Proceedings are well underway for the jurying phase of the 2015 Independent Games Festival, in which discipline-specific experts play and discuss the merits of the nearly 650 games entered in the 2015 Festival Main Competition, all of which continue to push the boundaries of video game development and design. As in prior years, an extraordinary group of game development notables are evaluating IGF 2015's standout entries. Today we're happy to begin to announce members of some of these discipline-specific jury panels. After first-round IGF judging from more than 200 helpers, these panels -- composed of creators from studios both large and small -- will ultimately determine the finalists and winners of the various IGF 2015 awards at Game Developers Conference 2015. Below are the jurors who have volunteered their time and talent for the Excellence in Design Award, and Excellence in Audio Award, in alphabetical order: The Excellence in Design Award The Excellence in Design award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality of the underlying blueprint of each entered game -- component parts like its mechanic design, level design, and difficulty balancing. Previous IGF Design Award winners have included Papers, Please, FTL, Spelunky, & Desktop Dungeons. The 2015 jury consists of the following: - Bronson Zgeb (co-founder & designer at KO-OP Mode, creators of Please Don't! Spacedog, Gnog & Skipping Stones
- Chris Bell (designer on Giant Sparrow's forthcoming What Remains of Edith Finch, thatgamecompany's Journey, and IGF 2012 Nuovo nominee and Best Student Game Way)
- Daniel Kline (designer on SimCity & Sims 4, developer on games including Diablo 3, Tomb Raider & Star Wars: Force Unleashed)
- Fia Tjernberg (former game director for Funcom's Anarchy Online & designer on Dice's Battlefield series)
- Kevin Cancienne (designer of games including Dog Park & Drop7)
- Kevin Zuhn (creative director of Octodad: Dadliest Catch and LD48 winner Antbassador)
- Mohini Freya Dutta (co-founder & director of narrative strategies at Antidote Games)
- Robin Hunicke (co-founder of Funomena, previously lead designer on EA's Boom Blox, producer on thatgamecompany's Journey)
- Tanya Short (captain of Shattered Planet & Moon Hunters creators Kitfox Games, previously designer for Dungeons of Fayte, The Secret World, and Age of Conan)
- Tom Francis (designer of IGF finalist Gunpoint & the upcoming Heat Signature)
- Zach Gage (creator of SpellTower, co-creator of Apple Design Award winner Ridiculous Fishing) The Excellence In Audio Award The Excellence in Audio Award is a category which seeks to highlight the best musical and sound innovation, quality, and impressiveness in independent gaming. Previous IGF Audio Award winners have included Device6, Botanicula, Amnesia: The Dark Descent & Everyday Shooter. The jury consists of the following: - Austin Wintory (composer on games including Journey & 2014 IGF finalist The Banner Saga
- Bonnie Bogovich (composer and sound designer at Schell Games, co-founder of Super Smash Opera and Evenings in Quarantine: The Zombie Opera)
- Chris Remo (Campo Santo composer, previous works include Double Fine's The Cave and Spacebase DF-9 & IGF notables Thirty Flights of Loving, Gone Home)
- Damien Kastbauer (audio designer with credits on games including XCOM, Uncharted, Rock Band, Drawn To Life, and Sam & Max)
- Daniel Rosenfeld (known as "C418", the music producer for Minecraft)
- Jenn Lewis (Maple Syrup Sound founder, with audio credits on games including Warhammer 40k, Company of Heroes & Need For Speed)
- Kristofor Mellroth (senior audio director with Microsoft, credits include Crackdown, Fable 2, Sunset Overdrive, Halo: CE Anniversary, FEAR, and Condemned)
- Laura Shigihara (composer, developer, and singer-songwriter best known for her work on Plants Vs. Zombies)
- Samantha Kalman (Sentris creator, former UX design technologist at Amazon)
- Shaw-Han Liem (co-creator and audio lead of Queasy Games' Sound Shapes, performs as I Am Robot And Proud) All entries in the 2015 Independent Games Festival are currently browsable at the IGF's official site, where you can also soon find more complete biographical information on all of this year's juries, as more are announced over the next few weeks. Main Competition finalists will be announced -- along with a jury statement detailing the thought process behind selecting its lineup -- in January 2015, with the winners announced on the evening of March 4th at the live-streamed, multi-thousand person attended IGF Awards ceremony during GDC 2015 -- for which registration is now open.