There are a whole lot of online game awards and most of them are merely reputation contests, and due to this fact additionally smelly borefests. The one which is not, in my eyes, is the yearly Unbiased Video games Competition awards – the IGFs.
The IGF Celebration Days Steam sale offers loads of examples as to why, with reductions from now till July twentieth on winners and finalists from all through the IGF awards’ historical past.
On the prime of the Steam sale web page you may discover reductions on March’s IGF 2024 award winners, together with 10% off Rhythm Physician, 70% off Mediterranea Inferno (pictured above), and 40% off Venba. Scroll down and you will find reductions on 2024’s finalists (Cocoon! Cobalt Core! A Highland Music!) and winners from earlier years (80 Days! Spelunky! Fez! Darwinia! And plenty of extra).
IGF awards are determined by, first, a big pool of journalists and builders who type by a pile of lots of of submitted video games to advocate for a handful, and second, by a smaller group of hand-selected judges, additionally largely recreation builders, who choose the shortlist of nominees and in the end the winners. That is an honest system which has often succeeded in elevating unknown video games, such Outer Wilds, which gained the Grand Prize in 2015 with an alpha construct created by a crew of scholars a number of years earlier than its full industrial launch. Extra usually the IGF have succeeded, by the award classes and the judges’ discussions, in making a tradition that favours design and innovation over reputation.
The result’s the development of our medium but in addition, hey, a huge listing of nice video games, now low-cost.