Independent Games Festival Reveals Student Showcase Finalists for 2010 Event

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- The Independent Games Festival, the popular industry event highlighting and awarding the talents of independent game developers, has announced the winners of the 2010 IGF Student Showcase, which recognizes outstanding indie game development taking place on school and university campuses around the world.  

This year's set of ten Student Showcase winners include titles such as Utrecht School of the Arts & USC's virtual paper-folding puzzle game Paper Cakes, DePaul University's first-person 'sound visualization' title Devil's Tuning Fork, and Chalmers University's ingenious card-shuffling platform game Continuity.

These ten games will go on to compete for the Best Student Game Prize, announced on stage at the Independent Games Festival Awards, held Thursday, March 11, 2010, in San Francisco at Game Developers Conference 2010.

The Student Showcase-winning games -- all of which will also be playable at the IGF Pavilion on the GDC 2010 show floor -- were chosen from a remarkable field of entries by an opt-in subset of the more than 150 notable game industry figures judging the IGF Main Competition.

The full list of this year's winners is as follows:

Boryokudan Rue (UCLA)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=469

Continuity (Chalmers University of Technology / University of Gothenburg)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=522

Devil's Tuning Fork (DePaul University)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=532

Dreamside Maroon (DigiPen Institute of Technology)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=452

Igneous (DigiPen Institute of Technology)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=455

Paper Cakes (Utrecht School of the Arts & USC)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=476

Puddle (ENJMIN, France)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=440

Puzzle Bloom (DADIU, Denmark)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=41

Spectre (USC Interactive Media)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=527

Ulitsa Dimitrova (Kunsthochschule Kassel, Germany)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=444

Chosen from a new record of 190 IGF Student Showcase entries (up over 30% on last year's 145 entries), these Student Showcase-winning games each win $500 and GDC 2010 show passes, and will go on to compete for an overall Best Student Game prize, which includes a special trophy and a $2,500 cash prize.

In addition, the IGF judges would like to highlight ten more outstanding Student Showcase entries for honorable mentions this year, recommending them to the public. Honorable mentions go to the following titles:

ASCIIp0rtal (Utah State University)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=397

Conquest (Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg & University of Primorska)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=404

Endless Frog Kids (UC Berkeley)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=433

Gear (DigiPen Institute of Technology)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=451

Mi (Odessa National University)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=475

NormalTanks (Tyumen State Oil and Gas University)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=14

Runesinger (USC)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=438

Spinnr (Frostburg State University)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=491

Sultans Of Scratch (Florida Interactive Entertainment Academy)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=425

The Last Dance (IdEC UPF, Barcelona)

http://www.igf.com/php-bin/entry2010.php?id=409

Previous notable IGF Student Showcase honorees have included DigiPen's Narbacular Drop (which later evolved into Valve's acclaimed Portal), USC's The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom (debuting on Xbox Live Arcade next month), Hogeschool van de Kunsten's The Blob (made into a console title by THQ as De Blob), and early USC/ThatGameCompany (Fl0w, Flower) title Cloud.

"We're delighted to see the IGF Student Showcase continuing to highlight some outstanding student-created titles from all over the world," said Simon Carless, IGF chairman. "This year's record entries have once again unearthed some outstanding titles, and we're looking forward to showing them to the public at GDC this March."

The Independent Games Festival was established in 1998 by Game Developers Conference organizer Think Services to recognize the best independent game developers, in the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community.  IGF Main Competition finalists were announced earlier this month, and a separate set of finalists -- for the IGF Mobile competition -- will debut in late January.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival, please visit the official IGF website: http://www.igf.com -- and for those interested in registering for GDC 2010, which includes the Independent Games Summit, the IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards Ceremony, please visit the official Game Developers Conference website: http://www.gdconf.com.

About the Think Services Game Group

A core provider of essential information to the professional game industry, the Think Services Game Group offers market-defining content, and drives community through its award winning lineup of print, online, event and research products and services. These include Game Developer Magazine, Game Developer Research, the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com, GameCareerGuide.com, WorldsInMotion.biz and other Gamasutra Network websites, the Game Developers Conference®, the Game Developers Conference® Austin, the Game Developers Conference® Europe, the Game Developers Conference® China, the Game Developers Conference® Canada, GDC Mobile, the Game Career Seminars, the Independent Games Festival and Summit, and the Game Developers Choice Awards.  To learn more, visit www.tsgamegroup.com

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SOURCE Think Services Game Group