2020 Independent Games Festival & Game Developers Choice Awards

[Music] hello and welcome to this special edition of the 22nd annual independent Games Festival Awards as I'm sure you may have noticed we are not all in San Francisco celebrating together instead I am in a forest and you all are tuning in from wherever you happen to be in the world right now I have plenty that I would love to say but I understand attention spans are short and I'm sure you all want to get to the awards so I'll keep this short and sweet these are interesting times and as a perpetual optimist all I can think of is how much I really love our community even when we're faced with extraordinary

circumstances collectively we're always moving in the right direction and we're supporting each other in really remarkable ways and while I wish that we're all together celebrating the incredible games and teams that will be honored tonight I am grateful that we have this opportunity to create a virtual celebration and to include so many of you and sharing this experience with us so here's to you the games and teams who received honorable mentions the people who worked tirelessly to make the IGF happen and of course best of luck to all the finalists so let's get this crazy experiment started [Music] hi welcome to the IDF's I'm Trent custer's from League of geeks and we're here at our studio in Melbourne we couldn't come together in person this year but I'm honored to be your host for the 22nd annual IGF Awards and thanks to

our lead sponsor ID at Xbox and a whole heap of last minute elbow grease we'll be doing things a little bit differently this year we'll be celebrating the past years in the achievements like this no envelope opening no tuxedo just me you and a bunch of sweet Awards [Music] look 2020 has been kinda grim so far but let's not forget the heartbreak that was 2019 and I'm talking specifically that it was a big year for video game break ups Bungie left Activision's bosom is now strutting around with that big single energy Reggie our sweet sweet Reggie left Nintendo and I mean Nintendo's got to be pretty cut up about it they're dating a guy literally named Doug Bowser there with Bowser now no one wants their ex to date a bad guy Nintendo's dating the bad guy and then

of course there's the messiest most public breakup of 2019 blizzard and Hong Kong but these are all triple-a woes if you're an indie developer there are more hot singles on the indie dating scene than ever before and they've all got a [ __ ] ton of real weird money that's why this IGF we're launching Indy daddy dating we've rounded up the hottest most cashed up daddies and we've got them here for you tonight our first daddy has always been pretty well off but they've recently come into a lot of money with their newly formed children's entertainment Empire meet epic your friends won't really approve of them but the perks are overwhelming and they never ask for their change back our next daddy is smart trendy intellectual your shot at everlasting love could be Apple arcade this design Ford hottie will

promise you the world but once they've got you they might just check out our next study is all about performance strength power but with a playful jock vibe meet Xbox they got into the dating game late because they're all about hanging with the boys until their 30s but they're our only daddy with an axe deodorant endorsement okay for our next daddy let's go a little bit more mysterious flashy car rich AF and they know where you live it's Google's stadia even though they've told you 40 times what they do you still don't understand now look if commitment isn't really your thing and let's be honest this is the independent Games Festival after all the now next option may be right up your

alley devolver annapurna and raw fury our indie publishers sure they may sleep on a mattress on the floor and yes they might even ask you to pick up the check from time to time but you'll never be tied down again unless you're into that [Music] all right let's give out some awards this first category terrifies established developers this is the IGF for best student game best student game orbital bullet developed by a smoked stab Eve masuleh Robin Michelle

a jugglers tale developed by colitis cube Stephan overlay and zo Probst Dominique Xuan Elias Kramer forgotten developed by mutiny games The Forgotten team [Music] nyan beats developed by ochio games the nyan beats team [Music] for Dome developed by goblin rage the boredom team

nothing inside developed by the nothing insight team and the winner is bored ohm okay thank you idea for giving us this award it's very nice to be here and whether or not we receive actually is a word we asked you voted now the winner of this award can rest easily knowing that they've appeased our almighty overlords the gamers this is the winner of the IGF audience award chosen by you audience

award and the winner is a short hike oh wow I'm so honored and excited to receive the audience award thank you to everybody who voted for my weird little hiking game and everybody who helped me get here today and make the game I really want to thank my partner Don who supported me throughout the entire journey and her wisdom and her contributions to the game made it something a lot better and it wouldn't have been the same without her I really want to thank my friend Andrew who contributed art to the game and spent time with me while I was working on it I want to thank Mark for making the amazing soundtrack David for making the amazing logo and everyone else who

