As you may have heard, the IGF announced the main competition finalists for the 2011 Independent Games Festival on Monday. There were five finalists announced for each category: Excellence In Visual Art, Technical Excellence, Excellence In Design, Excellence in Audio, Best Mobile Game, and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, as well as eight nominees for the Nuovo Award, intended to honor the most innovative and unconventional games.

Becoming an IGF finalist is a big deal – not only do nominees have a shot at roughly $50,000 total in prizes at the Independent Games Festival Awards at GDC this March, all nominated games get the honor of being playable on the show floor of GDC this year. It’s massively prestigious, and when past nominees-turned-hits include games like Braid and Limbo, it’s easy to see why.

Last week, we got in touch with some of the IGF finalists to ask them what the nomination means to them. The response was overwhelming, and last week, we posted responses from a dozen of the nominees (check those out here). This week, we’re continuing that with more responses from more excited developers! Here are some this week’s answers:

Greg Wohlwend, Mikengreg

Game: Solipskier

Nominated for: Best Mobile Game

“It’s just nuts. In past years I would stay up and refresh web pages to read the nominations ASAP, but this year I had pretty much decided there was no chance we’d make it in. I woke up Monday to twitter beeping at me about it and my heart hasn’t stopped pumping since. It’s likely I’m still dreaming.”

Jeroen D Stout, Stout Games

Nominated for: Nuovo Award

Game: Dinner Date

“It is a very promising thing to find Dinner Date nominated for the IGF. I am acutely aware of how Dinner Date takes quite a different angle compared to most games and it is after the time I spent developing it very heart-warming to see it is finding such an audience! Knowing that the Nuovo Award is specifically for the advancement of the medium it is quite an exhilarating thing to realize one is part of such advancements. I look forward to presenting it at the GDC tremendously and have equal anticipation for meeting interesting people there. It will be rather dashing, I am sure.”

Zach Gage and Kurt Bieg, stfj

Game: Halcyon

Nominated for: Best Mobile Game

Zach: “I’ve been making niche artistic apps and games for a few years now and although they have all been critically acclaimed, I’ve never had anything close to mainstream success. Getting a nomination for Halcyon is incredibly exciting for me because it means that the audience of gamers who enjoy abstract artistic and experimental games is growing. And its not just Halcyon, each of the games that was nominated for Best Mobile Game are innovative, unique, and beautiful.”

Kurt: “Working with Zach was a really fantastic opportunity. Halcyon was a chance to really try some new ideas and try to mesh sounds and music with a simple and elegant mechanic. Looking back, it was really a lot of fun developing. Being nominated really came as a surprise and I am super honored to be nominated along side the best mobile indie games of 2010.”

Congratulations to all the finalists! We’ll continue to post developer reactions to the blog throughout the week, so keep checking back for more!