IGF 2013: Cart Life, FTL and Little Inferno grab the gongs

Written by Edward Chester

March 28, 2013 | 19:41

Tags: #2013 #cart-life #festival #gdc #independent

Companies: #ftl #games #igf

Cart Life, a game about street food cart workers trying to achieve their dreams, has picked up the Best Game gong, and £30,000 prize money, at the annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards.

Created by Richard Hofmeier, the game was praised for its realistic and heart-breaking story telling, with it also picking up the award for narrative as well as the Nuovo Award for abstract and unconventional games. Described by Hofmeier as "A retail simulator for Windows" the deliberately obtuse game was a surprise choice for many.

The other multiple winner was FTL: Faster Than Light, the far more widely known and hugely popular space craft simulator. The graphically simple but hugely addictive game picked up the Excellence in Design and Audience Awards.

Other prize winners include include Little Inferno, Tomorrow Corporation's quirky title about burning objects in an 'entertainment fireplace,' which won the Technical Excellence Award. Cardboard Computer's surreal magical realist adventure game Kentucky Route Zero won the Excellence in Visual Art award for its stunningly designed environments, while Jeppe Carlsen's rhythmic platformer 140 won the Excellence in Audio Award.

The IGF Awards take place at the the Games Developer Conference (GDC) in San Francisco and are a celebration of all things small and independent in the world of computer games. Past winners include the hugely successful games, Braid and World of Goo.

The full list of winners are shown below:

Excellence in Visual Art ($3,000)
Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)

Nuovo Award ($5,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)

Excellence in Audio ($3,000)
140 (Jeppe Carlsen)

Excellence in Narrative ($3,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)

Technical Excellence ($3,000)
Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)

Best Student Game ($3,000)
Zineth (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)

Audience Award ($3,000)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)

Excellence in Design ($3,000)
FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($30,000)
Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)

Which games would get your vote for best independent game?
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