The organizers of the 15th annual Independent Games Festival -- the longest-running and largest showcase for independent developers -- are proud to announce that the event has once again seen record entry numbers for its latest Main Competition.
In total, the GDC 2013 co-located festival attracted 589 Main Competition entries from both already renowned indie developers and first-time entrants, just topping the record-breaking 567 games that the show saw in 2012.
Some of the hundreds of intriguing-looking titles entered in the IGF Main Competition this year include EightyEightGames' RPG matching game 10000000, Christine Love's visual novel Analogue: A Hate Story, and Blue Manchu's CCG/RPG hybrid Card Hunter.
The entrants also feature titles such as Hitbox Team's action platformer Dustforce, SantaRagione and BloodyMonkey's unusual first person puzzler MirrorMoon, and much more - and everyone is welcome to check out the full list of entries now.
With the event growing ever larger, IGF 2013 has expanded each of its Main Competition award categories to six finalists (except Nuovo, which has 8 finalists). The Main Competition finalists will be announced in January 2013, and all will be available in playable form at a larger, expanded IGF pavilion on the GDC show floor.
In addition, all IGF 2013 Main Competition entrants are once again eligible for Microsoft Studios' second annual sponsored prize -- a guaranteed first-party publishing deal (including funding if desired) to release the selected title on LIVE-enabled platforms, including the Xbox LIVE Arcade service, Windows Phone, and Windows. (Last year's winner was Capy's frantic retro platform shooter Super TIME Force.)
The festival's organizers have also provided an official JSON feed, which is updated every 30 minutes from live back end data -- teams can update info on their games and have the official entry page change, and third parties are welcome to use this feed to make their own custom IGF entry lists and pages.
Once again, winners will be honored on stage during the IGF Awards ceremony during the 2013 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco in March, showcased in the IGF Pavilion on the GDC Expo Floor from March 27-29. (GDC 2013 itself will take place from March 25-29 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, and the IGF-related Independent Games Summit, which has a special pass devoted to it once more this year, will take place on March 25-26.)
Any changes to the judging process? I gotta say, I love the IGF, but with even more submissions than ever I wonder how they're going to handle the overload. I thought the new "must be released within 1 year of entry" requirement would cut down on submissions a bit, but it seems to have had little effect.
Anybody know anything? For what it's worth, the submission procedure is 10,000% improved over last year, so hopefully other improvements are happening behind the scenes.
Here's a video of the new IGF judging back end, to show how it should be easier to pick and filter games - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8SPvJBtJ-Q - of course, there's still the 'so many entries' issue, but this should help somewhat.
Anybody know anything? For what it's worth, the submission procedure is 10,000% improved over last year, so hopefully other improvements are happening behind the scenes.