helped contribute the game and made it what it is today and of course also my mom who always encouraged me and supported me throughout this entire journey my entire life so yes thank you so much thank you everyone and yeah it's just such an honor [Music] you can't hear good audio you feel it well you can obviously hear good audio the good audio is a type of glue it's a bonding agent that takes all the different elements and pulls them together into one cohesive piece this is the past year's greatest achievements in game glue this is excellence in audio [Music]

excellence in audio observation developed by no code Omar Khan Robin Finck John McKellen Vectra nam developed by lead opium 1 or gala [Music] [Applause] astral aghast ER developed by Nyame hem Andrea Balki door Oh Catherine Neal Jennifer Schneider ray Adele cuttin nights and bikes developed by foam sword Kenneth young Daniel M Burton Rex Crowley mu you Mutaz Ian a developed by

dig you to fabric the mutas Ian a team untitled goose game developed by house house em Halberstadt dan Goulding and [Music] the winner is muta CoA hi I'm Hanna Nippon studio lead active you to fabric we are totally delighted to accept this incredible honor McAfee Anya has been held by many people's hands and hearts of minds over the ten years since creative leave Nils Denikin dreamt up the wonderful world of the game and one of the biggest influences during that time has been composer and musician Alessandra Coronas

over to you Alessandra Thank You Hanna and everyone at IG f thank you so so much it's a big privilege and I want to extend a huge thank you to the whole team as we all know making games is a gigantic team effort so this is also for you bals you know who you are so thanks again to big hunter and lots of love from Sardinia thanks very much the IGF awards and judges for the nominations in this incredible honor and congratulations to all the other winners nominees and honorable mentions [Music] these next finalists found innovative ways not just to tell their stories but to help you tell yours this is excellence in narrative

excellence in narrative mutas E&A developed by de goethe fabric the mutas i own a team heavens vault developed by inkle john in gold Joseph Humphrey the heavens vault team [Music] elsinore developed by golden glitch studios the Elsinore team wide ocean big jacket developed by turn follows ian ensley Carter Medwick Scott Archer

[Music] eliza developed by zack Tronics Matthew Seiji burns the Eliza team lion killer developed by CCG Ong [Music] and the winner is heavens vault hi I'm John and I'm Joe hello and we're inkle thank you for this award it means a huge amount to us when we started heavens vault five years ago it seemed like a really good idea didn't it I mean yeah it did seem like a really good idea at the time until we added that entire ancient language that you

could decipher it was so hard oh and that entire narrative that you could play in just about any order that made the game really hard to build it was so hard anyway if you played heavens vault thank you so much we really hope you enjoyed it we'll be coming to switch later this year and we have a new game called Pendragon which will be out this year too so from me and Joe thanks to anastasiya wyatt laura dill away / intro mythic tom Blunden sarah heathered Lawrence Chapman and Tom Kael says everyone inkle who helped with the project you guys were amazing well done this is for all of us thank you amazing includes thank you bye later [Music] game design we start around Studios so we can design our dream games and then when we're too busy we have to hire game

designers these next finalists either hide great game designers or never admitted that were too busy this is excellence in design [Music] excellence in design katana zero developed by ASCII soft Justin stander [Music] lonely mountains downhill developed by mega gun industries Jan bubonic Daniel tell big Noah Karev slay the spire developed by mega crit games Casey yeah no Anthony Giovannetti

a short hike developed by Adam Robinson you mark Sparling elsinore developed by golden glitch studios the Elsinore team [Music] Patrick's para box developed by Patrick trainer [Music] and the winner is Patrick's para box thank you so much I'm

really really honored to receive this award and I'm so thankful to so many people who have helped and supported me so many people like my family my online friends from many communities and my offline friends and I really hope to continue to help and support others back and to contribute back I'm so inspired by so many games so many independent games and I'm really really happy to be here participating with my own work and to to be contributing and helping to move things forward and to be a part of it thank you thank you so much I'm so honored excellence in visual art we're actually nominated for this once but we didn't win I guess that's the best thing about hosting these awards remotely is that I

don't have to hand this award to someone else again let's take a look at this year's beautiful games excellence in visual art Muta's I own a developed by D Goethe fabric the mutas I own a team [Music] nights and bikes developed by foam sword Rex Crowley Lulu Kenneth Young Daniel Pemberton void bastards developed by blue Manchu Benjamin Lee the void bastards team creature in the well developed by flight

school studio Boden Sayer Adam Volker eastward developed by pic spill joel correlates hyperduck sound works Stone story RPG developed by Martian Rex and standard combo Gabriel Santos Raphael Langone smith and the winner is knights and bikes oh my god oh this is such an honor thank you so much thank you to the IGF this is just

