For those of you not watching the indie scene very closely, last week was the Independent Games Festival. With so many great, new, and exciting games we chose to deviate from our regular monthly round-up and write a about each winners for the coveted awards. In addition we decided to pick who WE thought should have won as well, so rather than hand out scores we're just listing the IGF winners and our picks. Sadly not every game in this list is playable or finished yet, but it should give you an idea of who to watch. All in all, every game listed this month is worth playing as it is a great honor to even be a finalist. April will mark the return of the normal Monthly Roundup!

Blueberry Garden

Blueberry garden was a strange mix of platform adventure, puzzle, and land manipulation. The ecosystem changes, and that's pretty cool, but when it came to actually having fun while playing it the GT.com team was left scratching it's head. In many ways there is a lot of potential behind this concept of exploration and ecosystem modification, but somehow it just didn't click as well with us as did our pick for the grand prize. Congrats to Blueberry garden for wining the money, but we're going to disagree with the IGF judges on this one.

Blueberry Garden Nominations:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Excellence in Audio

Osmos

The relaxed world of a blob absorbing other blobs has been done before. The game is basically life in a Petri dish, while gravity pulls you around towards larger blobs who will eat you, you can expend your own mass to move and absorb smaller blobs. The game is incredibly dynamic, yet relaxing and exciting at the same time. More important, we had a lot more fun playing this game than we did Blueberry Garden, and to us that is the magic number for success. The developer talked at length about all the various levels and enemies that will be available in the final version and we must say- we're excited! Too bad we don't have 30,000 dollars to give you Osmos, you'll just have to be happy with a pat on the back.

Osmos Nominations:

Seumas McNally Grand Prize
Excellence in Design
Technical Excellence

Machinarium

The IGF judges and Gametunnel agree, when it came to pure artistic prowess this game trumps the others. The art of this game and his other flash games simply can't be beat. This game is a true winner for any point and click adventure fans. It's hard to say much more about it though, it doesn't really innovate the field of point and click adventures, but you can get a good idea of the gameplay and style by playing his other games, which are available at the website link to the left.

Machinarium Nominations:

Excellence in Visual Art

Brain Pipe

The IGF judges and GT.com agree once again with Brainpipe, from those whacky Digital Eels who brought us Return to Infinite Space (Which ALSO won Excellence in Audio a few years ago) and Dr. Blob. This game is absolutely fun, but more importantly the audio and visuals will suck you in like nothing you've ever experienced before. You're an eye... or something like that, and you are traveling through the neural pathways of your mind. This is one tough game to describe but you'll understand once you experience it. Have your headphones ready.

Brain Pipe Nominations:

Excellence in Audio

Musaic Box

Musaic Box is a strange puzzle, music, combo game that deserves a great deal of praise for originality. It almost certainly would have won Excellence in Audio as well, if not for going up against such a phenomenal audio experience like Brainpipe. Bummer for them! This is by far the most "casual" game of the IGF entrants, so if a casual puzzle music game sounds like tea for your soul, hop on in.

Musaic Box Nominations:

Excellence in Audio
Excellence in Design

Snapshot

We once again disagree with the judges on the Excellence in Design category. This was a hard decision for us, as Musaic Box deserves some major design praise, but in the end Snapshot is well designed and important to us: has much higher design potential than Musaic Box. Snapshot features a unique perspective on capturing and dropping terrain into a platform adventure game. With some more elbow grease this game could become a cult classic, in its current form it's a coin toss between Musaic Box and Snapshot for the title�¢ï¿½�¦ but potential gives it the edge we felt makes the difference. We hope to see a released version by the end of the year, but the developer is not making any promises. Take your time Kyle and Peter!

Snapshot Nominations:

Excellence in Design

Between

Innoviation is the new award at IGF. The idea is to find a game that pushes the concepts of games. Between does just. Build a structure to reach the tower. What you learn very quickly is you lack the materials to do it, and so you rely on the other player to help. It's weird to describe, but the idea is to play a game completely alone, yet totally attached and reliant on someone else.

Between Nominations:

Innovation (Nuovu) Award

Cortex Command

Cortex Command was one of our favorites to sit and play at IGF this year. It could have been a runner for Grand Prize easily as well. Basically you're a brain in a jar commanding and equipping an army of soldiers as you complete a variety of missions. You can automate your soldiers or take command of them manually. The interactive environments, weapon and explosive physics, and potential range of missions and multiplayer action had us playing this game for longer than any other at the IGF booths. Strategy fans rejoice, this one is a keeper and we wait excitedly for the final version - however you can play it and buy it now and get the new final content as it is released. Awesome!

Cortex Command Nominations:

Technical Excellence