Author: by Staff

Organizers of the 2012 Independent Games Festival are pleased to announce the second set of discipline-specific jury panels that will determine the finalists and winner of its various awards, following Design, Tech, and Nuovo juries announced last week. The jury announcements for this year are beginning with the industry professionals, independent game notables and former IGF award winners that make up its Visual Art award, Audio award, and Mobile award juries. The Excellence in Visual Art Award The Visual Art award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality in visuals for indie games. Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Visual Art award have been entrants which featured impressive displays of the craft of games, including The Behemoth's vibrant cartoon-ish beat-em-up Castle Crashers, Polytron's 2D/3D "trixel"-based puzzle platformer Fez, Amanita Design's hand-painted adventure game Machinarium, and Playdead's equal parts soft and stark monochromatic puzzler Limbo. The jury consists of the following: - Steven Burgess (now indie, formerly designer of LostWinds at Frontier) - Rex Crowle (creative director at LittleBigPlanet creators Media Molecule) - Grant Duncan (founding member & artist on Hello Games' IGF finalist Joe Danger) - Auriea Harvey (co-founder of Tale of Tales, the studio behind The Endless Forest, The Path, Fatale and 2009 Nuovo finalist The Graveyard) - David Hellman (artist on games including Number None's Braid) - Richard Hogg (artist on Honeyslug games including Poto & Cabenga & Frobisher Says) - Liselore Goedhart (artist at Bohm creators Monobanda) - Anders Gustafsson & Erik Zaring (creators & artists behind IGF finalist The Dream Machine) - Mike Roush (co-founder & artist at BIT.TRIP creators Gaijin Games) - Ben Ruiz (art director formerly at Flashbang Studios on games like Off-Road Velociraptor Safari & Minotaur China Shop) - Patrick Smith (as 'Vectorpark', creator of games & interactive toys like Windosill, Feed the Head & Levers) 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. Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Excellence in Audio award have gone out to games which took an entirely new and unique to approach to sound in games or otherwise excelled at their craft, including Queasy Games' abstract acoustic guitar shooter and 2007 award winner Everyday Shooter, 2008 finalist guitar-controller platformer Fret Nice, 2009's ultra-stylized finalist PixelJunk Eden from Q-Games and Osaka musician/DJ Baiyon, and the 2010 award winning Closure. The jury consists of the following: - James Barker (lead designer & engineer at GL33K, the indie audio studio behind games like Splosion Man, Comic Jumper, Epic Mickey & Donkey Kong Country Returns) - Matthew Burns (founder of Shadegrown Games, behind musical shooter Planck) - Matt 'Chainsaw' Chaney (audio lead at Gunstringer & Splosion Man creators Twisted Pixel) - Dylan Fitterer (creator of music-puzzle racer and 2008 IGF Excellence in Audio winner Audiosurf) - Darren Korb (audio lead at Bastion creators Supergiant Games) - David Lloyd & Larry Oji (respectively, musician and founder of game music site OverClocked ReMix; OCR head and soundtrack director on Capcom's Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix.) - Emily Ridgway (music director and audio designer on games like BioShock, Brutal Legend & Costume Quest) - Chris Schlarb (Asthmatic Kitty recording artist & composer on Nifflas's NightSky & Erik Loyer's Strange Rain) The Best Mobile Game Award The Best Mobile Game Award is a category which seeks to highlight the innovation and quality in mobile and handheld gaming, now in its second year as part of the main Independent Games Festival. Prior finalists and winners of the IGF Mobile awards have gone to entrants which featured impressive displays of handheld gaming, including Ratloop's vibrant puzzler Helsing's Fire, Tiger Style's innovative touch platformer Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and Superbrothers and Capy's Sword & Sworcery EP. The Mobile Award jury consists of the following: - Colin Anderson (co-founder of Denki, creators of Quarrel, Denki Blocks, Juggle) - Eddy Boxerman (founder of Hemisphere Games, creators of the IGF award winning Osmos) - Kevin Cancienne (game designer & developer at Area/Code, creators of Drop7) - Phil Hassey (creator of the IGF award winning Galcon) - Mike Kasprzak (founder of Sykhronics, creators of IGF mobile award finalist Smiles) - Erik Loyer (creator of innovative iOS games Ruben & Lullaby and Strange Rain) - Simon Oliver (founder of Rolando & OKABU creators HandCircus) - Matt Rix (founder of Magicule & creator of IGF finalist Trainyard) - Wiley Wiggins (founder of Karakasa Games, currently producing iPad adventure Thunderbeam) All entries in the 2012 Independent Games Festival are currently browsable at the IGF's official site, where you can also find more complete biographical information for the Main Competition juries. All finalists will be announced -- along with a jury statement detailing the thought process behind selecting its lineup -- in early January 2012. All finalists will be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the show floor during Game Developers Conference 2012, with the winner announced on the evening of March 7, 2012, at the IGF Awards.