2021 Awards

sunday
october 24
@ 12 Noon PT

Join hosts Sarah Elmaleh & Asher Vollmer as we celebrate innovators from around the world.

Sarah Elmaleh

Sarah Elmaleh

Host


Sarah Elmaleh is an actor best known for her work in videogames – as the voice of the female Freelancer in Anthem and Raider in For Honor, as Lizzie Carmine in Gears 5, and for many indies, including Gone Home, Pyre, and Afterparty. Longtime director/co-host of the IndieCade Awards, in 2019 she also co-founded the free, multilingual online games conference gamedev.world. As a games performance consultant and labor advocate, she acts as a bridge between actors and developers to foster deeper collaboration and best practices. She is casting and voice director of the upcoming indie game Red Lantern (starring Ashly Burch), and is consulting voice producer on the recently revealed Goodbye Volcano High, from KO_OP.
www.sarahelmaleh.com

Asher Vollmer

Asher Vollmer

Host


Asher Vollmer is an independent game developer best known for designing the minimalist iOS puzzlers Threes and Puzzlejuice. He recently started his own game studio, but they haven’t publicly announced their existence yet. He learned his trade by spending ten months at thatgamecompany and four years at the University of Southern California. He can, to this day, tell you the solution to every puzzle in every LucasArts adventure game that he’s played since childhood.

nominated
games

Adios
Alice Is Missing
Alma
Anyone Can Wear the Mask
Beacon Pines
Before Your Eyes
Blackhaven
Blind Drive
The Boy in the Book
Cai Cai Balão
CLAWS
The Collage Atlas
Consumption
Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
Dice Legacy
Dot’s Home

The Fermi Paradox
Field Guide To Memory
Figment 2: Creed Valley
The Forger
The Gardener and the Wild Vines
Hitchhiker – A Mystery Game
HoloVista
I Expect You To Die 2
Katipuneros RPG: Eve of Revolt
Larger Than Light
Letters – a written adventure
The Lullaby of Life
MASKMAKER
Mundaun
Out For Delivery
Penko Park

The Pickfair Directive
Rain on Your Parade
RATS: High Tea at Sea
Roguebook
Romancing Jan
Saturnalia
Savage Hall
The Signifier: Director’s Cut
Spiritway to the Lighthouse
Star Explorers
Stilstand
Stonefly
A Strong Fire
Surrealist Dinner Party
The Telelibrary
Utility for the Soul

General Award Categories

All IndieCade 2021 Nominated Games are eligible for the following five awards. 

IndieCade Jury Prix

The IndieCade Jury Prix Award is for a game the Awards Jury wishes to confer honor for separating itself from the pack through its craftsmanship, innovation, and /or design.

Spotlights Award Categories

Honorary Awards

Each year IndieCade bestows three Honorary/Lifetime Achievement Awards. 

>>> Trailblazer

The IndieCade Trailblazer Award is an honorary prize given to a working creator who has made both great contributions to the field of games and captures the independent and pioneering sprit. The Trailblazer award is for distinguished accomplishment over a career of creation, and recognizes those personalities without whom many of us would have never fallen in love with the field.

Peter Adkison

Peter Adkison has worked as a serial entrepreneur in the tabletop games industry since 1990.  His first business was Wizards of the Coast, which he founded in 1990.  During his 11-year tenure as CEO, Wizards published Magic: The Gathering, acquired and relaunched Dungeons & Dragons, and brought the Pokémon trading cards out of Japan to the rest of the world.
 
After leaving Wizards he acquired the Gen Con tabletop games convention which he still owns (www.gencon.com).  Under his ownership, Gen Con has grown from 18,000 unique attendees to 68,000.
 
At age 50, Peter Adkison decided to change careers and follow his dream of becoming a filmmaker.  After a couple of experimental projects, Adkison has decided to focus his efforts on Chaldea, a fantasy web series that combines live action film with comic art (www.worldofchaldea.com).
 
Peter is married to Dee Fenton.

>>> www.gencon.com and www.worldofchaldea.com // @gencon and @worldofchaldea

Game Changer <<<

IndieCade’s Game Changer Award celebrates an individual who has impacted the gaming landscape in a significant way, a positive disruptor who has has brought a paradigm shift to our community. Whether it’s advocating for independent developers or creating space for conversations to take place, a Game Change is someone who makes us proud to be part of the industry.

Thorsten S. Wiedemann

Thorsten S. Wiedemann is artistic director of A MAZE. since 2008. He produces and curates under the international arthouse label A MAZE. festivals, exhibitions and workshops on the intersection of games, digital arts and playful media. With “A MAZE. / Berlin” and “A MAZE. / Johannesburg (until 2017)” he created two annual festivals to present independent and alternative games culture and to connect Europe, Africa and the world. He generates fresh and exciting formats like the A MAZE. Bazaar – Arthouse Games Market, A MAZE. Magazine, A MAZE. Train Jam in South Africa, A MAZE. / SPACE – 3D Online Multiplayer Culture Experience, the A MAZE. Train Station in VRChat that gives room for experimentation, collaboration and exchange. Thorsten established since 2012 the A MAZE. Awards, which goes to artistic and groundbreaking works in six categories. His focus is on the interdisciplinary and diverse discourse about the medium of the 21. century. He gains to fill the gaps between playful media, art and technology. He lives and works in Berlin.

>>> www.amaze-berlin.de
www.a-maze.net
www.amaze-space.com
www.amaze-magazine.de

//
TW: @St0rn0
FB: @tswiedemann
IN: @stornothorsten

TW: @Amazefest
FB: @amaze.festival
IN: @a_mazefest 

>>> Bernie DeKoven
Big Fun Award

This annual honorary award was created in collaboration with Bernie DeKoven, to honor his legacy and to recognize creators significantly furthering the field and impact of new, big, and physical games. We love big, pervasive games, because of they way they bring people together and forge connections on a large scale.

Nathalie Pozzi &
Eric Zimmerman

Nathalie Pozzi is an Italian-licensed architect and the principal of Nakworks, an interdisciplinary design studio based in New York, exploring the critical intersection of space, material and culture.
>>> https://www.nakworks.com/ // @nakworks
 
Eric Zimmerman is a game designer and Arts Professor at the NYU Game Center. He designs games on and off the computer that invent new forms of play.
>>> http://www.ericzimmerman.com/ // @zimmermaneric
 
Over the last several years, Nathalie and Eric have designed a series of large-scale game installations that are part architectural sculpture and part interactive performance. Their collaborations have appeared at events and exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art, as well as in Paris, Dublin, Moscow, and Los Angeles.

nov 4 –
nov 11

Awards Ceremony Nov 5 @12pm Pacific