The 2022 Independent Games Festival Awards (Full Video)

[Music] so [Music] please welcome your host of the 24th annual igf awards kelly wallock [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

oh my god we're all here yeah um yeah so many profound things have happened since we were all last gathered here in 2019 um i wouldn't even know how to start addressing it all and it also feels as if so many people have said so many important and insightful things that i'm not sure what i would add to the conversation at this point uh and for me i feel like what i felt to be lacking the most was just joy and fun it was hard to come by it was hard to feel good even when you were in it just because of how traumatic and terrible of a time we're all collectively living through and as someone who's experienced living through trauma prior to the pandemic i understand the feelings of guilt and shame and even fear that comes with feeling joy and peace when it looks like the world is crumbling apart right in front of you but it's important to experience all of life

and that means everything and that's what games are able to bring to so many people during this time it was joy it was community it was happiness and it was even healing and as we make and create those experiences for others we need to remember that it's also important for ourselves to experience that so in that spirit i want to acknowledge that it's all kind of a show right now but [Laughter] [Applause] but for tonight let's celebrate let's hold some joy and let's experience and really appreciate that we have this opportunity to be here right now doing something that at one time seemed so mundane and at others like an impossible feat so we gathered we celebrated and we had some fun so let's do it so first i want to give a big shout out to everyone who helped keep the spirit

of the igf alive during this time all of the staff the qa team the judges the jury members the developers who are making amazing and really heartfelt work uh and also a big thank you to the sponsors who help us help us keep the lights on so our igf platinum sponsor id xbox [Applause] the igf gold sponsors intel and mudstack and our igf silver sponsors ironsource and gamera game [Applause] all right so let's get started uh so i'm constantly amazed by the new generation of creators with many colleges now offering game design specific programs a wealth of information and tutorials available online incubators thriving communities it's crazy impressive what and how students are able to build and create now reminds me of my time as a student

where i was a disaster of a person studying to be a serious scientist instead of pursuing what i obviously wanted which was to never have a boss and to stand up on stage here and introduce all of you lovely people to some amazing games uh memories i wouldn't have dreamed as big and creatively as the students today are and for that we should all be proud of the past that we've helped pay for the next generation of creators so now we celebrate you the students who walk the path to the future best student game [Music] kai kai balo developed by look up games cecel morel darkest [Music] developed by rand work johannes knope friedrich baer

letter lattice developed by ethan zarov [Music] small life developed by you [Music] [Applause] nine eyes recipe developed by fan farm and my whole [Music] live adventure developed by the live adventure team [Music]

all right and the winner of the igf award for best student game is live adventure [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music]

thank you thank you hopefully i've made a text so i'm not screwing doing anything uh so uh yeah thank you very much for this award uh it means a lot to us um it was a huge bet to make a game out of these concepts and uh so much unknown areas to test and explore and adding to all that the covet situation so yeah but it's quite worth it now it's just amazing to see how far we come so i'm so proud of all my teammates here and those who own here so alice maxsons pierre jane ariana carmina andrew and messi thank you for for your

hard work and your support thank you and a huge thanks to also to to our teachers t to our family and friends for their support back in france um well you're all truly amazing you need to know that and i cannot wait to work with you all in the future again on amazing projects so thank you thank you very much all right uh so i thought i'd use this time to tell everyone my totally cool game design idea because i know the designer's favorite thing is to hear unsolicited feedback and to get pitch game ideas at random moments plus we all know the hardest part of game design is the idea right has nothing to do with the execution the iteration the endless play testing the balancing the polish and not to mention actually finishing

the thing that's easy it's the ideas that's totally where it's at so i have this great idea about these like plumbers and their brothers maybe they're italian um but they're also trapped in this like magical world and they're fighting like turtles and mushrooms and then this one time they eat a leaf and they turn into like a flying raccoon yeah i think it's a cool idea i really think it's going to take off so these other people have had some cool ideas too so let's give them a chance excellence in design inscription developed by daniel mullins games daniel mullins [Music] developed by which bean tim dawson wren breyer

