#igf awards

The world of game development is constantly evolving, and Unity remains a powerhouse for independent studios and larger companies alike. In May 2025, the platform delivered another impressive wave of new titles across various genres—a testament to its versatility and the creativity of its user base. Discovering the latest games built with Unity, often referred to as ‘Unity Games’, is now easier…

The 2020 Independent Gamings Festival, which honors the most prominent, cutting-edge as well as acclaimed jobs in independent video game growth, has actually exposed the finalists for the 22nd yearly honors ceremony.The IGF Awards will happen March 18, 2020 throughout the Game Developers Meeting. It will take place at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Facility. The IGF Honors will instantly precede the Video game Developers Choice Awards, which identifies the most effective video games of the year throughout all sections of video game development. IGF Honor champions can receive more than $20,000 of rewards in numerous categories, including the $10,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

    Lets take a look at the Seumas Mcnally Grand Prize Nominees:

–Untitled Goose Game: A video game where players live in the webbed feet of a frustrating goose                        creating (lively) chaos on unintended townsfolk. Make your way around community, from individuals’ back yards to the high street stores to the village green, establishing pranks, swiping hats, honking a great deal, and also generally ruining everyone’s day. This title made an additional nomination for Sound.

Check out the official launch trailer from the official Nintendo youtube channel:

  –A Short Hike : A vivid exploration game embeded in bushes of Hawk Optimal Provincial Park, which              also got an election for Layout. Walk, climb, and skyrocket via the tranquil mountainside landscapes of hawk peak rural park. Comply with the marked trails or explore the backcountry as you make your means to the top. Along the way, meet various other walkers, uncover covert prizes, as well as absorb the globe around you.

Check out the trailer from the youtube channel creativepixels:

–Eliza: A fascinating aesthetic novel that makes use of styles of individual link as well as technological                advancement, got a nod for Story as well.

Check out the Eliza trailer from its creators youtube channel Zachtronics:

–Slay The Spire: An addicting card game that incorporates dynamic rogue like video game components                   and deck building. A merged card video game with each other to make an extremely effective single player deckbuilder. Craft a special deck, encounter strange creatures, discover antiques of enormous power, as well as Slay the Spire! It had its complete launch in 2019 and also has actually obtained a 2nd election for Style.

Here is the official Slay the Spire trailer from the youtube channel MegaCrit:

–Anodyne 2: Return to Dust: an action adventure video game with a charming tale as well as a retro                   aesthetic layout that draws from the eras of 16-bit and 32-bit gaming consoles.

Check out the official trailer the youtube channel Analgesic Production:

–MUTAZIONE: Is one of the leading contenders right now. It is a journey video game where the juicy individual dramatization is equally as vital as the high-stakes adventure part of the tale. Discover the area as 15-year-old Kai as she travels to the weird as well as deceptive community of Mutazione to take care of her ailing grandpa, Nonno. Make brand-new good friends; plant musical yards; go to BBQs, band evenings and also boat trips; as well as start a last spiritual journey to conserve everybody from the strange darkness at the heart of all of it.

Check out the launch trailer from the official Playstation youtube page:

Article Source: IGF

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To recap, the 2014 IGF Award winners are as follows:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize Papers, Please by Lucas Pope

Excellence in Visual Art Gorogoa by Jason Roberts

Nuovo Award Luxuria Superbia from Tale of Tales

Excellence in Audio DEVICE 6 from Simogo

Excellence in Narrative Papers, Please by Lucas Pope

Best Student Game Risk of Rain from Hoppo Games

Audience Award The Stanley Parable by Galactic Cafe

Excellence in Design Papers, Please by Lucas Pope

Papers, Please (Winner), Don’t Starve, and The Stanley Parable at IGF

I will call it a good gaming year when I have had a chance to play 3 of the 6 nominees for the Independent Games Festival (IGF) Award, which is exactly what happened. While Papers, Please was the show darling, garnering awards including the Seamus McNally Grand Prize, as well as the Excellence in Design and Excellence in Narrative awards, The Stanley Parable was awarded the Audience Award. The…

http://www.gizorama.com/computer/mac/dominique-pamplemousse-in-its-all-over-once-the-fat-lady-sings-review/

Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" Review

Developer: Deirdra Kiai Productions Publisher: Deirdra Kiai Productions Review Platform: PC Release Date: April 1, 2013

Continuing with GIZORAMA’s coverage of the games nominated as finalists for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2014 Independent Games Festival that started with Jazzpunk, today we are taking a look a game that is quite possibly the best representation of the independent nature of indie games in that prestigious list: Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!”

Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once The Fat Lady Sings!” is a difficult game to categorize. Is it an adventure game? A detective story? A musical? Yes, it’s all of these things, but trying understand what Dominique Pamplemousse truly is by making assumptions based on these simplistic descriptors is doing the game, and the game’s creator, a disservice. After completing the game, players will have solved an enjoyably quirky mystery that makes statements on a number of social issues in a subtle and unobtrusive way.

The plot of Dominique Pamplemousse consists of fairly standard detective fare. A young private detective, the eponymous Dominique Pamplemousse, is hired by a rich music producer to find a missing pop star. Dominique must interview various people, search for clues, and follow the leads to discover the fate of the missing singer. The detective elements of the game are very straightforward and easy to follow. There are a few twists in the story to keep things interesting, but there is very little chance of the player getting lost in the narrative or getting stuck without knowing what to do next. The game is not meant to tax your brain though, it’s meant to entertain which it most certainly does.

Though the mystery may be shallow, the story is far from uninteresting. The plot is driven by a unique cast of characters that each have their own motivations and defy expectation in one way or another. Blurring the lines that define stereotypes is one of the underlying themes of the game and is best exemplified by the title character.

