Independent Games Festival finalists unveiled, including Thirty Flights of Loving, FTL: Faster than Light

The Independent Games Festival, commonly shortened to "IGF," now has a solid list of finalists for the 15th annual awards. The number of nominees spans seven categories with almost 30 total eligible titles, some of which have really taken off since their release.

Juries picked the finalists from over 580 IGF entries, through playthroughs and recommendations. The "Excellence in Narrative" award is the newest addition this year, and sees a number of pretty well-known nominees, including Blendo Games' Thirty Flights of Loving.

• Excellence In Visual Art
  
  • Incredipede (Northway Games and Thomas Shahan)
  • Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
  • Guacalamelee! (Drinkbox Studios)
  • Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime (Asteroid Base)
  • Year Walk (Simogo)
• Excellence In Narrative
  
  • Thirty Flights of Loving (Blendo Games)
  • Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
  • Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
  • Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
  • Gone Home (The Fullbright Company)
• Technical Excellence
  
  • StarForge (CodeHatch)
  • Perspective (DigiPen Widdershins)
  • Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
  • Intrusion 2 (Aleksey Abramenko)
  • LiquidSketch (Tobias Neukom)
• Excellence In Design
  
  • Samurai Gunn (Beau Blyth)
  • FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
  • Starseed Pilgrim (Droqen & Ryan Roth)
  • Super Hexagon (Terry Cavanagh)
  • Super Space ______ (David Scamehorn & Alexander Baard/DigiPen)
• Excellence In Audio
  
  • Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)
  • Bad Hotel (Lucky Frame)
  • 140 (Jeppe Carlsen)
  • Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
  • Pixeljunk 4AM (Q-Games)
• Nuovo Award [Designed 'to honor abstract... and unconventional game development'.]
  
  • Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
  • Spaceteam (Henry Smith)
  • Dys4ia (Auntie Pixelante)
  • Bientot l'ete (Tale of Tales)
  • 7 Grand Steps (Mousechief)
  • MirrorMoon (SantaRagione + BloodyMonkey)
  • VESPER.5 (Michael Brough)
  • Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
• Seumas McNally Grand Prize
  
  • Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games)
  • FTL: Faster Than Light (Subset Games)
  • Cart Life (Richard Hofmeier)
  • Little Inferno (Tomorrow Corporation)
  • Kentucky Route Zero (Cardboard Computer)

The full list may also on the IGF website, along with a healthy helping of honorable mentions, giving credit to games that were nominated but didn't quite make the cut.

All Main Competition finalists will also have the chance to sign a distribution agreement with Valve, though obviously some entries have already made it onto Steam.