The Independent Games Festival Mobile (IGF Mobile) has named the finalists for their 2nd annual competition. The Independent Games Festival Mobile is an event that celebrates innovation in games for handheld (mobile) devices.

This year, the number entries more than doubled – to over 100 – compared to last year’s inaugural competition. There was a very strong showing from the iPhone and iPod touch platform. In fact, there was so much interest they created a new category called ‘Best iPhone Game’.

Confirmed judges for the second annual IGF Mobile event are:

- Kris Piotrowski, Creative Director, Capybara Games
- Paul Farley, CEO, Tag Games
- Tommy Palm, Research & Development Manager, Jadestone
- Brandon Boyer, Editor, Offworld
- Alan Yu, Vice President, ngmoco
- Stuart Dredge, Writer, Pocket Gamer
- Neil Trevett, Vice President Mobile Content, NVIDIA
- Steve Palley, Editor, Slide To Play
- Blake Patterson, Editor, Touch Arcade
- Liz England, Designer, 5th Cell
- Rob Podoloff, Vice President of Research and Development, Zeemote
- Tobin Lent, CEO, Punch Entertainment

Winners of the 2009 IGF Mobile competition will be announced at a special ceremony during the Game Developers Conference(GDC) Mobile conference on March 24, and additionally honored during the main Independent Games Festival Awards on March 25, 2009.

Some of the leading finalists for this year’s competition include stylish iPhone cube movement puzzler Edge (3 nominations), the technologically cunning Wardive on Nintendo DS, which uses local WiFi hotspots to generate enemies (3 nominations), and elegant iPhone ‘tower defense’-style title Fieldrunners (3 nominations). Games also nominated multiple times include Secret Exit’s touch-controlled iPhone rope wrapping game Zen Bound and iconic tilt-controlled iPhone puzzler Dizzy Bee, with a number of Flash Lite and Java cellphone games, including the innovative Cubic Republic, also finalists.

This year’s IGF Mobile competition is supported by Platinum and Founding Sponsor NVidia – which is awarding ‘The Next Great Mobile Game’ at this year’s awards, with finalists to be revealed soon, as well as Gold Sponsor and Best iPhone Game prize sponsor ngmoco.

The full list of finalists for the 2009 IGF Mobile competition are:

Somewhere beyond the sea, somewhere beyond the clouds live funky, little, cubic creatures. Take part in entertaining challenges on the levitating land pieces. Engage in the community, play multiplayer matches and have fun! Welcome to Cubic Republic! Cubic Republic is a place of original and highly interactive quests. Intuitive gameplay makes it easy to grasp and simple to play. Multiplayer gaming on different devices let you engage anytime, anywhere. Prepare for months of great entertainment!

IGF Mobile Best Game
Cubic Republic (IKS Mobile) – Flash Lite
Smiles (Sykhronics Entertainment) – iPhone/iPod touch
Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios) – iPhone/iPod touch
Edge (Mobigame) – iPhone/iPod touch
Wardive (And-or) – Nintendo DS

Wardive reads the names of the hotspots in your immediate area and turns them into enemies which try to take over your wardrive-crystal. Try to fend them off with your touch pen, put your shields up, and don’t just stay in one spot. take Wardrive for a walk or on a ride through town. find out how may enemies hide in the area you are in or pass through.

Innovation In Mobile Game Design
Wardive (And-or) – Nintendo DS
Galcon (Hassey Enterprises) – iPhone/iPod touch
Eliss (Steph Thirion) – iPhone/iPod touch

Defend and control the field using a diverse selection of upgradeable towers in a limitless adventure, using a wide array of tactics and strategies against countless waves of unique land and air combatants! Hours of entertainment and replayable challenges! Enjoy a growing experience through free content updates!

Achievement In Art
Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios) – iPhone/iPod touch
Dizzy Bee (Igloo Games) – iPhone/iPod touch
Ruben & Lullaby (Song New Creative) – iPhone/iPod touch

Having made your fortune in the cut-throat world of business, you have now decided to get involved in the latest dream for wealthy people everywhere – running your own football club. Hire the managers, sign the big names, control the finances, develop your stadium and orchestrate the media campaigns as your footballing empire grows. But what’s your goal? Give something back to the community? See your sleeping giant of a club rise through the divisions under your control to the dizzy heights of the Premiership and elite European competitions? Or watch your bank balance grow as you take advantage of the huge sums of money flowing into the modern game? All of these options are open to you as a Football Tycoon. Today there is a lot more focus on club owners, with the teams owners generating as many headlines as the players on the pitch. Football Tycoon has a unique spin on the standard football game genre, throwing you into the surreal world that is owning a football club.

Technical Achievement
Football Tycoon (Dynamo Games) – Java
Real Racing (Firemint) – iPhone/iPod touch
Wardive (And-or) – Nintendo DS

Fight back waves of intruders in this musical shooter game. Propelled by radio flares, your space ship speeds pulsing through deep space, taking you on a journey into sound. Radio Flare invites you to experience a beautifully modeled space trip accompanied by an interactive electronica soundtrack. Radio Flare is an arcade style score-attack game featuring five stages, over 100 enemy formations, and a crowning final boss battle. You steer your ship with one finger while targeting enemies with another. Hit enemies are desynchronized in time to the beat and blast out radio flares. Collect radio flares to advance to the next stage and intensify the soundtrack. Rack up points through tactically executed quadruple shot combos.

Audio Achievement
Radio Flare (Studio Radiolaris) – iPhone/iPod touch
Zen Bound (Secret Exit) – iPhone/iPod touch
Edge (Mobigame) – iPhone/iPod touch

Train your Kinesis by pushing a Cube into 21 levels. Platforms, enigmas and reactions will develop your gamer skills.

Best iPhone Game – Presented by ngmoco
Edge (Mobigame) – iPhone/iPod touch
Dizzy Bee (Igloo Games) – iPhone/iPod touch
Fieldrunners (Subatomic Studios) – iPhone/iPod touch
Zen Bound (Secret Exit) – iPhone/iPod touch
Frenzic (The Iconfactory) – iPhone/iPod touch

The IGF Mobile competition will have its own pavilion, adjoining the main IGF Pavilion and featuring playable versions of all of the finalists’ games, at Game Developers Conference 2009, set to take place at the Moscone Center in San Francisco from March 23rd to 27th, 2009.

The Independent Games Festival itself was established in 1998 to encourage innovation in game development and to recognize the best independent game developers, much the way that the Sundance Film Festival honors the independent film community. The creation of IGF Mobile in 2007 was the direct response to the maturing of the mobile game industry, and the desire to similarly recognize and reward those driving the advancement of the space.

For more information on the Independent Games Festival Mobile finalists, visit www.igfmobile.com ; and to register for GDC, please visit www.gdconf.com.

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