Independent Games Festival Posts Rules, Guidelines for 2007 Competition9th Annual Award Program for Indie Developers Features New Prizes, Surprises, ChallengesPRNewswire Rules and submission guidelines for the ninth annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) are now available. This year's festival, which will award over $50,000 in cash prizes at a ceremony during the Game Developers Conference 2007 in San Francisco next March, features enhancements to the main competition, a restructuring of the mod competition and cash prizes in the Student Showcase category, including the first-ever Best Student Game award. The deadline for the main competition is Sept. 8, 2006. For the IGF Mod competition, the deadline is Oct. 13, 2006, and for the Student Showcase, the deadline is Nov. 10, 2006. The festival honors innovative videogames created by independent game developers and students. The IGF was established in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, in the way that the Sundance Film Festival has benefited independent filmmakers. The IGF has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars in prizes and major recognition to innovative, independently created videogames from all over the world, from early pioneering titles such as Tread Marks and Shattered Galaxy, through recent stand-outs such as Alien Hominid, Gish, and Darwinia. "We're delighted to announce this year's competition, and are really looking forward to seeing the innovative titles submitted this year," said Simon Carless, Chairman of the Independent Games Festival. "With the vastly expanded modding competition, the Innovation Award in the main IGF competition, and the new Best Student Game prize, we're looking forward to another set of great indie titles." The main IGF competition will award five major prizes for Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, Technical Excellence, Best Web Browser Game, and the standout Innovation Award, chosen from a pool of finalists. Additional honors will be presented for the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Independent Game of the Year, and the ever-popular Audience Award, which is voted online. In this, the second year of the IGF Mod Competition, the competition has expanded, due to popular demand, allowing mods for any video game, past or present, to be eligible, as long as the mod has been created or updated in the last 12 months. Categories include Best Singleplayer FPS Mod, Best Multiplayer FPS Mod, Best RPG Mod, and Best 'Other' Mod finalists, for which $500 cash prizes will be awarded. Those winners will compete at the 2007 GDC for an overall $5,000 Best Mod prize. The IGF Student Showcase continues to be one of the most hotly contested parts of the Festival, honoring 10 Student Showcase Winners with $500 travel stipends and an opportunity to show their game at GDC 2007. In addition, for the first time, the 2007 Festival includes a new Best Student Game Award, with a $2,500 cash prize. All Independent Games Festival finalists will be playable in the IGF Pavilion at GDC from March 7-9, 2007, alongside an IGF/indie gaming-themed day of lectures and roundtables on March 6, new for 2007 to help unite the independent gaming community. The GDC, scheduled for Monday - Friday, March 5-9 in San Francisco, is the largest gathering of videogame creators worldwide. Developers interested in submitting a game can visit www.igf.com for official rules and entry forms. About the CMP Game Group A core provider of essential information and community to the professional game industry, the CMP Game Group includes the Game Developers Conference, GDC Europe, the Serious Games Summit D.C., GDC Mobile, Game Developer magazine, Gamasutra.com, the Independent Games Festival, GDCTV, and the Game Developers Choice Awards. For more information, please visit www.cmpgame.com. About CMP Media LLC CMP Media (www.cmp.com) is the leading integrated media solutions company providing "broad and deep" access to the entire technology spectrum -- the builders, sellers and buyers of technology worldwide. The company's comprehensive database of technology decision makers enables marketers to reach targeted audiences throughout the purchase process with publications, web offerings, face-to-face events, consulting and other marketing services that deliver actionable results. SOURCE: CMP Game Group CONTACT: Brian Rubin, ext. 287, brian@bohle.com, or Grace Kim, ext. 204, Web site: http://www.cmp.com/ Web site: http://www.igf.com/ Web site: http://www.cmpgame.com/ |