Freeplay Independent Games Festival Award finalists

Mike Bantick
Tuesday, 03 August 2010 14:44

Your IT - Entertainment

Whilst big companies are churning out big expensive games for our electronic entertainment, some of the best, exciting and most memorable video games however, quite often originate from independent developers.  Freeplay is a Games Festival that honours the work of the little guys.

The Freeplay Independent Games Festival will be held at the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne Australia, on the 14th and 15th August 2010.  Promising to be a showcase as well as informative, instructional and fun place for independent games developers (and those wishing to break into the industry) to hang out.
This year the organisers wish to acknowledge the work of independent game designers by throwing some awards their way:

Since submissions opened in June, Freeplay organisers were swamped with a massive amount of entries for all the categories. With many submissions coming from overseas, the Freeplay judges added an extra category, Best International Game.

'We were pleasantly surprised at the large number and high quality of the entries,' said Mark Flanagan, one of the Freeplay judges. 'It meant a lot of work, and it was difficult to choose winners, but we didn't mind at all because the games were so entertaining to play.'

Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony at the Freeplay Independent Games Festival, on Sunday 15th August.

The Finalists in each category are as follows:
Best Australian Game
Sword Lady & The Viking - Up Down Ready   
Brawsome - Jolly Rover   
Finn Morgan - Colourbind

Best International Game
Mahdi Bahrami (Iran) - Bo   
Anders Højsted (Denmark)     - TryFail   
Yellow Jam (Brazil) - Last Hope

Best Design in a Game
Sword Lady & The Viking -     Up Down Ready   
Alexander Bruce    Hazard: The Journey Of Life   
The Voxel Agents    Train Conductor

Best On-Paper Design
Tobye Ryan - Epic Adventure   
Timothy Ryan - iCrazy Man   
Katie Murphy - Galaqua

Best Art in a Game
Farbs - Captain Forever (series)   
Alexander Bruce - Hazard: The Journey Of Life   
KlickTock - Doodle Find

Best Concept Art
Fiasco Studios - Exodus   
Evan Raynor - City Ruins   
CatBus Interactive - Speed Demon

Best Technical Innovation
Farbs - Captain Forever (series)   
Finn Morgan - Colourbind   
Sword Lady & The Viking -     Up Down Ready   

Best Game Writing
Farbs - Captain Forever (series)   
Alexander Bruce - Hazard: The Journey Of Life   
PVI Collective - Transumer

Best Audio
The Voxel Agents - Train Conductor   
Tin Man Games - Gamebook Adventures 1: An Assassin in Orlandes   
Brawsome - Jolly Rover

Tickets for the Freeplay Independent Games Festival are AU$22, and are on sale now through www.moshtix.com.au.  More information at www.freeplay.net.au