incredible for us I really want to thank moon and Kenny and Daniel the team that all worked on the game with me I also want to thank our friends at Double Fine who like kept us alive and made sure the game could come out and I also really want to thank our Kickstarter backers because there is no way that this game would exist without them so just thank you so much to everyone involved it's it's just mind-blowing to get this award thank you this next line up of diverse experiences explores and celebrates the vast potential of our medium let's take a look at the finalists the IGF knew our

award for our annual dose of what the [ __ ] nuovo award tales from off-peak city volume one developed by Cosmo D Studios Gregg Cosmo D Heffernan who lien sole important cordero infini developed by barnak David Martin Emmerich more in [Music] the space between developed by Christophe Frye life tastes like

cardboard developed by dementia [Music] promesa developed by who Liam Palacios aundrea Chad righto doumitt siano maas le martine Palacios song of bloom developed by philip stolen mayor the longing developed by studio joists on some pita Thomas Kruger Stefan Michele Laura Rosie pagan at agony

developed by oleander garden [Music] and the winner is the space between hi everyone my name is Christopher I am the game developer of the space between and I'm speaking to you here from the wonderful city of Linz in Austria I want to thank you for the nuovo award and I'm honored to represent an award that is dedicated to the very adventurous exploration of what videogames can be so thanks again and I hope I'll see you soon in real life I hello due to the circumstances we can't do this live so I'm gonna do it my preferred way heavily edited with an excessive filter okay perfect

now all I need to do is introduce the Grand Prize nominees but first I want to talk about 2020 careening into a new decade here and it turns out that this year is also a notable anniversary for the IGF 20 years ago the grand prize winner here was a tank combat game called tread marks by longbow digital arts the founder and lead programmer at longbow was Seamus McNally maybe you've seen his name around somewhere Seamus was just 21 at the time but had already made a few games and in a lot of ways he was a pioneering indie developer for one longbow was selling their games online digitally that doesn't sound like a big deal now but back at the dawn of Indy time in 2000 there was no infrastructure and no easy sell without a physical copy and Seamus made an effort to share his knowledge with other developers about selling games online but also about technical issues even though he was young he was already very

good programmer and I remember how useful his articles on 3d engines and hardware were at the time after TreadMarks Seamus wasn't able to make another game he had been fighting Hodgkin's lymphoma for a few years and passed away just one week after winning the grand prize in his brief time Sheamus showed kindness and independence and especially an openness that set the perfect standard for the IGF and for me personally I'm proud to be associated with his name it's a great model for Indies 20 years so far and 20 more coming up and now to segue the Seamus McNally grand prize nominees for 2020 Seamus McNally grand prize Eliza developed by Zack tronics Matthew Seiji burns the Eliza team

a short hike developed by Adam Robinson you mark Sparling [Music] untitled goose game developed by house house Mutaz ioneiy developed by de goethe fabric the Mutaz i own a team slay the spire developed by mega crit games Casey yeah no Anthony Giovannetti [Music]

anodyne to returned to dust developed by Sean hon tani and marina Ayano kataka Melos hon tani and the winner is a short hike thank you so much I'm really really honored to be selected amongst the amazing games here at IGF I really want to thank everybody who helped me get here today firstly I'd like to thank my partner dawn who supported me throughout the entire journey she always believed in me in the game even when I wasn't so sure myself and I don't think the game would have been the same without her wisdom and support I want to thank Mark who make made the amazing soundtrack for the game Andrew for the art and it's friendship

as I worked on the game I want to thank David who made the amazing logo and my mom who supported me every step of the way and I really just want to thank everybody who played the game and gave me feedback and helped shape into something better so thank you so so much I'm so honored to be selected today thank you [Music] well there you have it that's another IGF in the bag folks that's a wrap thank you to Lucas Pope for giving someone else a chance this year of course thanks to Kelly Wallach chairperson of the IGF all the judges and jurors our lead sponsor ID at Xbox thanks again for supporting the festival and making it everything that it can be and speaking of which I wanted to thank the IGF team who make all of this magic happen behind

the scenes I also did want to take a moment to say that our hearts go out to all of those affected by the corona virus be sure to stay safe people we'll be back next year live in San Francisco again for another IGF Awards don't you worry about that now it's time to watch the game developers Choice Awards this year hosted by Kim Swift we might even get a chance to finally find out what death stranding is all about thanks everyone have a great night [Music] [Music]