overboard developed by inkle john ingold tom kale joseph humphrey anastasia wyatt strange horticulture developed by bad viking rob duncan john duncan [Music] webbed developed by spug games riley neville noah seymour [Music] [Applause] midnight protocol developed by sam achten kasper adriansson kevin haltermann tom lessons

all right and the excellence in design award goes to inscription [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i will now thank uh huge thanks to people who helped me make inscription jonah david kevin and tawny and the 3d artists who crafted all the little bits thanks to the localization team thank you to the discord moderators who do their best to keep dm game server under control thanks to the beta testers who played the shitty version of the game for months before it was done uh thanks to devolver for a top notch publishing job thanks my

partner tasha for supporting me thanks my parents for asking when the game would be done every weekend and if you played it thank you for playing all right game art can be such a beautiful expression that comes in all shapes and forms especially on the indie side where innovative art styles and trends are born and followed and inspiring to so many people feels like an endless fountain of innovation and creativity so just in case i'm putting it out there if anyone is looking for an art style that screams hey i haven't drawn anything in 20 years and i don't understand how tablets work here's my portfolio so first up we have my cat her name is alice she's 18 years old you may have heard her on all the zoom calls in the last two years all right here's gdc so that's all of us being at gdc here's my west of living fan art

and here's the crew of the star trek enterprise [Applause] so just putting it out there in case anyone's looking um so now let's take a look at the folks who actually know what they're doing excellence in visual art the eternal cylinder developed by the ace team carlos bordeaux imondo bordeaux andres porteo danielle and tower behind the frame developed by silver lining studio [Music] developed by platoons

[Applause] [Music] fuzz dungeon developed by jeremy couliard the wild at heart developed by moonlight kids justin baldwin chris sumski unkit trevetti alex kinkade [Music] jet the far shore developed by superbrothers and pine scented sam bradley flaminia grimaldi dustin harbin okay and the winner for the igf award for

excellence in visual art is pepitora the team couldn't be here today but they sent us a very lovely video to say thank you i think so there we go hi everyone this is thomas ostafin creator of papatura sorry i couldn't make it to san francisco it has always been my dream to be a part of ign festival and a few years ago it was even funny to think about it if you hear this then i've won visual art category which is unbelievable in that case i would like to thank thomas dubosek a creator of music and ireland a creator of sound effects and all of the people that helped me even a little bit along the way by spreading the word or liking the

post and thank you agf for this award and wish you all the best bye [Applause] so what makes great game audio and artful and thoughtful integration of sound music and voice woven together to bring feeling and depth to the player experience without your favorite games and powerful moments just wouldn't have the same impact would they in fact take this category intro wouldn't this be so much better with some game audio so what makes great game audio an artful and thoughtful integration of sound music and voice woven together to bring feeling and depth to the player experience without it your favorite games and powerful moments just wouldn't have the same impact would they

in fact take this category intro wouldn't this be so much better with some game audio [Music] here are the nominees excellence in audio poem developed by something we made jost crime drink jamal green marcus nielsen victor aid hogan developed by which beam jeff van dyke angela van dyke ella van dijk jet the far shore developed by super brothers and pine scented scientific a shell in the pit priscilla snow

