of the indie video game industry. It was first awarded as the Independent Games Festival Grand Prize to Fire and Darkness in the 1999 edition of the festival. The next year, it was awarded to Seumas McNally for his game Tread Marks ; following McNally's passing from Hodgkin's lymphoma shortly after,
20-520: A playable state to the IGF organization committee for a small fee. These titles are then sent to approximately 300 game industry representatives on the Nominating Committee; these representatives include both indie developers and more mainstream developers and publishers. Each Committee member can nominate any of the provided games to one or more of the categories. Then, for each award category,
30-573: A pre-selected jury of between seven and fifteen members reviews the nominations and makes a final selection of six finalists (eight for the Nuovo award) and a number of honorable mentions. The selected finalists are expected to present their games at the IGF during the Games Developers Conference; the show provides them a booth space and access to the convention, but finalists either must secure their own travel and lodgings, or name
40-486: A proxy to demonstrate their games. During the convention, a separate jury selected by the IGF organization committee will review each game, and just prior to the awards, vote for one game in each category. The only exception is the Audience Award, which is voted through online forms by anyone interested. Years given below indicate the year when the award was given, with the games or developers being recognized from
50-574: Is now owned by Informa after UBM's acquisition. The IGF competition awards a total of $ 50,000 in prizes to independent developers in Main Competition and Student Competition categories and held around the same time as the Game Developers Choice Awards event. From 2007 to 2010, there was a separate event called IGF Mobile for mobile phone games. The festival awards ceremony is split into two broad categories:
60-587: The Woods , and Lucas Pope for Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn . Independent Games Festival The Independent Games Festival ( IGF ) is an annual festival at the Game Developers Conference (GDC), the largest annual gathering of the independent video game industry. Originally founded in 1998 to promote independent video game developers , and innovation in video game development by CMP Media, later known as UBM Technology Group , IGF
70-411: The award was renamed in his honor in 2001. Twenty-six video games have received the award, and more than 50 have been selected as finalists. The award is given alongside a prize of US$ 10,000. For the 2004 and 2005 years, it was divided into two categories, "Open Category" and "Web/Downloadable", although they were merged back into a single prize in 2006. From 2011 onwards, a list of "Honorable Mentions"
80-437: The former in 2012 and the latter in 2013. The Stanley Parable achieved the same feat, becoming an honorable mention in 2013 and a finalist in 2014. Games do not have to be published in order to qualify for the prize; when Fez won the award in 2012, it was still undergoing pre-release certification. Some developers have won the prize twice, either solo or as part of a larger team: Alec Holowka for Aquaria and Night in
90-746: The main IGF competition and the IGF Student Showcase. The main Independent Games Festival, held in March 2012 at San Francisco's GDC 2012, distributed nine major awards: An additional award, "Excellent in Narrative", was added for the 2013 IGF. In addition, the IGF's Student Showcase competition gives out the following awards each year: Prior to the Festival, developers have the opportunity to submit their game in
100-409: Was introduced, composed of games that had been considered for the prize but had not become finalists. Gish and Seed are the only games to become finalists in multiple editions of the event. Additionally, Gish is the only finalist to win the prize in a subsequent edition of the festival. FTL: Faster Than Light was the first game to have been both an honorable mention and a finalist, achieving
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