hey everyone uh so how about that coronavirus a I'm so I'm sure you're keenly aware and GDC isn't happening this week so that way we can all avoid you know disease and pestilence since obviously it would be super weird for me to be giving the awards in a completely empty auditorium I was asked to help out with a remote Jaime developers Choice Awards because obviously you want to tell everyone who won so here I am coming to you live actually take that back this is prerecorded say hi to the crew hi guys so we are coming to you from sunny Los Angeles California I'm a bit disappointed however that I don't get to present on stage this year because I had this whole outfit planned it was pretty great and I mean look at these shoes these absolutely perfect exquisite foot torture devices that I will not get to wear anyways it is what it is but hey the advantages I could be wearing sweatpants right now and you

would have absolutely no idea so welcome to my roof definitely not your typical setting for the awards also this is my co-host this is Sunday you'll be seeing her more and also hey because this is at my house if you are lucky you'll get to hear the amazing ice cream truck that rolls around with a broken Luca Karachi horn it is just fantastic well let's get things rolling I've been sitting on who's one for a little bit now and it's killing me to keep it a secret so you know what let's head inside because it's getting a little warm out hey welcome to the inside of my house uh fair warning there's probably going to be parrot noses at some point so like be prepared for that oh honey anyways these folks are the future of our industry brand new developers making exceptional content showing us new facets of what games can be compelling storytelling colorful artwork and groundbreaking points of view here are your nominees for Best

Debut oh hey I rent Best Debut Zone nominated for disco Elysium the disco Elysium team [Music] Moebius Digital nominated for outer wilds [Music] William Cheers studio nominated for manifold garden William cheer Arthur Bresee Martin Cavalli Larisa Okada foam sword nominated for Knights and bikes Rex Crowley mu you Kenneth Young Daniel

Pemberton chance agency nominated for neo cab Patrick Ewing Vincent Perea Paula Rogers Felix Cramer and the winner is Zoe you from rainy London we're super grateful for that for Best Debut thank you we're sorry we couldn't be there but hopefully we'll all see you soon enough thanks again I'm not gonna lie this right here is my absolute favorite category Shh so I learned about a word which I'm likely gonna butcher saying out loud

hypnagogia which is that point in time right before you completely fall asleep it's called threshold consciousness it's like you can hallucinate and have loosened dreams and I really feel like innovation and true creativity in games is like manufactured hypnagogia we create dream states for our players that they get to control and hey that's pretty damn cool here are your nominees for innovation innovation award untitled goose game developed by house house published by panic Disko Elysium developed by zone the disco Elysium team [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] baba is you developed by hem Puli RV

takari matthias care Lu [Music] death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment outer wilds developed by Mobius digital published by annapurna interactive and the winner is Baba is you hello everyone this is our videgaray thank you so much for awarding Baba as you in the innovation category I'm super grateful for that I'd like to thank three people

on molecular for all the encouragement and support over the years niklas new grant for teaching me a lot about motivation and how to keep working on a project even we're not feeling like it and Lukas Miller for helping me so much over the years and teaching me many things and many ways to make the things I do better thank you and thanks to the GDC staff for organizing a lot of this and all their hard work and take care thank you once upon a time I went to nerd school DigiPen to get a CS degree I got about halfway through the degree and realized that not only do I not particularly like programming I'm like okay at it but I buckled down quit playing EverQuest very very key and graduated if I took one thing away from the experience however was the sheer appreciation of how difficult and complicated it is to build the technologies that allow us as designers and artists to bring our visions to life so let's take the time to appreciate the

noms for best technology best technology death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment control developed by remedy entertainment published by 505 games Sean Donnelly tattoo Alto miko or Enma call of duty modern warfare developed by Infinity Ward published by Activision apex legends developed by Respawn Entertainment published by Electronic Arts todd alderman druh McCoy Mackey

