Independent Games Festival Opens Audience Voting

Votes are on! The 14th Annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) has opened its finalists games for public voting. From this procedure the prestigious IGF Audience Award will be delivered to the game with more votes.

Gamers and indie developers alike can vote for any of the 28 finalist games in the 8 categories. This year the list includes such titles as Fez, Dear Esther, Atom Zombie Smasher, Frozen Synapse or Spelunky. The votes close February 19th, so you will have roughly two weeks to cast yours. If you don’t know any of the games up for voting, you can download them from the IGF website. It’s not a pass to play commercial games for free though. Keep in mind some games are distributed only as a demo.

The Independent Games Festival is an yearly event awarding indie game development since 1998 and was established to “encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers”. This year awards will distribute over 50,000 USD in cash prizes, with the Seumas McNally Grand Prize (equivalent to best game of the year) being awarded 30,000 USD. The IGF Audience Award Winner will take home 3,000 USD and the distinction of having been chosen by the gamer and developer communities.

The actual event will take place on March 7th, 2012, on the evening of the third day of the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco, California. All GDC visitors can attend the ceremony.

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