On Thursday, Miller Freeman announced the15 finalists in its GDC Independent Games Festival. The developers competing for a US$10,000 grand prize (listed by project name, team representative, company if affiliated, and location) are:

- Acidia, by Sri Hdar Iyer from Urbana, Illinois

- Boobies, by Michael Christenson of Sandy, Utah

- BFRIS Zero-Gravity Fighter Combat, by Joseph P. Walters of Aegis Simulation Technologies, Albuquerque, New Mexico

- Crime Cities, by Andrew Beard of Techland, Poland

- EverNight, by David McCloskey of VR.1, Boulder, Colorado

- Fire and Darkness, by David Scherer of Singularity Software, McLean, Virginia

- Flagship: Champion, by Keith Nemitz, Kirkland, Washington

- Food Chain, by John Casasanta of Cajun Games, E. Boston, Massachusetts

- Journey Into The Brain, by Karen Littman of Morphonix, San Rafael,California

- Mind Rover, by Kent Quirk of CogniToy, Acton, Massachusetts

- Resurrection, by Andrew Leker, San Rafael, California

- Seed, by Gabor Kadas of Human Soft Inc., San Mateo, California

- Sleights, by James Ferolo, Chicago, Illinois

- Terminus, by Guha Bala of Vicarious Visions Inc., Troy, New York

- V.D., Everett Bell of nspgames, Jackson, Tennessee

The Miller Freeman Game Group and the Gathering of Developers are both sponsoring the competition. The work of these finalists will be on display at the GDC Expo, running March 16-18 in San Jose, California.

This list includes first-person 3D space-fighter combat games, multiplayer turn-based strategy games, an educational science game, and one entry where the player must decide whether to bring Harry Houdini back from the dead. Sounds indie, doesn't it?