McClendon chad grainier noida developed by nola games petra portal Olli Harry Ola RB takari and the winner is control hey I'm Sean's only lead programmer of control I'm accepting the GDC award for best technology on behalf of remedy entertainment thank you so much for this award it really is a great honor especially when we see the competition in this category it's kind of insane big shout out to our in-house engine and tools team North lights and of course a massive thank you to everyone who actually worked on control who showed the tech off and the best possible light made the gameplay look and sound amazing

thank you so much it's time to announce the Award for Best narrative first though I had a very serious request from a friend of mine We Need to Talk up for this category we have both outer wilds and outer worlds at what point in time do you think both teams found out about the other games name and we're like Oh luckily for both of them they are excellent along with the rest of the nominees in this category here are your nominees for Best narrative best narrative disco Elysium developed by zone the disco Elysium team [Music] control developed by remedy entertainment published by 505 games Josh Stubbs clay Murphy Sam Lake death

stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment [Music] the outer worlds developed by Obsidian Entertainment published by private division the outer worlds narrative design team outer wilds develop by Mobius digital published by Annapurna interactive and the winner is disco Elysium hey GDC we are zone and we

are sending you greetings from rainy river shore thank you so much for the Best narrative award so sorry we couldn't be there in person but we was definite to see it in the summer thank you guys bye if you know Kate you know Kate's heroes kate loves strength she loves misfits and she loves rebels she loves them so much that she frequently dresses like them Kate's Thor cosplay is some of the most beautiful powerful costuming I've seen outside of an actual Hemsworth in the 90s when Microsoft in ensemble Studios released the first Age of Empires game it contained a grievous error for totally benign reasons the game misrepresented a crucial point of cultural history an error that was so egregious that a regional executive of ours was actually put in jail we needed a hero we needed somebody to help us fix

our problem we needed somebody maybe from Asgard sent to save us from ourselves and that's when I got to meet my favorite geographer Kate Edwards Kate is a rare being a leader introvert as a kid Kate would frequently look up from wandering the playground in a reverie to notice other children following her and she would demand why why are you following me around but to me the answer is obvious kate is never lost born into a loving and supportive family her parents established a morality based on doing the right thing defending the little guy and taking action where possible that forms the basis of Kate's worldview today at Microsoft kate led the entire company in the establishment of a set of processes for geopolitical reviews and standards that is the basis for our friendly global relationships an authentic cultural representation today and yes Kate did help us get our executive out of jail as director of the IG da Kate broadened

both her global worldview and also her understanding of the games industry she also gained fame for her outspoken opinions on the imbalances and the in justices that threatened independent game developers even today she formed a kind of Dumbledore's Army of advocates focusing on topics ranging from crunch to diversity to safety from online hate mobs kate expanded the reach of the IG da to emerging game development regions like Bangladesh Tunisia Egypt and many others and her advocacy hasn't ended in the year post IG da last year alone Kate traveled to more than 25 countries and she spent more than 76 hours on stage or in panels inspiring game developers everywhere her global focus is what makes her so perfect for the executive director of the global Game Jam although she has confided in me she believes it's time to expand global game jams horizons somewhere in a galaxy far far away the rebels need our help I would like to

thank GDC and the selection committee and all my fellow game creators around the world for this tremendous honor of receiving the ambassador award this year I was honestly taken by surprise by this and so I don't know what to say other than I'm truly humbled and and I'm very thankful so you know thank you so much for this recognition it means tremendous amount to me you know as we cannot be together this year because of the postponement of GDC obviously because we're all aware of global events at the moment I am glad that we can at least connect via the stream and you know as game creators and as people who live in a digital world we have the ability to maintain this connection no matter what so we who are very resilient in that way and so as I'm standing here in Hoff in actual FinCEN Norway where they filmed the Empire Strikes Back over 40 years ago I wanted to share just a few quick thoughts to you about what this award means to me and what it means in the industry you know when we talk about being an ambassador and what that means you know

it's about putting our best self forward and trying to present the industry in the best light and to make change happen for the better and you know what does it really mean to make change I think for a lot of us you know we find that challenging today because we don't really know where to start and I think in my own experience where it really starts us with ourselves if we can figure out what is stopping us from taking that step to help somebody or to take that step forward or to be a voice for someone who's marginalized you know we have to find the confidence in ourselves to get over our imposter syndrome and get to that point where we have that confidence you know whether you actually believe in that conference or not it's more about leaving in the reason to have that confidence which is for other people and I know in my experience that's what's really been driving me I mean I have been driven for a long time now by this notion that evil triumphs when good people do nothing and I really believe that and so that's what has been driving my action in this industry because I

