IGF Awards 2022 nominees revealed with Unpacking and Inscryption in the lead

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They share all four of their nominations

Unpacking
(Image credit: Witch Beam)

The Independent Games Festival Awards nominees for 2022 have been revealed, representing a vibrant and eclectic selection of games from developers around the world.

With the full slate of nominees revealed across seven categories, Unpacking and Inscryption lead the pack with four nominations each. The former is about exploring a life through unpacking boxes and the latter is about struggling to survive a horrifying presence's unpredictable card games; the fact that two share all of their nominations across the grand prize, audio, design, and narrative categories speak to just how diverse even hit indie titles can be.

Here are all the nominees for this year's Independent Games Festival Awards, with the winners set to be revealed at the GDC 2022 awards ceremony.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

  • Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
  • Unpacking (Witch Beam)
  • Loop Hero (Four Quarters)
  • The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)
  • Cruelty Squad (Consumer Softproducts)
  • Unsighted (Studio Pixel Punk)

Excellence in Audio

  • Toem (Something We Made)
  • Unpacking (Witch Beam)
  • Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)
  • Mini Motorways (Dinosaur Polo Club)
  • Sable (Shedworks)
  • Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)

Excellence in Design

  • Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
  • Unpacking (Witch Beam)
  • Overboard! (inkle)
  • Strange Horticulture (Bad Viking)
  • Webbed (Sbug Games)
  • Midnight Protocol (LuGus Studios)

Excellence in Narrative

  • Last Call (Nina Freeman and Jake Jefferies)
  • Neurocracy (Playthroughline)
  • Closed Hands (Passenger)
  • Overboard! (inkle)
  • Inscryption (Daniel Mullins Games)
  • Unpacking (Witch Beam)

Excellence in Visual Art

  • The Eternal Cylinder (ACE Team)
  • Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery (Silver Lining Studio)
  • Papetura (Petums)
  • Fuzz Dungeon (Jeremy Couillard)
  • The Wild at Heart (Moonlight Kids)
  • Jett: The Far Shore (Superbrothers A/V + Pine Scented)

Best Student Game

  • Cai Cai Balão (Look Up Games)
  • Abriss - build to destroy (Randwerk Games eG)
  • Letter Lattice (Ethan Zarov)
  • SmallLife (Yueqi Wu)
  • Nainai's Recipe (Fan Fang, Mai Hou)
  • Live Adventure (Live Adventure Team)

Nuovo Award

  • Memory Card (Lily Zone)
  • Okthryssia and Saturnia's Bureaucratic Adventures (Outlands)
  • Space Hole 2020 (Sam Atlas)
  • Tux and Fanny (Ghost Time Games)
  • Cruelty Squad (Consumer Softproducts)
  • Sparkles & Gems (Resnijars)
  • Fuzz Dungeon (Jeremy Couillard)
  • Cuccchi (Fantastico Studio)

See what we're looking forward to this year with our guide to new games 2022. 

Connor Sheridan
Connor Sheridan

I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and was formerly a staff writer at GamesRadar.