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The IGF Awards are gearing up, and here is the second round of jurors who will be judging our amazing selection of games for GDC 2022.
Now that the first round of IGF judging is complete, the Game Developers Conference is thrilled to unveil the second group of jurors for the 2022 IGF Awards (check out the first group of jurors here). The IGF juries are made up of experts in specific disciplines—who will play, evaluate, and discuss the standout games entered in the 2022 Independent Games Festival competition.
Here are the jurors who will be judging games in the Excellence in Audio Award, the Excellence in Visual Art Award, and the Best Student Game Award categories:
Maxi Boch: Maxi is an associate professor in game design at the NYU Game Center. They also served for over a decade at Harmonix Music Systems as a designer and creative director. They are presently working as an independent game developer and sound designer, having notably crafted the BAFTA-winning ambitious music system and sound design of Ape Out.
Simon Byron: Director of Publishing at Yogscast Games. Previously at Curve Digital.
Eduardo Ortiz Frau: Eduardo has been a game audio developer for the last decade, working on titles such as Everything, Gorogoa, What Remains of Edith Finch, and The Stanley Parable. Recently he started his own game company and he's focusing on designing and directing his first game, a music-making experience.
Anna Kipnis: Anna is best known for her work at Double Fine Productions on Psychonauts, Brütal Legend, Costume Quest, Once Upon a Monster, The Cave, Dear Leader, Broken Age, Headlander, and Psychonauts 2. She has also collaborated with indie studio Santa Ragione on Final Candidation and Wheels of Aurelia. She was the founding organizer of Molyjam (2012-2013) and has served in the IGF technical jury, and the Global Game Jam theme committee. She is currently working on ways to use machine learning for delightful player experiences at Google Research.
Juan Orjuela: Juan is a musician and game developer from Bogotá, Colombia who specializes in interactive composition and sound design for video games and experimental audiovisual installations. Juan is now established in Cologne, Germany where he co-founded the independent game studio Ludopium.
Shawn Pierre: Shawn is a visiting assistant arts professor at the NYU Game Center and game designer working to combine new forms of play with different types of media. His work includes voice-controlled adventure games, social deduction SMS games, and physical games where players capture others in nets. As a member and project director of Philly Game Mechanics, Shawn also works to build a community where local developers meet new people and share their creative work.
Daniel Rosenfeld: Daniel is most known for having composed the ever-present game Minecraft, and is currently working hard at Davey Wreden’s new studio Ivy Road on their debut game.
Chel Wong: Award-winning composer of Kine, Whisker Squadron, OnlyCans, Mini Matches, She Dreams Elsewhere (SFX)—mentor, speaker, #CharityEPJam Founder. She/They.
Chelsea Hash: Technical artist on What Remains of Edith Finch and game director for Solar Ash, Chelsea has been making games since 2005. Chelsea works with teams to weave the art and design processes together to build experiences rich with intent and shared purpose.
Marielle Kho: Marielle is the lead environment artist on Darkest Dungeon 2 at Red Hook Studios. She has over a decade of experience as a 3D artist in games, film, and television. She loves making costumes, painting with watercolors, and watching horror movies year-round.
Greg Lobanov: Greg is an ex-Philly gamedev living in Vancouver, Canada. He's been developing colorful, whimsical adventure games in Game Maker for 15 years including titles like Wandersong and Chicory: A Colorful Tale.
Gaurav Mathur: In his role as creative manager at Penumbra, Gaurav provides creative direction and feedback to external studio partners who are building Virtual Reality therapies for the REAL Immersive System. In his previous art director position at the company, he helped build the internal studio and guided development of Penumbra's first Virtual Reality therapy game focused on stroke rehabilitation. Gaurav was a Senior Artist at Toys for Bob for over seven years, creating and managing 3D assets for the Skylanders console games. He has worked on titles including the critically acclaimed Grim Fandango and Psychonauts, and the bestseller Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. Gaurav launched gamedevmap—a curated living map and catalog of game development around the world—16 years ago. Gaurav has been a judge and a mentor for the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) Game Developers Conference (GDC) Scholar program for over a decade.
Jesse Turner: Jesse has been in games as an artist for well over a decade. He works in Vancouver Canada at Klei Entertainment and goes by "The Drawbarian."
Amanda Williams: Amanda is a surreal nature artist living in Austin. She uses a variety of mediums. Titles she contributed to include Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, Rite of the Shrouded Moon, Waking Mars, and Where the Water Tastes Like Wine.
Laura Yilmaz: Laura is an art/animation director for motion design, games, and serial animation. An alumna of the Stugan indie games accelerator, the Sundance New Frontier Story Lab, and the former 2D Animation Lead for Buck Design LA, she is now in-house art director at Sirvo Studios and a senior lecturer in Animation & VFX at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand. At home, she physically juggles over 25kg of cuteness on a daily basis, split across two cats and one baby—her spine does not thank her.
Liam Edwards: Liam is a game designer and director based in Kyoto at Chuhai Labs. Currently, he's directing the recently announced, Golf-Like adventure title, Cursed to Golf. A title that won Bitsummit 2021's "Best Game Design" Award.
Lindsay Grace: Lindsay is Knight Chair in Interactive Media and an associate professor at the University of Miami School of Communication. He is vice president for the Higher Education Video Game Alliance, 2019 recipient of the Games for Change Vanguard award, author of "Doing Things with Games: Social Impact Through Design" and "Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer," and the designer, developer, and artist behind scores of indie games.
Lena LeRay: Lena wrote for IndieGames.com for three and a half years, followed by almost five years of work in video game PR on titles including Astroneer, ENDER LILIES: Quietus of the Knights, Mini Motorways, and Read Only Memories: NEURODIVER. She worked on the narrative, game design, and level design for Ultra Hat Dimension.
Richard Perrin: Game developer and producer. Creator of the white chamber, Kairo, Cosplay Maker, and Journal.
Jeff Petriello: Jeff is a game producer and game design educator. Most recently he has served as the producer at Glow Up Games and Sam Barlow's Half Mermaid Productions. He teaches Game Design at the NYU Game Center, co-designed The Pasta Tarot, and is based in Brooklyn.
Jose P Zagal: Jose is faculty at the University of Utah's top-ranked game program. He wrote "Ludoliteracy" and edited "Videogame Ethics Reader," "Role-Playing Game Studies," and "Game Design Snacks," which was authored by students. Jose was honored as a distinguished game scholar by the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) and is a fellow in the Higher Education Videogame Alliance (HEVGA).
Head here to check out all entries in the 2022 Independent Games Festival. Competition finalists will be announced early next year, with the winners announced at the IGF Awards (with a simultaneous broadcast on GDC Twitch) at the Game Developers Conference, which takes place from March 21-25, 2022 at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California.
GDC returns in-person to San Francisco, March 21-25, 2022—registration is now open! For more information on GDC 2022, be sure to visit our website and follow the #GDC22 hashtag on social media.
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