want people to be better and I want the industry to be better and I want us to treat each other with that with more respect and to treat us other treat each other with fairness and being inclusive and how we approach everything you know at one point John F Kennedy the former US president said if not us then who and if not now then when and really I think that's something that all of us need to challenge ourselves with and we see something that we don't like we see something that we are dissatisfied with in this industry and it could be a huge issue that affects all of us so or it could be a tiny thing that affects your local community you have to ask yourself why is it not changing and then how can you be that agent of change to make it happen and you know in my experience and I think what people have seen and at least in my actions is that basically I made a decision that I'm gonna be the one to step forward and actually try and make change happen and it's not because I'm better than anybody it's not because I have more experience than anybody it

just it's a simple act of will and it's a it's actually a decision saying I want this to change for the better because I think it's gonna help all of us and so you know as you think about this in and again I just I'm so thankful for this award and for for this kind of honored you know just think about for yourselves what does it mean to be an ambassador for this industry and so I'm just gonna leave you with that challenge and you know I know that if all of us are doing our part and are trying as best as we can to be that that voice for the industry and for other people who are marginalized you know this industry and this in this world frankly is going to get better but it's going to take all of us to take that step so once again thank you so much for this award and I just in deeply appreciative and I hope to see you at GDC next time audio teams are the unsung heroes of our industry always the last ones to get to bring their art to life in a games pipeline and of course those players that mute the audio and don't wear

headphones oh the worst right audio really makes a game corrective guidance cues warnings of things to come and memorable tunes how many times have you woken up with a theme song stuck in your head let's get the audio and music on these wonderful games the appreciation they truly deserve here are your nominees for best audio best audio death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment sayonara Wildhearts developed by simogo published by annapurna interactive control developed by remedy entertainment published by 505 games

Villa sorsa Ghoulie goon arson lucca Pierrot untitled goose game developed by house house published by panic em Halberstadt dan Golding call of duty modern warfare developed by Infinity Ward published by Activision and the winner is control hi my name is Phyllis Orissa I'm the lead odious owner here at remedy entertainment on the behalf of the entire remedy audio team we're super excited about the fact that we just won

the GDC award I would like to thank our development team external partners and especially 505 games to giving us this opportunity to work on this title I would also like to thank you for sharing this very special moment with us thank you Oh fill me an award show is hard work um time for snack what do you say I baked muffins for the crew what do you think huh all right well this next category folks maybe took sci-fi movies TV and books a little too seriously and swore a sacred oath to bring holodecks and oasis back to the real world here are your nominees for best VR AR game best VR a our game bader immortal a Star Wars VR series developed by ILM xlab and oculus

Studios published by Disney the Vader immortal team blood and truth developed by scee studio London published by Sony Interactive Entertainment the blood and truth team [Music] Asgard's wrath developed by Sanzaru games published by oculus studios phone works developed by stress level zero Brandon lush Alex no pistol-whip developed by cloud head games [Music]

and the winner is Vader immortal a Star Wars VR series thank you so much to the judges and to all of our fans with Vader immortal we set out to make an experience that lets you step inside and live the adventure it's not just storytelling it's story living we're here proudly representing our talented team at ILM xlab Vader immortal represents a new type of entertainment that can affect people in fundamentally different ways than other storytelling mediums special thanks to Colin Makka John when Julie enjoy steve hendrix jeff greevey ramen and kurt perry Marissa Martinez and Erin McBride thanks to jose perez chip carl sarah barrack it's kevin bolin and skywalker team thanks to the talented cast and to our writer David Goya thanks to vicki beck and Mark Miller thanks to Mike

Duran and column slepen and oculus and jalloo cos film story group and the folks of epic for your support finally we couldn't have done it without the talented teams at our third-party partners clutch playing ninja theory and virtuous our medium is young but it is very powerful and we're just getting started Ojai Roadshow right yeah okay who would have ever guessed back in 2007 that the iPhone would have had this much of an impact on our industry mobile games can deliver moving and dreamy experiences motorcycle races sword battles allow us to play soldier and play the most ridiculous game of golf all on the palm of your hand here are your best mobile game nominees best mobile game sayonara wild hearts developed by simogo published by annapurna interactive [Music]

what the Gulf developed by tri-band productions published by the label limited the tribe and team [Music] greenstone developed by capybara games the grindstone team [Music] sky children of the light developed by that game company the sky dev team [Music] Call of Duty Mobile developed by TV studios published by Activision [Music]

and the winner is what the Gulf when I first started to learn about digital art and creating the pretties for video games one thing that struck me is just how absolutely ugly and gruesome things started before they became beautiful and took shape weird blobs of brown at the beginning of a piece of concept are chunky shapes for models and have you ever seen an unwrapped material for a characters face like yikes it rubs the lotion on its skin am i right luckily for us tonight we get to

