The 2006 Independent Games Festival Awards took place in San Jose this evening, immediately preceding the Game Developers Choice Awards, and it was Introversion Software's retro-stylish action-strategy title Darwinia that scooped the $20,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize in the IGF Main Competition.
Darwinia, which is now being distributed via Valve's Steam service, also won out in the Technical Excellence and Innovation In Visual Arts categories, prompting extended bouts of richly deserved onstage euphoria from the collected, bow tie-toting Brits who make up Introversion.
Other major winners (who each received $2,500 for their winning entry, as well as a number of sponsor gifts) were Number None's innovative time-manipulation platform title Braid, which won out for Innovation In Game Design, and Digital Eel's 'short-game' space exploration title Weird Worlds: Return To Infinite Space, which was victorious in the Innovation In Audio category.
Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp's stylish Flash game Dad 'N Me won for Best Web Browser Game, and the Audience Award, which was conducted by GameSpot and saw over 2000 votes, was won by French strategy-MMO Dofus. Elsewhere, the $5,000 AdultSwim.com award was given to RabidLab, who developed finalist Dodge That Anvil!.
The first-ever Modding Competition also produced some extremely worthy winners, with cyberpunk title Dystopia winning out for best Half-Life 2 mod, and ancient Chinese action title Path Of Vengeance coming out victorious for best Unreal Tournament 2004 mod. Meanwhile, unique console-RPG style title Rose Of Eternity - Chapter 1 beat out its competitors for Best Neverwinter Nights Mod, and Last Man Standing Co-Op won for best Doom 3 Mod, rounding out an excellent evening for independent games.
