Awards Jury

Isaac Io Schankler is a composer, accordionist, and electronic musician whose work bridges the worlds of experimental music and interactive media.

Simon Byron is Managing Director of Yogscast Games, an indie publisher best known for games including PlateUp! and Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers.

Composer of the award winning soundtrack to Minecraft, which has now become part of the National Recording Registry! More recently, worked on Davey Wreden's Wanderstop

David Kanaga is a composer and game designer. His interactive scores for Proteus, Panoramical and Dyad were finalists in the IGF. His dog opera Oikospiel Book I won the Nuovo Award.

Chel Wong is an award winning video game composer and community organizer and member of Boston Game Dev. She has worked on Whisker Squadron: Survivor, Kine, OnlyCans, and She Dreams Elsewhere. She's an advocate for trans, queer, POC, and disability rights.

Lena Raine is an award-winning composer best known for her work on Celeste, Chicory: A Colorful Tale, and Minecraft. She lives in Vancouver, BC with her wife and cat.

Evan Balster is a game and audio programmer best known for making tea, playing accordion at strange moments and developing a voice-to-MIDI tool called imitone.

Brendon Chung is a designer, artist, and programmer. He is the founder of Blendo Games, a small independent video game studio based in Los Angeles.

Everest Pipkin is a writer, game developer, artist, and educator whose work both in the studio and in the garden follows themes of ecology, tool making, and fantasies of collapse and isolation.

Jennifer Schneidereit is a creative director and founder of Nyamyam, an independent studio known for Tengami and Astrologaster. Based in Taiwan, she is currently developing Spirit Ritual.

Johnnemann has been making games professionally for 25 years. He has had a variety of roles but these days is a narrative designer.

Liz England is a game designer with twenty years of experience across a broad spectrum of genres, within both the AAA and indie spaces, and focused on the intersection of systems and narrative.

Robert Yang makes surprisingly popular games about gay culture. His gay game collection Radiator Forever has over 200,000 users on Steam. Currently he lives in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Osama Dorias is the Creative Director at HeartLoop Games. In the past he has worked at Blizzard, Warner Brothers, Ubisoft, and other companies on games such as Gotham Knights, For Honor, and more.

Luis Antonio is the creator and writer of the award-winning interactive thriller Twelve Minutes. He previously helped lead the visual direction for the acclaimed puzzle game The Witness, served as art director at Ubisoft, and worked as an artist at Rockstar Games.

Jenny Xu is a long-distance runner, fitness instructor, and Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree, CEO of Talofa Games. She began running and making games at age 12, studied Computer Science at MIT, and has shipped 10 mobile titles with over 10 million downloads.

Hi! I'm Megan Fox. I made SkateBIRD! Also a bunch of other games you've never heard of.

An independent game developer based in Brooklyn, NY. Since 2015, he has released a variety of projects ranging from simple mobile games to expansive roguelites.

An independent game developer and composer whose debut title Final Profit managed to sneak into IGF2024 as a Design finalist. Previously worked in an indie team as cinematographer on Necrobarista.

Co-founder and design lead of Rocket Rat Games. Indie wearer-of-many-hats for over a decade. (prev: Cobalt Core, Sunshine Heavy Industries)

Stephanie Boluk is an associate professor who plays, makes, and writes about games at University of California, Davis.

Austin Walker a storyteller, critic, designer, and podcaster living in Brooklyn, NY. He is the Creative Director at 2weeks, and his actual play podcast, Friends at the Table, is in its twelfth year.

Sam Barlow is the founder of Half Mermaid Productions and a director and writer of games that push the boundaries of interactive narrative.

An independent game developer based in Busan, South Korea. He has been working as a solo developer for over 10 years, creating award-winning titles.

Zaire Lanier is a Peabody and BAFTA winning writer and narrative designer. Best known for her work as a writer on South of Midnight, she has also worked on Subnautica: Below Zero and Gears of War: E-Day.

