IndieCade 2015 – Finalists and Winners

Thewas held once again at a sweaty Fais Do-Do – along a ramshackle otherwise unremarkable street south of Hollywood. In attendance: a room full of many of the world’s finest or best known indie game developers (or both).

While picking up our press badges across town at the tent village in Culver City, California, where the four-day festival will be held (the first day is only for conference goers via the IndieXchange conference) we noticed that there is a pavilion dedicated 100% to virtual reality. Last year we saw only two entries – Use of Force and Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes – both with long lineups, so this year we look forward to the VR space showing its best thus far.

We will cover all the details in other articles, but for now, let’s get to the official list of award winners for IndieCade 2015!

The Audience, Media and Developers Choice awards will be announced this Sunday.



IndieCade 2015 Official Award Winners

The Grand Jury Award

Her Story

(Sam Barlow)

The Visual Design Award

Memory of a Broken Dimension

Created by Sam Barlow (offame),is a brilliant use of full motion video, tasking you to uncover the secrets behind a cold murder case by viewing fragments of a single suspect’s interrogation footage. Actress Viva Seifert’s portrayal of the suspect is compelling, as is the game’s ’90s-inspired desktop interface.

(XRA)

The Audio Design Award

Memory of a Broken Dimension

An emulator of a fictional research desktop system,turns your computer itself into a prop, a sort of computer game equivalent to the “found footage” conceit in film. The moody black and white imagery of this game is haunting, just glitchy enough to make you second-guess what exactly you’re seeing.

(XRA)

The Game Design Award

Line Wobbler

And it’s another win for XRA’s computer archaeology simulator! Laden with glitches and artifacts, the sound design forenhances the sense of recovering data from a lost research computer system.

(Robin Baumgarten)

The Story/World Design Award

Donut County

Winning in first year for the new award category “Game Design,” “one dimensional” doesn’t have to be a put-down; it’s the whole point of, a multi-level dungeon crawler that takes place in a single dimension. How did Robin Baumgarten do it? By creating a unique hardware set-up involving a game controller built from a door stop, a dungeon built from a strip of LED lights, and an Arduino microcontroller to run everything.

(Ben Esposito)

The Technology Award

Fabulous Beasts

Ben Esposito wins the Story/World Design Award for the way his game,, tells its story without the use of traditional narrative. A sort of Bizarro World take on, Donut County puts you in control of a hole in the ground. Suck objects in, and the hole grows bigger. You’ll use this mechanic to solve a variety of physics-based puzzles.

(Sensible Object)

The Impact Award

Consentacle

gets the Technology Award for its clever mix of physical and digital objects. Using blocks inscribed with symbols that you scan, you’ll build a tower in physical space and watch it populate with marvelous creatures on your tablet. Combining classic stacking mechanics a lawith ideas from the “god game” genre, Fabulous Beasts is a competitive and cooperative new approach to world-building.

(Naomi Clark)

The Interaction Award

Tribal & Error

Naomi Clark’sis a cooperative card game about modeling a romantic encounter between a human and an alien. The game explores issues of nonverbal communication and sexual consent (as well as attempting to rehabilitate the image of the oft-maligned “tentacle monster”).

(Grotman)

The Trailblazer Award

Brenda Laurel

As a time-traveling robot, you’ll need to save mankind by going back to the world of cavemen…but you’ll need to learn their language first.puts you in the role of robo-anthropologist by forcing you to learn a symbolic language of digital cavemen, then teach them – in their own language, of course – how to survive the coming ice age.

The Developer Award

Rose MacBeth

The Trailblazer Award – for “standing on the shoulders of giants and being one” – goes to, a VR pioneer, interactive design expert, and leading advocate for developing video games for girls.

(Wise Guy Events)



The Special Jury Award

A Red and Pleasant Land

The Developer Award goes to, a live action horror game featuring blindfolded victims on the run in a graveyard…spooky!

(Zak Smith)



The Audience Award

Badblood

Zak Smith’sgets the Special Jury Award. A supplement for role-playing games, this book stands out not only for its clever ideas and unique setting – a dark, vampire-inspired take on Alice and Wonderland – but also its art and design.

(Winnie Song)



The Media Award

Codex Bash

Winnie Song’sis an extra tense, extra violent stealth and murder game for two local players. See how much “bad blood” you stir up with your friends as you stalk them through the tall grasses in this year’s Audience Award winner.

(Alistair Aitcheson)



IndieCade 2015 Finalists / Award Nominees

Designed in part as a showcase for developer Alistair Aitcheson’s giant wireless buttons,combines physical and mental challenges with a series of codes to solve by running between buttons (and bashing them, of course).

…&maybetheywontkillyouby Akira Thompson

60 Seconds!

by Robot Gentleman

Aboard the Lookinglass

by Henry Hoffman

Armello

by League of Geeks

Codex Bash

by Alistair Aitcheson

Consentacle

by Naomi Clark

Darknet

by E McNeill

Donut County

by Ben Esposito

Eleanor of Ayer

by Gelly Bomb Games

Engare

by Mahdi Bahrami

Fabulous Beasts

by Sensible Object

Find Maria Rivera

by Niki Selken

Her Story

by Sam Barlow

Home Improvisation

by The Stork Burnt Down

Kerbal Space Program

by Squad

Kwaan

by Ankama Canada

Line Wobbler

by Robin Baumgarten

Memory of a Broken Dimension

by XRA

Monarch

by Mary Flanagan

Museum of Simulation Technology

by Pillow Castle

Myriad

by Bifrost Entertainment

Nevermind

by Flying Mollusk

Plug & Play

by Etter Studio

Prune

by Joel McDonald

Puzzlets ft. Cork the Volcano

by Digital Dream Labs

Red & Pleasant Land

by Zak S

SCALE

by Cubeheart

Seltani

by Zarfhome Software

Sentree

by Glitchnap

Seven Day Band

by Jeff Lait

Story Warriors: Fairy Tales

by Below The Game

The Meadow

by The Meadow Group

Throw Trucks With Your Mind

by Crooked Tree Studios

Tribal & Error

by Grotman

Walden, a game

by USC Game Innovation Lab

Wonderland: A Solvitur Ambulando Mystery

by No Media Kings

Learn about all the games at IndieCade 2015 at the:

Check out all of our IndieCade coverage from 2015 and previous years