Submissions are now officially open for the 2017 Independent Games Festival, the signature competition for indie games, to be held for its 19th year during GDC 2017 in San Francisco next March. This directly follows a record-breaking year which saw over 750 entries for the 2016 event, including top prizewinners like Her Story, Mini Metro and Undertale.

The deadline for all submissions to the IGF this year will be October 24th, with finalists announced in early January 2017. Finalists' games will once again be playable at the packed IGF Pavilion on the Game Developers Conference 2017 Expo Floor, and will compete for over $50,000 in prizes.

As per normal, these awards include the Excellence in Visual Art, Audio, Design and Narrative Awards, which will have six finalists each, with the winner getting $3,000 in each category. There will also be six finalists for the $30,000 Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
This year also sees the return of the Best Student Game award ($3,000 prize), and the special Nuovo Award ($5,000, eight finalists) will be offered again to honor the game title that 'makes the jurors think differently about games as a medium'. Finally, the IGF Audience Award ($3,000 prize) will be decided by a public vote from all of the competition finalists.

Organizers are also welcoming the alt.ctrl.GDC Award, an affiliated award to be given out during the IGF ceremony, honoring intriguing and inventive games using unique one-of-a-kind controllers. Finalists and t...