[Music] mini motorways developed by dinosaur polo club disaster peace [Music] sable developed by shed works japanese breakfast martin cavalli [Music] inscription developed by daniel mullins games [Music] okay and the award for excellence and audio goes to

inscription [Applause] [Music] yes oh this means so much i'm a one-man audio team and it just feels like the biggest hug ever from the everyone community oh wait i have i have my my list uh i want to thank my mom and dad and my brother noah for their endless support uh dan of course he made the game i guess that's probably cool too uh all my music teachers throughout the year are so important demetrius natalie sid would not be here without incredible uh educators and uh also all the other nominations the uh nominees just for pushing the medium i think for me the nomination is the the thing

that counted most i guess is all right but like it's about the little bit of recognition and everyone here is just like pushing forward the game audio so much and that's really what counts at the end of the day thank you so much [Applause] okay i had a hard time writing this one because honestly this is my favorite category uh my personal motto is more weird games made by weird people uh and nothing exemplifies that sentiment better than the nuovo category there's nothing better than opening a new game and getting into it and thinking oh my god i had no idea that games were even allowed to do this from mind-bending experiences to subversive commentary this category to me is a peak inside of the brain of the coolest weirdest creative minds the industry has to offer so this is my little love letter to you fellow weird people please don't ever stop because your audience is out here and we think that you make the game's world a better place so let's take a look at the nominees he

award [Music] memory card developed by lily's own zoe sparks [Music] optricia and saturnia's bureaucratic adventures developed by outlands fantasia malware [Music] spacehole 2020 developed by sam atlas st saylor [Music] tux and fanny developed by ghost time games albert bernie gabriel koenig [Music]

cruelty squad developed by consumer soft products sparkles and gems developed by resney jars [Applause] [Music] fuzz dungeon developed by jeremy couliard [Music] cookie developed by fantastical studio julian palacios andrea vallasini

alessandro cookie [Music] all right and the winner of the nova award is memory card [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right and the team couldn't be here tonight but they sent us an acceptance message [Music] from a stride my beautiful feline steed i am very proud to accept the millionth award that i ultra power horse [Music] i am sure you are all as pleased as i to witness this historic occasion

thank you and i beat you [Applause] so one of my favorite things on the internet is ai generated content it's silly it's nonsensical and it reminds me that we have plenty of time until the robots are all going to take our jobs and to prove a point i've let an ai write the rest of this intro so what we talk about in the game is narrative narrative is narrative because narrative tells you what is going on in your life in the moment narrative is narrative because narrative is narrative and narrative is narrative because narrative tells you the story about the characters that play an important role in your life but they also tell you what happened narrative can be very tricky for a game to tell and is certainly a challenging thing to work through through a game the story in the game is narrative the story is my narrative my narrative is narrative narrative is it is the game a personal

exercise or is it yeah so i think we're good [Applause] so let's all appreciate the humanity that goes into a great narrative game with our nominees excellence in narrative [Music] last call developed by nina freeman and jake jeffries [Applause] [Music] bureaucracy developed by play through life [Applause] closed hands developed by passenger games

dan hett dan whitehead sharon dalawal uma detto [Music] overboard developed by inkle john ingold tom kale anastasia wyatt joseph humphrey [Music] inscription developed by daniel mullins games daniel mullins unpacking developed by rich bean ren breyer tim dawson annie vandemir all right and the excellence and narrative award goes to

these are so hard to open inscription [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] sorry it feels kind of wrong but um um okay so i had two speeches and so i have a second one ready um uh so i thought there was a chance i might win one but i didn't think there'd be two but um i have some bonus thanks uh cody tamara sean and daniel to to name all the 3d artists who helped me uh the people who contribute to sketchfab.com for providing like so many free models for me i would also like to go back and thank the fine people at jetpack for giving my first job in the industry people at skybox labs for encouraging me to work

on my first game i wanted to thank mike kasperzak for maintaining ludum dare because i actually don't think i would be doing indie games if it wasn't for ludum dare and i also wanted to thank the fan artists who do fan art for inscription even the goat stuff if you know you know thanks [Applause] okay now to the audience awards where we're gonna select eight audience members you can look underneath your chair for a number and we're gonna have you run through an obstacle course that's gonna rely on the three pillars of rupaul's drag race which are uniqueness nerve and talent uh and then also there's a game show at the end where you have to guess which of the items is actually a cake the wondering of the winner of this daring and dangerous feat will choose the winner of this category oh wait i think i was totally wrong about how this works so sorry i don't actually organize this category so i wasn't really sure how it worked it turns out it's actually done by audience voting and that has already

