The 2018 The Independent Games Festival (IGF), which honors the most influential, innovative and acclaimed projects in independent game development, revealed the award finalists for its 20th annual awards ceremony.

The IGF Awards take place on March 21, 2018 during the Game Developers Conference, and will be hosted by Trent Kusters, co-founder of League of Geeks, the Melbourne-based development team behind Armello, a captivating digital role-playing strategy board game that has garnered much critical and fan acclaim.

Trent is currently a board member of Australia's Freeplay Independent Games Festival, and was named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30 for games in 2016.

After an initial review round by over 300 judges, the nearly 600 entries for the 2018 IGF Awards were distributed to a diverse set of expert jurors from across the industry for final consideration. The juries for each individual category then selected the IGF finalists after playing, discussing and meticulously evaluating them.
Among the selection of 35 different nominated games, a few titles received nominations in multiple categories, including Baba is You, a puzzle game created by creator Hempuli that allows players to alter the rules and game logic as a part of solving the puzzles. The game received a total of four nominations - for Excellence in Design, Best Student Game, the Nuovo Award for 'thinking differently about games as a medium', and for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.

Multiple titles are b...