IGF Awards winners for 2023

Cosmo D Studios' Betrayal At Club Low won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game at the 25th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards tonight. The IGF Awards honors the most innovative and excellent independent games of the past year and took place as part of the 2023 Game Developers Conference (GDC) at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco.

Betrayal At Club Low is an indie-tabletop-inspired RPG that takes place in the eponymous former coffin factory-turned-nightclub. Putting players in the shoes of an undercover agent trying to rescue his old colleague, players engage in tactile dice-driving gameplay that gives them multiple ways to approach each undercover mission, and tense decisions (and consequences) at every turn. In addition to the Grand Prize, Betrayal At Club also won the Nuovo Award, which honors titles that make the awards jurors think differently about games as a medium. Betrayal At Club Low is only the second game in IGF Awards history to receive both the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and the Nuovo Award in the same year, with the first game being Cart Life in 2013.

'Betrayal At Club Low' wins the Gand Prize and Nuovo awards at IGF 2023

The full slate of 2023 IGF Award winners represents a variety of wildly divergent aesthetics and themes and includes Excellence in Narrative winner IMMORTALITY, a haunting new cinema-inspired mystery game from Half Mermaid Productions and the creator of Her Story. The Excellence in Design Winner, The Case of the Golden Idol by Color Gray Games is a detective game that allows players to think and investigate freely to build their own theories behind 12 strange and gruesome murders.

The Best Student Game, Slider by Daniel Carr is a charming pixel art puzzle game that has players rearranging map tiles to unlock treasures, and in the process, help reconnect humanity and find your cat. The Excellence in Audio winner, The Forest Quartet by Mads & Friends is a minimalistic puzzle adventure that has players incarnate the spirit of a recently passed lead singer as they travel through the minds of the spirit's former bandmates to reignite their musical spark as they deal with grief. The Excellence in Visual Art prize was awarded to DeskWorks' RPG Time: The Legend of Wright, a handmade notebook adventure that hopscotches between gameplay genres and features a unique, hand-drawn art style. Potionomics by Voracious Games won the community-driven Audience Award, which is chosen by fans through a public voting process.

The winners of the 25th annual 2023 IGF Awards are:

Excellence in Visual Art ($2,000)

• RPG Time: The Legend of Wright (DeskWorks Inc.)
   

Excellence in Audio ($2,000)

• The Forest Quartet (Mads & Friends)
   

Excellence in Design ($2,000)

• The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
   

Excellence in Narrative ($2,000)

• IMMORTALITY (Half Mermaid Productions)
   

Nuovo Award ($2,000)

• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
   

Best Student Game ($2,000)

• Slider (Daniel Carr)
   

Audience Award ($2,000)

• Potionomics (Voracious Games)
   

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($10,000) 

• Betrayal at Club Low (Cosmo D Studios)
   

The GDC also announced the GDC Showcase 2023, which is a digital event created to provide the game developer community with another opportunity to enjoy GDC from home on June 27-29, 2023. The lower-cost virtual GDC Showcase 2023 event will allow GDC attendees from around the world to join and interact with GDC speakers for three days of content and networking from the comfort and convenience of home. The online showcase includes GDC session highlights with live interview sessions, roundtable discussions, interactive panels, forward-looking keynotes, networking sessions, and insights from some of the top companies in the industry.