The 7th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) happened this week as part of the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Jose, Calif. The winners have been announced, including Mac games.
The Independent Game Festival recognizes innovation in game development among independent game creators. Several of this year’s winners are playable on the Macintosh — in fact, Mac-compatible game finalists made it to every one of the six categories in the main competition.
This year’s winner of the $20,000 Seamus McNally Grand Prize went to Introversion Software for its action-strategy game Darwinia, published for the Macintosh by Ambrosia Software.
The Flash-based game Dad ‘n Me, created by Newgrounds.com Inc., won for best Web browser game. It’s a 2D brawler that makes you the playground bully.
The massively multiplayer online strategy game Dofus, created by French developer Ankama Studio, was recognized with the Audience Award.
RabidLab won the $5,000 AdultSwim.com award for its game “Dodge That Anvil,” an offbeat game involving rabbits and anvil storms, is playable online as a Shockwave game. Dodge That Anvil will also be available as a Mac OS X and Windows download.
Finalists in this year’s IGF competition included a broad swath of Mac-compatible titles, too: Grubby Games 2D puzzle game Professor Fizzwizzle, was a finalist for the grand prize. Pocketwatch Games’ title Wildlife Tycoon: Venture Africa also made the grand prize finalist list. This Torque Game Engine-based simulation strategy game has just been published for the Mac by MumboJumbo. (MumboJumbo’s Web site didn’t indicate that as Macworld posted this article.)
The Witch’s Yarn from Mousechief was a finalist in the “Innovation In Game Design” award. It’s a “CineProse” adventure in which you are the director of a virtual play, calling forth a cast of characters and props to interact with.
Oddlabs ApS’s realtime strategy game Tribal Trouble was a finalist in the Technical Excellence category; it pits Viking raiders against Natives. Also a finalist in that category was 21-6 Productions for its kinetic puzzle game TubeTwist, published by GarageGames. (Check out the Macworld review for more details.)