see the gorgeous exquisite and glorious end products of these extremely talented artists here are your nominees for Best Visual Arts best visual art control developed by remedy entertainment published by 505 games Jana Pole Kenan Stewart McDonald death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment [Music] secur Oh shadows died twice developped by from software published by Activision [Music] sayonara Wildhearts developed by simogo

published by annapurna interactive Disko Elysium developed by zone the disco Elysium team and the winner is control hi this is Jung Lopakhin an art director from remedy I'm honored to accept the GDC Award for Best Visual Art for control thank you this is amazing Brutalism plays a big part in control so I'd first like to thank a world design director Stewart McDonald for doing incredible job with the environments then I would like to thank the key members of the art team on the poem

eleméry right Allen Damien Stephanie of ski river crawl Nero Vesta and Leonardo calamity thank you then of course I would like to thank our creative director Sam Blake and Game Director Michalka Solomon for having the courage to build something this unique then finally I would like to thank the whole team here at remedy for building an environment of trust where all the weirdest and wildest ideas are allowed to survive and flourish thank you the first time Roberta wanes play Colossal Cave adventure she was transfixed it was a computer game unlike anything she'd ever played before literary narrative fantastical she burned through that game than others and when she ran out of games altogether she took matters into her own hands she sat down in her kitchen table and designed her own it was 1979 and Roberta Williams was 26 years old from that initial moment a truly unconventional legacy would rise for Roberta Lynn Hauer

in 1953 the woman who would one day become the queen of adventure game script quietly in the suburbs northern Los Angeles that first game became Mystery House her husband Ken Williams programmed the game but she designed it and drew its images making Mystery House not just the first adventure game with graphics but one of the earliest examples of a separation between programmer and designer in a moment when most people didn't know what personal computers were good for Roberta and Ken Williams would strike out on their own adventure to press the limits of computing in the name of entertainment together they founded Sarah online a company that needs no introduction in the annals of videogame history for much of the 1980s and 90s Sierra was the largest publisher of home entertainment software in the world and flagship among its titles was Roberta's King's Quest series a bright and lively collection of eight games spanning nearly 20 years of production and millions of copies sold best remember today for their surreal mashup of folklore and fable mythology and legend only in King's Quest could

Medusa share a landscape with evil wizards or Pegasus why over Dracula's castle overriding each of these worlds however was a basic narrative find your destiny find your family and protect them at all costs counterpose to King's Quest or Roberta's domestic Horrors Mystery House the Colonel's bequest and phantasmagoria which families are trying to kill you and homes are places where you die Roberta Williams's Oubre expresses a narrative expansiveness few other designers have ever endeavored so it's 2020 and we're here to acknowledge Roberta Williams never doubted that she was a pioneer in the years since she left the game industry in 1988 she's been reluctant to embrace industry recognition but perhaps it's we who need to give her this reward more than she needs to receive it the rear the ones who need to say we remember because too often the industry would rather forget perhaps the legacy of the woman herself does for this industry what her games did nearly 40 years earlier let us know that other stories are possible it is my

deepest honor to celebrate Roberta Williams as the recipient of the 2020 IGF and game developers Choice Award I just want to thank the Game Developers Conference for stowing on me this year the honor the incredible honor for the Pioneer Award for computer game design with the help of Ken my husband Tim Williams one of the greatest programmers around and he still is he's still programming he loves it with his help and expertise with the our very first Apple 2 computer to provide the means by which we could do this we were able to design our very first game Mystery House back in 1980 and I did design it on the proverbial kitchen table big pieces of paper I said I would love to have graphics if that was possible and rather

than being a text adventure game and he's at all--that's it's pretty hard I don't know but let's see let's look around and he found something called a graphics tablet that was just like a piece of acrylic we kind of this magnetic arm which is one reason why the the art and the pictures on mr. house don't look so good it's not so it's so much that I'm a bad artist which I am but I'm not that bad it's that that was just very primitive to try to draw pictures but that's the way we did it and people were amazed at the time there were actually pictures on at an Apple Computer I find did retire in eppley from 1997 when we sold our company and which was one of the saddest days of my life and I was if it was very hard for me but I did and Ken and I went into other other adventures over the years mainly we be

