IndieCade, the International Festival of Independent Games, has just announced the winners of its yearly round of prizes. Free drone-pilot life sim Unmanned - it's more riveting than it sounds - bagged the Grand Jury Award top prize, while celebrated Half-Life 2 mod The Stanley Parable won the Special Recognition award, presumably while narrating its own acceptance speech. We've included the full list of winners below.
- Grand Jury Award: Unmanned by Molleindustria
- Visuals: Gorogoa by Jason Roberts
- Audio: Dyad by RSBLSB
- Impact: Reality Ends Here by Jeff Watson and Simon Wiscombe, USC Game Innovation Lab
- Interaction: Interference by Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman
- Game Design: Armada D6 by Eric Zimmerman and John Sharp
- Technology: Vornheim by Zak S.
- Story/ World Design: Botanicula by Amanita Designs
- Special Recognition: The Stanley Parable by Davey Wreden
- The Trailblazers Award: Elan Lee
- Developers Choice Award: Renga by wallFour
- Audience Choice Award: Hokra by Ramiro Corbetta
The awards were judged by a panel including Braid creator Jonathan Blow, thatgamecompany co-founder Kellee Santiago, and J. Stewart Burns, a producer/writer on Futurama and The Simpsons. Speaking of the winners, Santiago says on the IndieCade website that "These finalists showcase true artistry in game development, combining a wide array of both artistic and technical skills, ranging from art direction, to interface and interaction design, to computer programming and sometimes hardware hacking, to sound design and interactive musical composition, to writing, to the mysterious alchemy of 'game design'." We can only presume that Mr. Burns responded by saying "Excellent" in a sinister voice.
