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.

This week, we’ve gotten in touch with some of the IGF finalists to ask them what the nomination means to them. Here are some of their answers:

Rami Ismail / Jan Willem Nijman, Vlambeer

Game: Super Crate Box

Nominated for: Excellence In Design

“Rami from Vlambeer says: ‘Holy poop!’ Jan Willem from Vlambeer says: ‘I hope we get a free phone this year!’

We’re really honored the IGF jury was able to appreciate a small game like Super Crate Box, though.That’d be all.”


Erik Zaring, Cockroach

Game: The Dream Machine

Nominated for: Excellence In Visual Art

“I called my Father yesterday to tell him that we’d been nominated for the IGF. I was so happy. Ecstatic almost. But he just calmly replied: “Well son, tomorrow’s another day and you should still be looking for a proper job.” Thanks dad. At the age of 35 my parents are still waiting for me to get a proper job. But I know they are happy for me somewhere deep, deep inside of their hearts. I love my parents and thank them!

Also, a big thanks to the jury who nominated us! We’ve been working hard on this game for two years now, and boosts like this really help! See you all at GDC hopefully!

For anyone attending, please drop by to play our game if you can spare the time. We are friendly people and smell real nice. I’m the tall blonde guy who talks a lot and Anders is the short, shifty looking fellow.

Buy him a drink and he’ll tell you all his secrets.”


Calvin Goble, Robot Loves Kitty

Game: Neverdaunt:8Bit

Nominated for: Technical Excellence

“Having the game that I poured my life into(no dev was harmed in the making of this game) get nominated for the Technical Excelence Award really gave me this overall “Woot” feeling. It’s suddenly not just me that thinks my game is awesome anymore, and it has really validated all of the deep thought, effort, and struggle (and copious amounts of coffee).

-Calvin Goble, That guy that made that game all by himself and stuff.”


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