Inaugural Independent Games Festival Mobiles Announces Finalists

SAN FRANCISCO - Dec. 11, 2007 - The IGF Mobile organizers have announced the finalists for the inaugural Independent Games Festival Mobile from a field of over 50 entries, with nominations led by cellphone game titles including Punch Entertainment's social networking game Ego and Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab's waste disposal strategy puzzle game Backflow. The Independent Games Festival Mobile website - www.igfmobile.com - now includes a full list of finalists.

As well as Ego and Backflow, both nominated for the Innovation in Mobile Game Design category and the $10,000 IGF Mobile Best Game award, other multiple nominees included Capybara Games' food-chain based puzzler Critter Crunch, the technologically remarkable mobile RTS Steam Iron: The Fallen, and Nintendo DS drawing-RPG Drawn to Life.

Other notable nominees for 2008 prizes include nominees for the Innovation in Augmented Design Award, presented by NVIDIA, which is IGF Mobile's Platinum/Founding Sponsor. They include 3D Lawn Darts, which uses the device camera to simulate throwing a dart, Anna's Secret, a GPS driven, location-based learning adventure game based in the city of Weimar, Germany, and PhoneTag Elite, a location-tracking mobile game of "hide-and-seek."

Alongside finalists in the tenth annual IGF Main Competition and Student Showcase, the finalists for the IGF Mobile Competition will be showing their games at the IGF Pavilion during CMP's Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC, the world's largest industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of interactive entertainment, takes place February 18-22, 2008 at San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center. The IGF Mobile ceremony itself will take place during 2008's GDC Mobile, with the winners also highlighted at the main Independent Games Festival Awards during GDC 2008.

"We're genuinely excited to see the wide range of independent games and innovation in the mobile games industry represented in the list of finalists," said Mathew Kumar, IGF Mobile Content Director. "We congratulate all of our nominees and hope that their work and these games inspire more and more developers to join the independent mobile game community."

The finalists for the IGF Mobile are:

IGF Mobile Best Game:

Ego by Punch Entertainment

Nom 3 by Gamevil

Backflow by Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab

Critter Crunch by Capybara Games

Steam Iron: The Fallen by Mikoishi Pte. Ltd.

Innovation in Mobile Game Design:

Ego by Punch Entertainment

Nom 3 by Gamevil

Backflow by Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab

Innovation in Augmented Design - Presented by NVIDIA:

3D Lawn Darts by Concrete Software, Inc.

Anna's Secret by Jan Ulrich Schmidt

PhoneTag Elite by KnowledgeWhere Inc.

Achievement in Art:

Critter Crunch by Capybara Games

Drawn To Life by 5TH Cell Media LLC

Kodo by Jadestone Group AB

Technical Achievement:

Kodo by Jadestone Group AB

Hell Striker by Dingoo Games

Steam Iron: The Fallen by Mikoishi Pte. Ltd.

Audio Achievement:

Critter Crunch by Capybara Games

Drawn To Life by 5TH Cell Media LLC

Wind and Water: Puzzle Battles by Yuan Works

Platinum and Founding Sponsor for the IGF Mobile competition is NVIDIA. Renowned for creating industry-changing products, NVIDIA enhances mobile entertainment with the NVIDIA GoForce family of multimedia enabled applications processors for mobile devices. NVIDIA is unique in that it dedicates more resource than any other company in the world to the games development and publishing community. Learn about NVIDIA at www.nvidia.com.

The IGF was established in 1998 by the CMP Game Group to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, in the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. Finalists for the IGF Main Competition were announced last week, and finalists for the Student Showcase award will be announced December 17. More information is available at www.igf.com.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival and IGF Mobile, and to register for GDC, please visit www.gdconf.com.

About the Game Developers Conference ( www.gdconf.com)

The Game Developers Conference (GDC) is the world's largest professionals-only game industry event. Presented every spring in San Francisco, it is the essential forum for learning, inspiration, and networking for the creators of computer, console, handheld, mobile, and online games. The GDC attracts over 16,000 attendees, and is the primary forum where programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision-makers and others involved in the development of interactive games gather to exchange ideas and shape the future of the industry. The GDC is produced by the CMP Game Group, a division of CMP

About CMP

CMP ( http://www.cmp.com/) is a media and marketing solutions company serving the technology industry. With the leading online, event and print brands in all technology market categories, and with services and tools that reach beyond traditional advertising, CMP shapes and influences the technology industry worldwide. CMP publishes highly respected media brands such as TechWeb, InformationWeek, ChannelWeb, CRN, EE Times and TechOnline; produces major industry events such as Interop, Web 2.0 Expo, XChange, Game Developer Conference and the Embedded Systems Conferences; and provides business information and marketing services such as the International Customer Management Institute, Semiconductor Insights and Second Life consulting for technology marketers. CMP is a subsidiary of United Business Media ( http://www.unitedbusinessmedia.com/), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion. For more CMP news, go to cmp.com/news

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