BLUEBERRY GARDEN, MACHINARIUM, BETWEEN TOP 2009 IGF AWARDS

Always one of the top highlights of GDC, the 2009 Independent Games Festival Awards saw Erik Svedang’s pen-and-ink platformer Blueberry Garden come home with the top Seumas McNally Grand Prize — along with the $30,000 in prize money — now joining the ranks of games like Crayon Physics Deluxe, Aquaria and Darwinia.

Elsewhere in the evening’s proceedings (which contained a bit less of the antics of previous years), the Innovation Award (henceforth to be reclassified the ‘Nuovo’ Award for works that bring something genuinely new to gaming) was won by Jason Rohrer’s Between, and Machinarium brought home the Excellence in Visual Art award (accepted by Amanita Design’s Jakub Dvorský, above).

Digital Eel’s essentially terrifying BrainPipe took the Excellence in Audio award, Cortex Command (Data Realms’ long time IGF entrant) took home both the Technical Excellence and Audience Awards, KranX’s Musaic Box won for Excellence in Design, Best Student Game went to the DigiPen team behind Tag: The Power of Paint, and Hemisphere’s Osmos won the D2D Vision Award.

For more on all the winners of this year’s awards, check the comprehensive Offworld Guide to the IGF.

Previously:
The Offworld Guide to the 2009 Independent Games Festival – Offworld
Pixeljunk Eden, Osmos top 2009 IGF nominations – Offworld
The Young Machinarium: Another early look at Amanita's latest …
Passage's Jason Rohrer and emotional game experiences – Offworld