IGF’s 2023 finalists prove RPS is once again right about everything

If the Independent Games Festival awards are the Oscars of video gaming, then that surely makes Rock Paper Shotgun’s yearly Advent Calendar the BAFTAs. I’m justifying this spurious comparison because the games we picked as our favorites of 2022 have proven a strong indicator of what you’ll find on this year’s list of IGF finalists. Among the selectees are Tunic, Betrayal At Club Low, Norco, Neon White and The Case Of The Golden Idol.

The IGF has been running for years and does better than most videogame awards at highlighting interesting, exceptional work. As always, this year’s ultimate winners will be selected by a jury of game developers and announced during the Game Developers Conference, which runs March 20th-24th. The awards ceremony is on Wednesday, March 22nd and will also be broadcast on Twitch.

Here’s the full list of nominees:

Seuma’s McNally Grand Prize

• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
• TUNIC (TUNIC team)
• The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
• IMMORTALITY (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid)
• Neon White (Angel Matrix)
• Not For Broadcast (NotGames)

Honorable mentions:

Tinykin (Splashteam), Terra Nil (Free Lives), RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.), Roadwarden (Moral Anxiety Studio), Hardspace: Shipbreaker (Blackbird Interactive), Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)

Best Student Game

• Gevaudan (Nicolas Bernard)
• Mind Diver (Indoor Sunglasses)
• Presenter Slides (Mathias Schifter & Brin Žvan)
• Shutter (ARTFX 2022)
• Scale (Gustav Almstrom)
• Slider (randomerz)

Honorable mentions:

A Mallard’s Song (Ducky Elford), Error143 (Jenny Vi Pham), Paper Planet (Doodlegames), The Longest Walk (Alexander Tarvet), zenosyne (Ezra Szanton)

Excellence in audio

• Dome Keeper (Bippinbits)
• Paradise Marsh (LazyEti)
• South of the Circle (State of Play)
• The Forest Quartet (Mads & Friends)
• TUNIC (TUNIC Team)
• We are OFK (Team OFK)

Honorable mentions:

Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios), Cult of the Lamb (Massive Monster), IMMORTALITY (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid), Melatonin (Half Asleep), Neon White (Angel Matrix), Tinykin (Splashteam)

Excellence in design

• Against the Storm (Eremite Games)
• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
• Mr. Sun’s Hatbox (Kenny Sun)
• Neon White (Angel Matrix)
• Stacklands (Sokpop Collective)
• The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)

Honorable mentions:

Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age), Cursed to Golf (Chuhai Labs), Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator (niceplay games), Swordship (Digital Kingdom), Terra Nil (Free Lives), Tinykin (Splashteam)

Excellence in narratives

• Butterfly Soup 2 (Brianna Lei)
• Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)
• I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games)
• IMMORTALITY (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid)
• NORCO (Geography of Robots)
• South of the Circle (State of Play)

Honorable mentions:

Eternal Threads (Cosmonaut Studios), Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg (Fuzzy Ghost), Roadwarden (Moral Anxiety Studio), The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games), The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (Cloak and Dagger Games ), The Wreck (The Pixel Hunt)

Excellence in Visual Arts

• Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
• How Deep Is the Dark Water? (Rhett Tsai)
• Potionomics (Voracious Games)
• RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)
• To Hell With the Ugly (La Poule Noire, ARTE France)
• TUNIC (TUNIC team)

Honorable Mentions

I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games), Melatonin (Half Asleep), NAIAD (HiWarp), Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator (niceplay games), Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox), Swordship (Digital Kingdom), Terra Nil (Free Lives), Voodoo Detective (Short Sleeve Studio LLC)

Nuovo Award

• Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
• An Outcry (Quinn K.)
• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
• He Fucked The Girl Out Of Me (Taylor McCue)
• Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg (Fuzzy Ghost)
• Sylvie Lime (Love♥️Game)
• Time BanditJoel Jordan
• Titanic II: Orchestra for Dying At Sea (Flan Falacci)

Honorable mentions:

Atuel (Matajuegos), Ib (kouri), Not For Broadcast (NotGames), Of Moons and Mania (Absurd Walls), RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)

The obvious absentee from this list is, of course, Vampire Survivors. It was arguably 2022’s biggest indie hit and it was our most favorite game of last year. Maybe its developers didn’t submit it for consideration? That’s the only valid excuse for it not featuring among the finalists or honorable mentions.