certain gravitated oceans around the world but over those years 17 years I I created five probably about 18 19 20 games and then I also worked with some of our designers at Sierra we were so lucky to have some of the best developers designers programmers artists animators musicians in the industry and I was so lucky to be able to work with the with all with all of the talent that we had it was just the highlight of my life and I'm so happy and so glad that the Game Developers Conference decided fit to to honor me with this very home well I'm humbled actually I didn't even have words I'm just I'm awed and very happy and very honored to receive this this award and so on behalf of myself again and all the people that worked

with us at Sierra online I want to thank you so very much the diversity in the design category this year is absolutely amazing to me be a post-apocalyptic mailman fly spaceships in a time loop wordsmith your way to success exact revenge as a shinobi and be a jerk goose yes absolutely honk-honk my friends I'm issuing a challenge in our industry right here and now can we strive to continue to be this diverse in the games that we offer I want to live in these worlds without any further ado here are the nominees for best design oh and that's mando best design baba is you developed by hem Puli RV takari Matias care Lu outer wilds developed by Mobius digital

published by annapurna interactive death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment secur Oh shadows died twice developped by from software published by Activision untitled goose game developed by house house published by panic and the winner

is Baba is you hello everyone this is our vehicle thank you so much for awarding Baba's you in the best design category I'm extremely grateful for that as for thanks I would firstly like to thank the GDC staff for all their hard work I cannot imagine how much it must have taken to turn such a large event into a digital one on such a short notice I would also like to thank the same three people regardless of what happens in the ceremony so if you hear the same names later or if you heard them earlier then well my apologies anyway I'd like to thank Anil Escala for all the support and encouragement over the years I'd like to thank Nicolas new grain for teaching me a lot about motivation and how to work when feeling unmotivated and I would like to thank Lucas Miller for teaching me a lot about how to make games and how to do the things I do better thank thanks to all of you and have a very nice GDC a ceremony thank

you please join me in somber remembrance of colleagues and members of our community that we have lost over the last year let's cherish and reflect on their accomplishments and the joy that they have brought to our lives you you

there comes a time in the show where we all look at ourselves and think wouldn't it be nice if we had more things to vote on after all what is an award show if not to give out awards right and hey audience will words is like what now an eight year tradition we're gonna hit

that decade soon we've actually had some really good ones in the past two Kerbal space program night Amida beat Sabre let's find out who wins this year and the winner is sky children of the light all right once not at GDC but you know I'm feeling the energy and thank you so much for giving us the honor for the GDC audience award and you know sky has been a seven-year-long they wouldn't process it was not easy and without you know our players support without your support we would not start that game company and we would not have been making these very difficult but beautiful games and thank you so much to spend your time and to play our game and also just come to GDC

to vote to us it meant a lot for us and you know making making sky is is difficult but we feel very happy that you always us and again we won't let you down and see you in sky yeah thank you my friends your adorable pup Oh time has almost come to a close as we have reached the penultimate of awards if Sun actually understood what was happening right now she'd be super excited because all of the games up for this category are real damn good well here we go the last game of the Year nominees of the decade game of the year death stranding developed by Kojima Productions published by Sony interactive entertainment

[Music] control developed by remedy entertainment published by 505 games Juha by neo mikail Casa Renan [Music] [Music] secur Oh shadows died twice developped by from software published by Activision [Music]

[Applause] untitled goose game developed by house house published by panic outer wilds developed by Mobius digital published by Annapurna interactive [Music]

[Music] and the winner is untitled goose game if if this is being played then that means that we have won best games we really never ever expected that that game would resonate with people in the way that it yeah that it has so it's very strange and kind of incredibly nice to receive this award we had a lot of help in making this game so we'd like to thank I asked sound designer M Halberstadt Dan Golding who did our music : oka who helps define the look of our game Cherie Davidson who helped to make our game accessible to as many people as we could and this game never would have been made without the support of our

publisher panic units like to take we'd also like to thank film Victoria for their support both in our game but also of the the local scene thank you so much thank you game developers well that's our show congratulations to all of our winners you better properly celebrate tonight and I want to give a huge thank you to sandesh and Simon for taking a chance and inviting me to host this year's awards also let's hear it for the video editors that are cutting together this particular video and thank you - I am a fit for being in my house today and filming all of this so finally I want to thank everyone for being so patient and understanding this unusual process with GDC this year I hope everyone has the absolute bestest most wonderful of days evenings or whenever you happen to be watching this and say goodbye but no seriously goodbye get get out of my house get go go away go

[Music] you