Cart Life wins Grand Prize at Independent Game Festival

Earlier this evening at the 15th annual Independent Game Festival (IGF), Cart Life, from Richard Hofmeier, won three awards, including the Seumas McNally Award for Best Independent Game which brings with it a $30,000 cash prize. Cart Life, a game portraying food cart workers trying to achieve their dreams, also won the Best Narrative Award and the Nuovo Award for abstract and unconventional games.

Another top IGF winner was space strategy title FTL: Faster Than Light by Subset Games, which snagged the Excellence in Design Award and the Audience Award. FTL had gotten some notice already in the indie scene with an IGF China nomination early in its development. Tomorrow Corporation's Little Inferno was honored as well with the Technical Excellence Award, while adventure game Kentucky Route Zero by Cardboard Computer won the Excellence in Visual Art award, and a Best Student Game award was given to Zineth, a skating game that celebrates Twitter and cell phone culture, designed at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Here's the full list of winners at this year's IGF:

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)