happened and the nominee with the most votes will win okay fine i guess that works too and the winner is mini motorways [Applause] [Music] [Applause] so the studio couldn't be here today i did all the audio for many motorways and i'm here to accept the ward on their behalf they uh they gave me a message to uh to say on behalf of the team at dinosaur polo club we are so honored to have many motorways recognized in this way by our amazing players and by the independent games festival the team wishes they could be here in person to celebrate this moment and is surprised and

delighted to be the recipients of such an incredible award we wouldn't be where we are today without our players and community their support and enthusiasm for many motorways is the fuel that keeps our cities thriving and allows us to constantly make the game better and better lastly a huge thank you to our team for their dedication to creating something we can all stand behind the game is what it is because of your hard work it means so much to us all to know that many motorways holds a special place for our community thank you please give a warm igf welcome to the winner of last year's sheamus mcnally grand prize award naftali faulkner [Music] [Applause] [Music] so i uh i met nigel lowry today and he said if i just say inscription wins he'll publish my next game

uh no not gonna do that every once in a while a game comes along from the indie space which changes the entire industry the indie space always informs the rest of the industry for the next decade be that a small java game where you place blocks an armor 3 mod called battle royale or a small shooter from the 90s about a space marine in his rabbit indies inform the rest of the industry leaders through innovative gameplay a revolution of game design or a social good push through the entire work tonight's winner will undoubtedly go on to inform the industry in no small way and with that the ideas will be passed on and it'll be something gaming will become gaming will come to know here are the finalists for the sheamus mcnally grand prize sheamus mcnally grand prize

inscription developed by daniel mullins games daniel mullins jonah senza david hegman unpacking developed by which bean ren breyer tim dawson jeff van dyke angus doolan [Music] luke hero developed by four quarters dimitri quiromas alexander gorslavis alexander vartazarian dimitri labutov the eternal cylinder developed by the ace team carlos bordeaux andres cordeo edmundo porteo danielle m

[Music] cruelty squad developed by consumer soft products unsighted developed by fernanda diaz [Applause] so 2022 seamus mcnally grand prize goes to i'm getting a new game inscription [Applause] [Music] [Applause]

[Music] uh so i actually like i wasn't kidding i only had two speeches because i thought that was the absolute max that could be possible um so i don't look at my phone i can look you in the eye and say that nigel you're on the hook now you got to publish this guy's game um but the other thing i didn't mention is that the other nominees are fantastic and just so great and to be among them is an honor so thank you all right well that was exciting uh and as we bring the igf awards to a close i'd like to take this time to reflect back on the last seven years of my time as the chair for the festival uh when i first took this position i was relatively new in the industry and felt

so honored and honestly kind of overwhelmed and in many ways i still feel that way i felt the weight of the responsibility but also a lot of excitement about the potential and in that time i'm proud of the work that we did and the structural changes that we've implemented and i felt that i've accomplished what i set out to do and i wanted to announce that this was going to be my final year in the position so [Applause] i really want to give someone else the opportunity that i had and to create space for the fresh ideas and changes that that brings with it i've been super honored to hold this position and to witness the love and care that goes into the games that you all create and the passion in which you discuss and celebrate this part of the industry so thank you all uh thanks again to everyone who's participated in the igf in whatever way that might have been while i was here um yeah just thank you so much [Applause]

yeah it's been super fun hosting as well so thanks for asking me to do that um so again we want to give a big thank uh thank you to our sponsors this year so the igf platinum sponsor idea xbox the igf gold sponsors intel and mudstack and the igf silver sponsors iron source and gamma games and a big congratulations to everyone that was nominated here tonight and now i'm going to pass the stage over to osama dorias for the game developers choice awards thank you all so much [Music] you