Nuovo Award

The Nuovo Award or Innovation Award is an award given at the Independent Games Festival (IGF), an annual event that takes place during the Game Developers Conference, one of the largest gatherings of the indie video game industry.^[1][2][3] The award is given to honor "abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games".^[3][4] The award was designed as a way for art games to compete with traditional indie games, and the winner was originally selected from a group of finalists and given a prize of US$2,500.^[3] In 2011, the IGF increased the prize money to US$5,000 due to the increased quality of the entries.^[5]

The former IGF chairman Brandon Boyer described the Nuovo finalists as experimental games that attempted to distinguish themselves from established conventions, and would not fit in any of the other IGF award categories.^[2][4] Nominations for the award are made by the IGF's judges. Eight finalists are chosen by an elected jury from among the nominees and a few others are given honorable mentions if they receive insufficient votes to become finalists. The winner is decided from among the finalists by jury voting.^[3] Jury members include notable game developers and previous winners and finalists, including individuals such as Jason Rohrer, Paolo Pedercini, Ian Bogost, and Daniel Benmergui.^[3][5] In the fourteen years since the award's debut, 105 games have been nominated as finalists, while 84 games have been chosen as honorable mentions. Sixteen games have won the award, the first being the platformer Between (2009), while the latest to be awarded is Anthology of the Killer (2024).

Recipients

Jason Rohrer won for Between (2009).

Daniel Benmergui won for Storyteller (2012).

Nathalie Lawhead won for Tetrageddon Games (2015).

Bennett Foddy won for Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (2018).

Recipients

Year	Winner	Developer	Finalists[lower-alpha 1]	Honorable mentions[lower-alpha 2]	Ref.
2009	Between	Jason Rohrer	Coil Mightier The Graveyard You Have To Burn The Rope	—	[6][7]
2010	Tuning	Cactus[8]	A Slow Year Closure Enviro-Bear 2000 Today I Die	—	[9]
2011	Nidhogg	Messhof	Bohm Brutally Unfair Tactics Totally OK Now The Cat and the Coup Dinner Date Hazard: The Journey Of Life A House In California Loop Raccord	Amnesia: The Dark Descent Choice of Broadsides Faraway Feign Spy Party	[10]
2012	Storyteller	Daniel Benmergui	At a Distance Dear Esther Fingle GIRP Johann Sebastian Joust Proteus WAY	Deep Sea Four Letter Word GlitchHiker Hundreds POP	[11]
2013	Cart Life	Richard Hofmeier	7 Grand Steps Bientôt l’Été Dys4ia Little Inferno MirrorMoon Spaceteam VESPER.5	Frog Fractions Renga Starseed Pilgrim The Stanley Parable Thirty Flights of Loving	[12]
2014	Luxuria Superbia	Tale of Tales	Corrypt Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!" Extrasolar Papers, Please Perfect Woman Save the Date SoundSelf	18 Cadence Device 6 Elegy for a Dead World Shelter Superhot	[13]
2015	Tetrageddon Games	Nathalie Lawhead	Become A Great Artist In Just 10 Seconds Bounden Desert Golfing Elegy for a Dead World How Do You Do It? Plug & Play Rooftop Cop	Curtain Ice-Bound: A Novel of Reconfiguration International Jetpack Conference Outer Wilds Phonopath Push Me Pull You	[14]
2016	Cibele	Star Maid Games	Fantastic Contraption Her Story Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes Orchids to Dusk Panoramical Progress The Beginner's Guide	Affordable Space Adventures Enough Future Unfolding Sage Solitaire Sentree TIS-100 Vignettes	[15]
2017	Oiκοςpiel, Book I	David Kanaga	Islands: Non-Places Close Diaries of a Spaceport Janitor Everything Virginia Mu Cartographer Lieve Oma	Memoir En Code: Reissue Far from Noise Ladykiller in a Bind Witchball Project Perfect Citizen Wheels of Aurelia Quadrilateral Cowboy	[16]
2018	Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy	Bennett Foddy	Tarotica Voo Doo 10 Mississippi A Mortician's Tale Cosmic Top Secret Everything Is Going to Be OK Baba Is You Kids	Where the Water Tastes Like Wine IO Interloper The Norwood Suite Cheap Golf Witchball Million Onion Hotel	[17]
2019	Black Room	Cassie McQuarter	Circle0 Do Not Feed The Monkeys eCheese Zone Mirror Drop Noita Nth Dimensional Hiking Paratopic	All Our Asias Cyberpet Graveyard Hypnospace Outlaw Levedad Macdows 95 Nerve Damage Subserial Network The Norwood Suite	[18]
2020	The Space Between	Christoph Frey	Tales From Off-Peak City Vol. 1 Infini Life Tastes Like Cardboard Promesa Song of Bloom The Longing Pagan: Autogeny	Astrologaster Elsinore Fit for a King My Exercise Where the Bees Make Honey Smile For Me	[19]
2021	Blaseball	The Game Band	Nightmare Temptation Academy That Night, Steeped by Blood River Airplane Mode Welcome to Elk Umurangi Generation Chasing Light Kristallijn	Cai Cai Balão Genesis Noir Gnosia Liquidators Night Dreams Rainy Season Stilstand There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension	[20]
2022	Memory Card	Lily Zone	Okthryssia and Saturnia's Bureaucratic Adventures Space Hole 2020 Tux and Fanny Cruelty Squad Sparkles & Gems Fuzz Dungeon Cuccchi	Last Call The Shape of Time The Under Presents Song of Homunculus Card Shark The Vale: Shadow of the Crown	[21]
2023	Betrayal at Club Low	Cosmo D Studios	Afterglitch An Outcry He Fucked the Girl Out of Me Queer Man Peering Into a Rockpool.jpg Sylvie Lime Time Bandit Titanic II: Orchestra for Dying At Sea	Atuel Ib Not For Broadcast Of Moons and Mania RPG Time: The Legend of Wright	[22]
2024	Anthology of the Killer	Thecatamites	1000xRESIST Cryptmaster Kevin (1997-2077) Mediterranea Inferno Nidus The Forest Cathedral	BlueSuburbia goodbye.monster In Stars and Time Nour: Play With Your Food The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood	[23]

Notes

1. From 2009 to 2010, there were five finalists instead of eight.
2. Honorable mentions were introduced in 2011.

References

1. Dominguez, James (March 13, 2014). "Locals indie game studios recognised in major industry event". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved August 6, 2023.
2. McWhertor, Michael (December 20, 2010). "The Eight Unusual Video Games Up For The IGF 'Nuovo Award'". Kotaku. Archived from the original on July 15, 2023. Retrieved July 15, 2023.
3. Rossignol, Jim (December 22, 2010). "So Yeah, IGF Nuovo Award Stuff". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
4. Feltcher, J.C. (December 20, 2010). "Nidhogg, Hazard, and more nominated for IGF Nuovo Award". Engadget. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
5. "2011 Game Developers Conference". GamesIndustry.biz. December 21, 2010. Archived from the original on July 22, 2023. Retrieved July 21, 2023.
6. Yoon, Andrew (January 9, 2009). "Independent Games Festival announces 2009 award nominees". Engadget. Archived from the original on July 28, 2023. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
7. Hatfield, Daemon (March 26, 2009). "GDC 09: IGF Award Winners". IGN. Archived from the original on July 28, 2023. Retrieved July 28, 2023.
8. Gillen, Kieron (February 9, 2010). "IGF Factor 2010: Tuning". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved November 28, 2023.
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21. "2022 Independent Games Festival Winners & Finalists". Independent Games Festival. Archived from the original on May 13, 2023. Retrieved August 5, 2023.
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