Organizers of the 2011 Independent Games Festival are announcing the distinguished jury panel that will determine the eight finalists and overall winner of its Nuovo Award.
This special award, part of the IGF, which takes place at Game Developers Conference 2011 next February, is dedicated to honoring abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which "advances the medium and the way we think about games."
Now in its third year, the Nuovo Award allows more esoteric 'art games' from among the almost 400 IGF entries to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles, and has been newly expanded to include eight finalists.
The Nuovo has previously been awarded to Jason Rohrer's abstract multiplayer title Between and to Tuning [YouTube link] -- the perception-warping platform puzzler from Swedish indie Cactus.
This year's Nuovo Award jury has been selected to represent a diverse body of developers both independent and mainstream, academics, art world notables, and -- in general -- some of our industry's top thinkers on the future of art and the video game medium.
The jury will receive game recommendations from the wider body of over 150 IGF Main Competition judges (itself including notable former IGF winners and finalists including Petri Purho, Kyle Gabler, Jakub Dvorsky, Tyler Glaiel, and Dylan Fitterer).
The 2011 IGF Nuovo jury consists of the following:
- Daniel Benmergui (independent developer, author, creator of 2010 Nuovo finalist Today I Die)
- Eric Zimmerman (formerly co-founder of independent studio and Diner Dash creator Gamelab, now NYU Game Center educator and co-author of notable game book 'Rules Of Play'.)
- Eddo Stern (Los Angeles-based artist and game designer behind exhibits like Waco Resurrection, Tekken Torture Tournament and Darkgame, and Director of the UCLA Game Lab.)
- Clint Hocking (Creative Director at LucasArts and director behind games including Far Cry 2 & Splinter Cell.)
- Frank Lantz (co-founder of crossmedia game company Area/Code, responsible for games like Drop7, Parking Wars and Spore Islands, and Director of the NYU Game Center.)
- Ian Bogost (Georgia Institute of Technology professor and Director of the digital media graduate program, founding partner of Persuasive Games, and creator of 2010 Nuovo finalist A Slow Year.)
- Jason Rohrer (independent developer and creator of Sleep Is Death, Passage and 2009 Nuovo winner Between.)
- Jesper Juul (author of the MIT Press book 'A Casual Revolution', visiting professor at NYU Game Center & The Danish Design School.)
- Justin Smith (independent game developer and creator of 2010 Nuovo finalist Enviro-Bear 2000)
- Rod Humble (Executive Vice President for the EA Play label at major publisher Electronic Arts, and experimental game creator behind The Marriage and Stars Over Half Moon Bay.)
- Paolo Pedercini (game developer at Molleindustria [Every Day The Same Dream], artist and educator at the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University.)
- Tale of Tales -- Auriea Harvey & Michael Samyn (independent developers and artists behind The Endless Forest, The Path, Fatale and 2009 Nuovo finalist The Graveyard.)
All entries in the 2011 Independent Games Festival are currently browsable at the IGF's official site, where you can also find more complete biographical information on the Nuovo Award jury. Juries for the other IGF awards will be announced over the next few weeks. (The IGF is part of the UBM TechWeb Game Network, as is this website.)
All eight Nuovo Award finalists will be announced -- along with a jury statement detailing the thought process behind selecting its lineup -- later this year, with the winner announced on the evening of March 2nd, 2011, at the multi-thousand person attended IGF Awards ceremony during GDC 2011 -- for which registration is now open.
