Betrayal At Club Low wins the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at this year’s IGF awards.
It was another vintage year for the Independent Games Festival, with the likes of Tunic, Citizen Sleeper, and Neon White among the games nominated at the 2023 IGF awards. The ceremony was streamed live from San Francisco’s Moscone Center, with thousands of Game Developers Conference delegates in attendance.
Cosmo D Studios’ mesmerising nightclub infiltration game Betrayal At Club Low was the night’s big winner. The game scooped the Nuovo award and the prestigious Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
The Case of the Golden Idol from Color Gray Games won the Excellence in Design award, and Half Mermaid’s Immortality was the deserving winner of Excellence in Narrative.
DeskWorks’ delightful tribute to childhood imagination, RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, took home the Excellent in Visual Arts award, and The Forest Quartet won Excellence in Audio.
Best Student Game went to Sliders, and the publicly-voted Audience Award went to Potionomics, the inventive magic shop simulation from Voracious Games.
The Thumbsticks team sends its congratulations to every IGF nominee. Here’s the complete list of winners.
2023 IGF Awards Winners
Best Student Game
- Gevaudan (Nicolas Bernard)
- Mind Diver (Indoor Sunglasses)
- Presenter Slides (Mathias Schifter & Brin Žvan)
- Shutter (ARTFX 2022)
- Skala (Gustav Almström)
- Slider (randomerz)
Excellence in Audio
- Dome Keeper (Bippinbits)
- Paradise Marsh (LazyEti)
- South of the Circle (State of Play)
- The Forest Quartet (Mads & Friends)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team)
- We are OFK (Team OFK)
Excellence in Design
- Against the Storm (Eremite Games)
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
- Mr. Sun’s Hatbox (Kenny Sun)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix)
- Stacklands (Sokpop Collective)
- The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
Excellence in Narrative
- Butterfly Soup 2 (Brianna Lei)
- Citizen Sleeper (Jump Over the Age)
- I Was a Teenage Exocolonist (Northway Games)
- Immortality (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid)
- NORCO (Geography of Robots)
- South of the Circle (State of Play)
Excellence in Visual Arts
- Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
- How Deep Is the Dark Water? (Rhett Tsai)
- Potionomics (Voracious Games)
- RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)
- To Hell With the Ugly (La Poule Noire, ARTE France)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team)
Nuovo Award
- Afterglitch (Vladimir Kudelka)
- An Outcry (Quinn K.)
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
- He Fucked The Girl Out Of Me (Taylor McCue)
- Queer Man Peering Into a Rock Pool.jpg (Fuzzy Ghost)
- Sylvie Lime (Love Game)
- Time Bandit (Joel Jordon)
- Titanic II: Orchestra for Dying At Sea (Flan Falacci)
Seumas McNally Grand Prize
- Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
- TUNIC (TUNIC Team)
- The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
- Immortality (Sam Barlow, Half Mermaid)
- Neon White (Angel Matrix)
- Not For Broadcast (NotGames)
Audience Award
- Potionomics (Voracious Games)
Visit Thumbsticks over the next few weeks for a series of exclusive features from this year’s Game Developers Conference.
