Ninth Annual Independent Games Festival Selects Finalists From Record Number Of Entries

SAN FRANCISCO - Dec. 11, 2006 - The Independent Games Festival (IGF) has chosen finalists out of a record 141 entries for its ninth annual competition celebrating the most innovative creations to come out of the independent and student game communities. Selected by a jury made up of developers from Foundation 9, Ubisoft, Crytek, Midway, Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi and Gearbox, as well as journalists from Wired, Slashdot, Joystiq, Kotaku, Penny Arcade and the BBC, the finalists will compete for more than $50,000 in prizes, including a $2,500 Audience Award determined by fan votes on a GameSpot-hosted website. Nominated games will be exhibited at the IGF Pavilion, March 7-9, 2007, at this year's Game Developers Conference (GDC). GDC, CMP Technology's annual conference dedicated to the art, science and business of games, takes place March 5-9, 2007 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. Winners will be announced at the Conference's IGF Awards Ceremony on March 7, 2007.

IGF finalists were led by Bit Blot's dreamlike 2D underwater adventure title Aquaria, which garnered four nominations, including one for the Seumas McNally Game of the Year. Game of the Year nominees also include Queasy Games' abstract shoot-em-up, Everyday Shooter, which grabbed three nominations in total, as well as complex physics puzzle game Armadillo Run, Wild West strategy MMO Bang! Howdy and Xbox Live Arcade action-puzzler Roboblitz, each of which received two nods.

"It was wonderful, incredible and quite a challenge to have to choose just five finalists per category from what were 141 astounding entries," said Simon Carless, IGF chairman. "It is a huge testament to the success of the IGF over the past nine years that so many inventive developers were inspired to create and submit games into the competition. We salute all entrants, and hope this year's Festival proves to be the launching pad that it has become for so many of our past nominees."

The finalists for the 2007 Independent Games Festival are:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

Aquaria - Bit Blot

Armadillo Run - Peter Stock

Bang! Howdy - Three Rings Design

Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games

Roboblitz - Naked Sky Entertainment

Best Web Browser Game

Bubble Islands - dot-invasion

Gamma Bros - Pixeljam

Samorost 2 - Amanita Design

Design Innovation Award

Armadillo Run - Peter Stock

Aquaria - Bit Blot

Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games

Toblo - Digipen Institute of Technology

Toribash - NABI Software

Excellence In Visual Art

Aquaria - Bit Blot

Castle Crashers - The Behemoth

Golf? - Luke Hetherington Company

Roboblitz - Naked Sky Entertainment

Samorost 2 - Amanita Design

Excellence In Audio

Aquaria - Bit Blot

Bone: The Great Cow Race - Telltale Games

Everyday Shooter - Queasy Games

FizzBall - Grubby Games

Racing Pitch - Skinflake

Technical Excellence

Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow - Slitherine Software

Armada Online - EvStream

Bang! Howdy - Three Rings Design

Blast Miner - Cryptic Sea

Bugs Of War - NinjaBee

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, much the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. Finalists for the IGF Modding Competition and the IGF Student Showcase will be announced in December 2006 and January 2007, respectively.

More than 12,500 game industry professionals will convene during GDC, the world's largest games industry-only event dedicated to the advancement of resources, tools and technologies used to create interactive entertainment. The GDC features more than 300 lectures, panels, tutorials and round-table discussions on a comprehensive selection of game development topics taught by leading industry experts.

To register for the Game Developers Conference and review conference information, please visit www.gdconf.com. Press registration is also currently open.

About the CMP Game Group ( www.cmpgame.com)

A core provider of essential information to the professional game industry, the CMP Game Group offers market-defining content, and drives community through the Game Developers Conference, Game Developer magazine, the Webby Award-winning Gamasutra.com, the Serious Games Summit D.C., GDC Mobile, GDC Europe, the Independent Games Festival, the Game Developers Choice Awards, GDC London, the London Games Summit, GDCTV, GDCRadio, and the GDC Focus On event series. For more information, please visit www.cmpgame.com.

About CMP Technology ( www.cmp.com)

CMP Technology is a marketing solutions company serving the technology industry. Through its market-leading portfolio of trusted information brands, CMP has earned the confidence of more technology professionals than any other media company. As a result, CMP is the premier provider of access, insight and actionable programs designed to connect sellers and buyers in ways that yield superior return on investment. CMP Technology is a subsidiary of United Business Media ( www.unitedbusinessmedia.com), a global provider of news distribution and specialist information services with a market capitalization of more than $3 billion.

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