Independent Games Festival Submissions are now open for GDC 2022

Is your indie game the next big thing? It’s time to find out, as submissions are open for the 2022 Independent Games Festival.

Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2022 is now accepting submissions for the 24^th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF)—the longest-running festival, summit, and showcase celebrating independent games and their creators. IGF is part of GDC 2022, which will be a hybrid event held physically at San Francisco’s Moscone Convention Center from March 21, 2022, to March 25, 2022.

Creators have until October 12, 2021 to enter in all categories. The IGF will nominate six finalist standout titles in each of these categories: Excellence in Visual Art, Excellence in Audio, Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, and Best Student Game. The Nuovo Award, which honors the title that “makes the jurors think differently about games as a medium,” will have eight finalists. The IGF Audience Award will be decided by a public poll that features all the competition finalists. Six finalists will be selected to compete for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Finalists will be selected by hundreds of industry peers across game development and media, with specially selected juries picking the winners of each award. Previous winners include breakout hits like: Umurangi Generation, A Short Hike, Return of the Obra Dinn, Quadrilateral Cowboy, Night in the Woods, Her Story, Spelunky, Braid, Castle Crashers, and more.

For those making interesting or experimental works who, because of the entry fee, might otherwise not enter the contest, you can apply for a waiver on the $75 entry fee by September 27, 2021. In addition, the IGF will ensure a safe and accessible awards ceremony for GDC 2022; nominees will have the opportunity to accept awards in-person or submit a remote acceptance speech.

Entries will be accepted through October 12, 2021 at 11:59pm PT, with finalists announced in early January 2022. Submission applications are available here. For more information on the 2022 Independent Games Festival, including submission specifics and frequently asked questions, please visit the official Independent Games Festival website.

For more information on GDC 2022 visit the show’s official website, and be sure subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, and RSS.

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