Nominees For The 2017 Independent Games Festival Awards Announced, 'Virgina' Has 4 Nominations!

The nominees are in and have been reviewed for this year's Independent Games Festival Awards. Leading the pack is the first-person mystery adventure game with supernatural overtones from Variable State and 505 Games.

The 2017 Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards recently announced the list of nominees for various categories. The judges reviewed more than 650 submissions. This number is lesser compared with the 750 nominees last year, according to Polygon. From the 650 submissions, they have narrowed down the finalists to only 60 across 7 different categories.

2017 Independent Games Festival Announces Main Competition Finalists! https://t.co/0O4CrL72qH pic.twitter.com/GvcthktLmL

— Indie Games Festival (@igfnews) January 9, 2017

The 7 different categories include Best Student Game, Best Audio, Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, Excellence in Visual Art, Nuovo Award, and Seumas McNally Grand Prize. There have been 6 corresponding nominations for each category with a couple of honorable mentions except for the Nuovo Award that has at least 8 nominations vying for the award.

Raking a total of 4 nominations is “Virginia,” which only came out in Sept. 22, 2016. It was nominated for Best Audio, Excellence in Narrative, Excellence in Visual Arts and Nuovo Award for innovation. Three games follow suit picking up 3 nominations each. “Inside,” which debuted in June 29, 2016, garnered nominations in Best Audio, Excellence in Design, and Excellence in Narrative categories.

The 2D action role-playing game developed by Heart Machine, “Hyper Light Drifter,” was nominated for Best Audio, Excellence in Visual Arts, and Seamus McNally Grand Prize categories. Also leading the pack with 3 nominations is "Event[0]," the first-person science fiction exploration video game from Ocelot Society. It was nominated for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative, and Seamus McNally Grand Prize.

These are just 4 of the other nominations for this year's IGF Awards. GameSpot has the full list of the nominated games including the honorable mentions. These games will go head-to-head to take home the coveted awards.

The winner of the 2017 IGF Awards will be announced on March 1 in San Francisco. The event will be hosted by Fullbright game designer Nina Freeman. They event will also be livestreamed so fans get the chance to find out who takes home the win.