As the 2019 Independent Games Festival enters its jurying phase, organizers are excited to announce more of the juries (made up of discipline experts) who will play, evaluate and discuss the most notable games of the over 500 entered this year.
With the first round of IGF judging complete (thanks to the efforts of hundreds of game industry evaluators), these expert juries now gather to determine the finalists and winners of the prestigious IGF 2019 awards at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in March!
We like to celebrate the efforts of our hard-working jurors, because they volunteer their time and talents to help judge these important honors. Today we'd specifically like to shout out some of the industry professionals who have agreed to judge the Excellence in Design Award, the Excellence in Narrative Award, and the Student Award.
(And of course, all jurors also have a say in the IGF's annual Seamus McNally Grand Prize!)
Excellence in Design
The Excellence in Design award seeks to highlight the innovation and quality of the underlying blueprint of each entered game -- including component parts like its level design, mechanic design and difficulty balancing. It will be awarded by the following jury:
Lisy Kane: Lisy Kane is a videogames producer currently making waves in the industry. In 2017, Lisy was recognized by Forbes in its prestigious top 30 list: Forbes 30 Under 30 2017: Games. Ranked alongside the world’s best game makers, Lisy was the only Australian to make the who’s who of the global gaming industry. At Melbourne studio League of Geeks she is the producer on 2016 IGF Nominee Armello which has become an example of indie games-as-a-service success. In 2014, Lisy joined forces with four other digital professionals to co-found Girl Geek Academy with a mission to teach 1 million women to get into tech and launch their own startups by 2025.
Liz England: Liz England is a lead designer at Ubisoft Toronto and specializes in systems design and narrative. In the past she's worked as a designer on games such as Scribblenauts and Sunset Overdrive.
Luis Antonio: Luis has over ten years experience in the video game industry. He worked at Rockstar Games, as an artist, and later Ubisoft as Lead and eventually Art Director. Dissatisfied with the creative limitations of the triple-A industry, he joined Jonathan Blow to create the art for the award-winning game "The Witness." He now runs a studio and is directing his first title, "Twelve Minutes," an interactive thriller about a man trapped in a time loop.
Nina Freeman: Nina Freeman is a level designer at Fullbright, where she most recently worked on Tacoma. She has also worked as the designer for many other games, including IGF Nuovo winner Cibele, and nominee “how do you Do It?”.
Sarah Northway: Sarah is the creator of the Rebuild strategy series, and a programmer and designer on Fantastic Contraption VR. She spent 5 years traveling the world with her husband and making indie games in remote places, and now explores the worlds inside her Vive.
Zach Gage: Zach Gage is a game designer and artist from New York City. He’s best known for SpellTower, Ridiculous Fishing, Really Bad Chess, and Flipflop Solitaire.
Excellence in Narrative
The Excellence in Narrative award aims to recognize quality and impressiveness of storytelling in a game - including, but not limited to, scenario, plot construction, story, dialogue, and other major factors. The 2019 award will be decided by these jurors:
Andrew Plotkin: Andrew Plotkin has been playing interactive fiction since there were home computers, and tried writing some shortly thereafter. He now helps run an IF non-profit foundation and plays with other narrative game ideas.
Kate Gray: Kate Gray is the Narrative Director at KO_OP in Montreal, and a games journalist who has worked at Future, Xbox, and GameSpot. She currently writes about sex games for Kotaku, and is working on something secret at KO_OP.
Kristina Drzaic: Kristina Drzaic is a writer, narrative designer and master of videogame secrets. She is best known for her work on Halo 5: Guardians, the BioShock series, and Galak-Z. Presently, she is developing secret projects at Amazon Game Studios.
Lucy Blundell: Lucy Blundell is a solo, independent game developer who creates narrative-driven experiences that focus on our personal secrets. Her games show players a different, softer side of gaming where sincerity, introspection and human relations replace action, fantasy and power.
Sam Barlow: Sam Barlow is a videogame writer and director known for pushing the boundaries of interactive narrative with games such as Aisle, Silent Hill: Shattered Memories and Her Story. His eagerly awaited Telling Lies continues to explore the alchemical combination of film and gaming.
Teddy Dief: Teddy Dief is an independent videogame designer and writer. He co-developed Hyper Light Drifter, Fitz Packerton and the Playscape Idle Thumbs podcast. Formerly a Creative Director at Square Enix Montréal, designer at Disney and game narrative researcher at USC. He is co-founder of Los Angeles artist collective Glitch City.
