IGF 2025 nominees show what a wild and vibrant place indie gaming is – Rock Paper Shotgun

There are several surprise nominations and absences this year
Last year’s defining indie smash hit, Balatro? Not nominated for the IGF grand prize. Animal Well, which turned damn near every games journalist into a tiresome obsessive? Not nominated for anything. UFO 50, an impressive, important, big boy achievement snubbed by our own 2024 list? It did get a Grand Prize nomination.
I don’t disagree with any of the nominees or absences in this year’s Independent Games Festival Awards, so I don’t mention any of the above to stir up trouble. Instead I look at this list and think: wow, video games are more varied than ever, so much so that there’s no longer a dominant cultural narrative even within the specific niche of indie gaming.
If you’re not familiar: the IGF Awards have been running for 26 years and the winners are announced during GDC. The nominees, and the winners, are selected by a collection of developers and journalists. It is one of the few video game awards that doesn’t just seem like a straightforward popularity contest.
Jenny Jiao Hsia‘s Consume Me leads the pack with five nominations, soccer story Despelote is right behind with four, and nun ’em up Indika got three. Animal Well, in fairness, got several honourable mentions. Here’s the full list:
Honorable Mentions: Animal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), Balatro (LocalThunk / Playstack), Blue Prince (Dogubomb / Raw Fury), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Nine Sols (RedCandleGames) , Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments)
Honorable Mentions: Animal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), No Case Should Remain Unsolved (Somi), UFO 50 (Mossmouth), LOK Digital (Letibus Design, Icedrop Games / Draknek and Friends), Eigengrau (Martin Mauersics), The Rise of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games / Playstack)
Honorable Mentions: Blue Prince (Dogubomb / Raw Fury), Miniatures (Other Tales Interactive), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments), Thank Goodness You’re Here! (Coal Supper / Panic), The Thaumaturge (Fool’s Theory / 11 bit studios)
Honorable Mentions: Crow Country (SFB Games), Death of the Reprobate (Joe Richardson), Miniatures (Other Tales Interactive), Tiny Glade (Pounce Light), Ultros (Hadoque / Kepler Interactive)
Honorable Mentions: Arctic Eggs (The Water Museum, cockydoody, abmarnie, Cameron Ginex / CRITICAL REFLEX) , Judero (Talha and Jack Co, J. King-Spooner, Talha Kaya), Onto Maizilind Unto Infinity (Kas Ghobadi, Julián Palacios Gechtman / Kasrah Ghobadi), Price of Flight (WATERBOX), Project Y (Project_Y Production Committee), Refind Self: The Personality TestGame (Lizardry / PLAYISM)
Honorable Mentions: Cards of Heart (GoodMind Games), Duck Paradox (Magic Games / Midwest Games), Lost Garden (Ori Shany, Yoni Pushett, Ramon Zerem), Perfect World (Michael Overton Brown), Timeworks (Starworks Studios)
Honorable Mentions: Animal Well (Billy Basso / Bigmode), Mouthwashing (Wrong Organ / CRITICAL REFLEX), Pacific Drive (Ironwood Studios / Kepler Interactive), Rise of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games / Playstack), UFO 50 (Mossmouth)
Balatro
PC
Despelote
Video Game
Indika
PC
UFO 50
PC
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