Karrie Shao is the Nebula-nominated and BAFTA-longlisted writer and narrative designer of 2024 bestseller Pacific Drive. She recently wrote on Warren Spector's next game, and wrote & hosted the Independent Games Festival Awards at GDC 2026.

Co-founder of Freehold Gamss and co-creator of Caves of Qud.

Emma Kidwell is an award-nominated writer with credits in both AAA and indie games, including Aliens: Fireteam Elite 2, Sid Meier's Civilization VII, Borderlands 4, Marvel's Midnight Suns, and Hindsight.

I'm a journalist turned game designer who builds worlds to understand the one we live in. Right now I'm the founder of RealityReload studio and NUWA network.

A.M. Darke is an artist and game maker whose practice makes interventions in games and digital culture. She developed 'Ye or Nay?, a take on Guess Who? where half the characters are Kanye West, and the Open Source Afro Hair Library, a 3D collection crafted with love.

Justin Bortnick has been in and around the indie games space for almost 20 years, working in writing and design jobs on games like _Frog Fractions 2_, _Static Sky: And Yet It █████_, and _Hiveswap_.

Joel Jordon is a game developer with a focus on making experimental, political games. She made Time Bandit, an anti-capitalist real-time adventure game.

Taylor McCue is a mentally ill game developer currently living in Minnesota. She is most known for having made the game "He Fucked the Girl Out of Me". Her favorite hobbies are video games, reading books, eating, and sleeping.

Designer on THPS 3+4, Rumbleverse, Killer Instinct, creator of BaraBariBall and infinite deserts, host of the freeform radio show 3 Times.

Carol Mertz is a multidisciplinary game designer with a portfolio of work that spans two decades and dozens of tabletop games, videogames, web games, and playful installations.

A Louisiana-born digital media artist, experimental composer, and lecturer in the Art & Design: Games & Playable Media Program at University of California, Santa Cruz.

Heather Cole is an teaching associate professor of game design and interactive media at West Virginia. She also helps lead the IGDA Game Education SIG, IGDA West Virginia, and MonRiverGames.

Jeff Petriello is a Brooklyn-based game producer and designer, as well as an adjunct professor at the NYU Game Center. His work includes Connections, Crossplay, IMMORTALITY, and The Pasta Tarot.

Dr. Lindsay Grace (PhD,MFA,MS) is an academic game designer, author, and the Knight Chair in Interactive Media at the University of Miami School of Communication.

Andy is a Los Angeles-based artist, scholar, game creator, co-host of The Secret Lives of Games, and professor of cinematic arts and computer science at the University of Southern California.

Ty Underwood has been a game designer for over 10 years. They are a co-founder of worker co-operative studio INDUSABO and co-founder of COMRADERY.CO.

Lien Tran (she, her, hers) is an associate professor of games and design at DePaul University's School of Design in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media.

Claudia Garza is a Mexican artist, game designer, researcher, and academic whose work explores the intersections of contemporary art, game design, and cultural meaning.

Aura has been doing animation and tech anim for games for 15 years, working on such titles as Dungeons of Dredmor and Wanderstop. She is currently working on an unannounced title at Evening Star.

I've been working as an animator in the game and film industries for 16 years. I'm also the creator behind YouTube series like New Frame Plus and Extra Credits.

Gianna Ruggiero formally at DoubleFine and union organizer. She now is working as a freelance artist and indie dev.

aurahack is a Vancouver-based illustrator and graphic designer who has provided key art and packaging design for games like Tunic, Demon Tides and VA11 HALL-A.

Lead environment artist on the Darkest Dungeon games at Red Hook Studios. She has 16 years of professional experience as a 3D Artist in games, film, and television.

Independent game developer, made Celeste with friends.

Austin-based gameplay animator, a passionate game developer, creator, and storyteller. Currently working on Exodus, a sci-fi action adventure RPG by Archetype Entertainment.

Lien Tran (she, her, hers) is an associate professor of games and design at DePaul University's School of Design in the Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media.

Claudia Garza is a Mexican artist, game designer, researcher, and academic whose work explores the intersections of contemporary art, game design, and cultural meaning.