The Independent Games Festival is now accepting submissions for next year’s awards.
The deadline to get your game submitted is October 26, 2015. Other key dates to pay attention to:
Early January, 2016 Finalists Announced
March 14 – March 18, 2016 Game Developers Conference 2016
March 14 – March 15, 2016 Indie Games Summit @ GDC
March 16 – March 18, 2016 IGF Pavilion @ GDC
March 16, 2016 IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)
There are a few changes this year.
Brandon Boyer is stepping down as chairperson of the IGF, and Indie MEGABOOTH’s Kelly Wallick is stepping in.
The cost to entrants has changed in the interest of making the IGF more accessible. Instead of $95, the submission fee is now $75.
Similarly, now that student submissions are eligible for the main prizes as well as for the Best Student Game Prize, their fee is $25 instead of being free.
The other major change is in developer feedback.
Developer feedback has always been an optional part of the judging process and in general, having the game played in detail by multiple judges takes precedence over providing written feedback. While the feedback is well intentioned, without having a clear structure it is often inconsistent or on par with what a normal user playtest would provide.
So we’ll be removing written judge feedback – at least for this year – to concentrate on further optimizing the judging process, getting people playing as many games as possible and formalizing the feedback system.
The judging process had been under question in recent years. With the number of IGF submissions getting almost as popular as a Ludum Dare game jam, it was a lot of work for the judges to cover all of the games in a timely manner. But some developers found that their games weren’t even being played in the first place, and it wasn’t clear if everyone was getting a fair shot, especially after paying a submission fee for the privilege.
A more formal feedback system could only help.
How do you feel about the changes?