Dominique is a detective and identifies as such. The people that Dominique interacts with almost invariably get tripped up on the fact that Dominique happens to be gender ambiguous. This is a stumbling block for nearly every character encountered, but Dominique takes no offense when called “he”, “she”, or even when directly asked to claim a gender. Dominique doesn’t see why gender is important and gracefully sidesteps the issue in order to continue with the task at hand. The best part of how Dominique Pamplemousse handles the social issues that it brings up is that they are not the focal point of the game.

Dominique is unfazed by questions like this and quickly gets on with the investigation.

Gender identity, economic inequality, familial expectations – All of these issues are touched upon during the course of Dominique’s investigation. They may help to explain the motivations of certain actions taken by the characters, but they never make themselves the subject of the story. In this way they add an extra layer to the overall depth of the story in a refreshingly subtle way. Dominique Pamplemousse does not preach for tolerance or acceptance, it simply incorporates real life topics into the lives of the characters. It does not claim to have any answers for the wealth gap or anything else. The overall message, if one was even intended, seems to be this: It’s not about how much money we have, how we were born, or how others view us that’s important, it’s what we do and how we view ourselves that really matter.

With that in mind, it’s easy to see that judging the game by its outward appearance alone does not give you the full picture. The characters are all roughly crafted clay figures that look cartoonishly human with their giant eyes and gaping mouths. The sets are equally as rough and look like they were constructed by hand from mostly clay, paper, cloth, and cardboard. The sets are all represented as static images and the characters move around them in a jerky fashion with very little in the way of animation. This may sound like a bad thing but in actuality it adds the charm of the overall experience. As an independent game it feels very personal, like the creator put a lot of themselves into the story, and the handmade nature of the design serves to strengthen this feeling.

Adding to the tone of the game are the visual and audio choices made and the contrast between them. Dominique Pamplemousse is presented in a 4:3 aspect ratio and is completely in black and white. Since it is first and foremost a detective story, the choice of black and white gives the game a film noir inspired aesthetic and the aspect ratio gives it an old school feel. One would be hard-pressed to draw comparisons between the endearing Dominique and the hard-boiled detectives of the film noir genre, but they are definitely an inspiration for the title character.

Just like a classic film noir detective, Dominique gets into some unexpected situations.

The audio, on the other hand, is most certainly not inspired by those dark tales of crime and punishment. There is a constant soundtrack accompanying Dominique in every part of the investigation. It changes depending on the person or area on screen at any given time and actually plays a central role in the enjoyment of the game. Why? Because as Dominique interrogates each person, most of the information important to the investigation will be sung rather than spoken. This musical element starts right at the very beginning of the game as Dominique laments the fact that rent is due and continues to the final scene where Dominique confronts the person behind the plot. This may seem nonsensical, and it kind of is, but it’s a joy to experience and will have most players smiling as they encounter each new conversation.

While the story, themes, and tone of the game are all excellent, the weakest part of Dominique Pamplemousse for some gamers may be the actual gameplay. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s just very simplistic. Dominique Pamplemousse is a point-and-click adventure game centered around investigation, but there is very little in the way of puzzles or thought provoking challenge. The majority of the gameplay is centered around talking to people. Upon clicking on each character, the player will be presented with a list of topics to choose from. Clicking on a topic will prompt Dominique to ask the character about that subject which will either provide new information or a dead end. As new information is uncovered it will be added to the list and the player may pursue a new line of questioning. As a topic is exhausted it will be greyed out in the list indicating that the player will get no new responses from that subject. It’s very basic stuff and as long as the player asks everyone about every topic then they will have no problem progressing in the game.

Occasionally the player will have to solve a few puzzles, but like the ongoing investigation, they are simple and lack any sort of challenge. If the player does happen to get stuck, there is a folder icon at the bottom of the screen that serves as Dominique’s inventory, notebook, and hint guide. It’s kind of a catch-all that the player can go into to review information and examine any encountered objects. It it used in a similar manner as the conversation topic list. If the player clicks on an item in the folder Dominique will comment on it and will usually provide a fairly obvious hint of where to go or what to do next. Some players may see this as helping to make the game too easy, but the simple nature of the game helps move it along and keep the pace up without getting bogged down in unnecessarily difficult situations. The enjoyment of the game comes from the story and presentation, not the challenge.

The topics of discussion and the contents of Dominique’s folder (pictured here) look identical and provide an obvious indication of what to investigate next by color coding topics that have already been explored.

Since the focus of the game is on the characters and the plot, one might expect the ending of the game to be especially satisfying. While far from a letdown, the endings themselves may leave some payers wanting more. There are two endings that the player may encounter based off of a decision made at the very end of the game. This decision is the only one of its kind and is the only time that the player’s action affects the very linear storyline. Thankfully, the game automatically saves at the final decision point, so after completing the game the first time the player doesn’t have to replay everything in order to view the other ending. Even so, the two endings are very similar and might leave gamers wondering what they really accomplished during the course of their roughly two hour escapade. This actually falls in line with the game’s theme of not providing answers to difficult questions though. Life doesn’t always turn out like you want it to and rarely does it wrap things up in a completely satisfactory way. Life just keeps on going and while hope is important, you’re not going to change the world with any single decision so you might as well enjoy the ride while it lasts.

Dominique Pamplemousse is definitely an enjoyable ride. The quirky nature of the game is no doubt a by-product of the fact that every second of play time is infused with the personality of its creator. Dominique Pamplemousse is the work of one person: Deirdra Kiai. Deirdra alone did everything to put the game together including writing the script, sculpting the characters, constructing the sets, writing the music, and voicing all of the characters. Dominique Pamplemousse truly is a perfect example of the independent spirit of indie gaming.

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