The nominations for the 2025 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards have been announced.
Consume Me, which draws on developer Jenny Jiao Hsia's personal experiences with dieting and disordered eating, leads the way with five nominations including for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize.
Caves of Qud, Despelote, Indika, Thank Goodness You're Here, and UFO 50 will also be competing for the prestigious Grand Prize award, which was won by Venba last year.
Read more about the Grand Prize nominees below:
Caves of Qud
After nine years in early access, Caves of Qud version 1.0 finally launched in December. This old-school roguelike RPG is incredibly dense in a way that always makes you curious about the world and what's possible in it, and is well worth trying to overcome the steep learning curve for.
Other nominations: Design, Narrative
What to Read Next
Consume Me
Consume Me isn't out yet, but has been on people's radars since 2018. Drawing on Jenny Jiao Hsia's personal experiences with dieting and disordered eating, the coming-of-age story follows a teenager trying to navigate life in her final year at school. The slice-of-life game examines the character's relationship with food through unique mechanics.
Other nominations: Design, Narrative, Visual Art, Nuovo Award
Despelote
Expected to launch in early 2025, Despelote is a semi-autobiographical football game taking place in 2001 as Ecuador looks to qualify for the World Cup. It follows an 8-year-old kid who interacts with the people of Quito while dribbling and passing the ball around, and is said to authentically capture the city's culture and atmosphere during that time.
Other nominations: Audio, Narrative, Nuovo Award
Indika
Indika follows a nun shunned by her convent, and mixes in the surreal as it thoughtfully covers themes including religion-based guilt, with Indika grappling with her wavering faith. The game makes some bold choices while telling its story, and is all the more memorable for it.
Other nominations: Audio, Narrative
Thank Goodness You're Here
Thank Goodness You're Here tries to do something that's hard to do in the medium: be consistently funny. Taking place in a Yorkshire town, the game's selling point – as your salesman character wanders around and slaps everything in sight – is its absurd, satirical, and very British humour.
Other nominations: Audio, Visual Arts
UFO 50
Digital Spy's game of the year for 2024, UFO 50 presents 50 games across a diverse range of genres, tied together by a meta-narrative in which they were released on 8-bit-era consoles in the '80s. It's a unique and cohesive compilation filled with treasures, with many of the games combining retro inspirations with anachronistic and experimental ideas.
Honourable Mentions
The following games were not nominated for the Grand Prize, but were listed as honourable mentions:
- Animal Well
- Balatro
- Blue Prince
- Mouthwashing
- Nine Sols
- Tactical Breach Wizards
We haven't played Consume Me and Despelote yet, but all of the other nominations and honourable mentions in the Grand Prize category are excellent and worth playing.
It's also worth checking out the full list of nominations for all categories here.
Some other games with nominations or honourable mentions that we can recommend include:
- Arctic Eggs
- No Case Should Remain Unsolved
- Crow Country
- The Rise of the Golden Idol
- Pacific Drive
- LOK Digital
- Closer the Distance
- Judero
The winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 19 during the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC).
