2014 Independent Games Festival Announces Student Showcase Winners

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 22, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- The sixteenth annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) has announced the winners of the twelfth annual Student Showcase, celebrating the most innovative and original games developed by university game programs and students from across the globe during the past year.

The student talent showcased by the 2014 Student Showcase winners include Engare, a hypnotic motion-pattern-puzzler from NHTV University of Applied Science students Mahdi Bahrami and Moslem Rasouli, Museum of Simulation Technology, a first-person game that twists perception based on forced perspective by Carnegie Mellon's Albert Shih, and Rhythm Doctor, a one-button music game from University of Cambridge students Hafiz Azman and Winston Lee.

This year's Student Competition included 346 game entries across PC, console and mobile platforms developed in the world's most prestigious universities and games programs, continuing the Student IGF's tradition as one of the largest showcases of student video game development talent in the world.

All Student Showcase winners announced today will be playable on the Expo show floor of the 2014 Game Developers Conference (GDC), being held at San Francisco's Moscone Center from March 17-21. Each team selected for the Showcase will receive a $1,000 prize and two All-Access Passes to the show, plus five Expo Passes. All eight titles are finalists for the Best Student Game award and an additional $2,000 prize, to be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 19, 2014.

The full list of Student Showcase winners for the 2014 Independent Games Festival, as well as the honorable mentions are as follows:

Museum of Simulation Technology (Albert Shih - Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center)
Engare (Mahdi Bahrami & Moslem Rasouli - NHTV University of Applied Science)
Risk of Rain (Hopoo Games - University of Washington)
Symmetrain (Philipp Beau & Daniel Goffin - University of Amsterdam / University Kassel)
Westerado (Ostrich Banditos - HKU)
Rhythm Doctor (Hafiz Azman& Winston Lee - University of Cambridge)
Foiled (Unblanched Peanuts - NYU)
Cyber Heist (Hack n' Hide - University of Utah)

Honorable mentions: Ladylike (Nina Freeman, Emmett Butler, David Coss & Winnie Song - NYU, NYU Poly); UN EP (Ian Snyder - Kansas City Art Institute); Rabbit Rush (Caterpillar Lane - RMIT); Flying Fish (The Grey Room - The Academy of Interactive Entertainment); Bokida (Rice Cooker Republic - Institut de Creation et d'Animation Numeriques)

The Student Showcase winners were judged by leading independent and mainstream developers, academics and journalists from the nearly 375 members of the IGF main competition judging body.

Now in its twelfth year as part of the larger Independent Games Festival, the Student Showcase has highlighted games developed by students that have become recognizable successes such as DigiPen's Nabacular Drop and Tag: The Power of Paint, which evolved into Valve's award-winning titles Portal and Portal 2; USC/Giant Sparrow's Unfinished Swan, later released by Sony Computer Entertainment as an award-winning title for PlayStation Network; and early USC/ThatGameCompany title Cloud. ThatGameCompany would go on to develop critical darlings including Fl0w, Flower, and Journey, winner of Game Of The Year at the 2013 Game Developers Choice Awards.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival, for which 2014 Main Competition finalists were just announced, please visit the official IGF website. Those interested in registering for GDC 2014, which includes the Independent Games Summit, the IGF Pavilion and the IGF Awards Ceremony, please visit the Game Developers Conference website.

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