Now that the call for the submissions for the 23^rd annual Independent Games Festival (the largest and longest-running showcase for independent game developers) has concluded, the festival organizers are pleased to announce that over 500 individual games have been accepted for the 2021 competition!

Developers from all over the world showed off their best work in this entry process, with first-time indies going toe to toe with longstanding veterans and a healthy showing from student gamemakers.

Only at the IGF can you have a competition where the procedural chaos of Blaseball, the gonzo creatures of Bugsnax, and the beat-driven bullet mania of BPM: BULLETS PER MINUTE can all stand tall and compete for the same awards.

But that’s not all. In this year’s competition are the wonderfully chill Coffee Talk, the technologically fascinating Hardspace: Shipbreaker, and the open-world murder mystery Paradise Killer.

The returning developers for this list are an incredible lot too! 80 Days developer inkle makes a return with Arthurian strategy game Pendragon. Derek Yu has returned with his celebrated sequel Spelunky 2, and a slew of IGF veterans have brought us Disc Room, a game where, rest assured, you will definitely get torn apart by discs.

From this large selection of games, six finalists will be chosen for each of the IGF 2020 Competition award categories save the Nuovo Award, which will have eight finalists. These finalists will be announced in May of 2021 and will receive free passes to the event and the opportunity to showcase their games in playable form at GDC 2021.

IGF Finalists can also anticipate the opportunity to virtually participate in 2021’s GDC and IGF Awards through the  hybrid event format, as a response to theCOVID-19 pandemic.

For more information on the 2021 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics and frequently asked questions, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website.

For more information on GDC 2021 in general visit the show’s official website, or subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, or RSS.