2018 Independent Games Festival award nominees announced

The 2018 Independent Games Festival—the 20th one, as it happens—will be held on March 21 ahead of the 2018 Game Developers Conference. Nearly 600 indie games were evaluated this year, but as the festival's organizers announced today, only 35 made the cut for the annual awards ceremony. Here's a full rundown of the nominees and categories:   

Excellence in visual art

•  Night in the Woods  
•  Cuphead  
•  Echo  
•  Luna  
•  The Gardens Between  
•  Chuchel  

Excellence in audio

•  Tormentor X Punisher 
•  Cuphead  
•  Vignettes  
•  Rain World  
•  Uurnog Uurnlimited 
•  Celeste 

Excellence in design

•  Into the Breach  
•  Shenzhen I/O 
•  Wilmot's Warehouse  
•  Baba Is You  
•  Uurnog Uurnlimited 
•  Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy  

Excellence in narrative

•  Tacoma 
•  Attentat 1942  
•  Where the Water Tastes Like Wine 
•  Night in the Woods 
•  Butterfly Soup  
•  Tooth and Tail  

Best student game

•  IO Interloper 
•  Don't Make Love  
•  Penny Blue Finds a Clue 
•  We Were Here  
•  Baba Is You  
•  Guardian of the Gears  

Nuovo award

•  Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy  
•  Tarotica Voo Doo 
•  10 Mississippi  
•  A Mortician's Tale  
•  Cosmic Top Secret  
•  Everything Is Going to Be OK  
•  Baba Is You 
•  Kids  

Seumas McNally grand prize

•  Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy 
•  Night in the Woods 
•  West of Loathing 
•  Into the Breach 
•  Heat Signature 
•  Baba is You
   

While most categories are self-explanatory, it's worth noting that the Nuovo award is for "thinking differently about games as a medium," in case the nominees didn't give that away. You can find more details and the honorable mentions in the official IGF listing.