Consume Me Wins the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Nuovo Award at the 27th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards

The independent game Consume Me, developed by Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P and Ken "coda" Snyder has won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize for Best Independent Game at tonight’s 27th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards. As part of the 2025 Game Developers Conference (GDC), the IGF Awards is the longest-running festival, summit and showcase honoring the most innovative and excellent independent games of the past year.

Consume Me is a darkly humorous personal game about creator Jenny Jiao Hsia's relationship with food, drawing from her past experiences with dieting and disordered eating. In addition to winning the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, the title took home the Nuovo Award, which honors experiences that make the awards jurors think differently about games as a medium. Consume Me was also nominated in several categories, including Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative and Excellence in Visual Arts.

The full slate of 2025 IGF Award winners, as well as the nominees in each category, represents a diverse range of talented independent game developers across the global industry. The other IGF Awards honorees include Excellence in Visual Art winner Hauntii by Moonloop Games, an action-adventure about a ghost's journey through the afterlife. The Excellence in Audio winner, Despelote by Julián Cordero and Sebastián Valbuena is a slice-of-life adventure about childhood and the magical grip soccer held over the people of Quito, Ecuador, in 2001. The Best Student Game was awarded to Slot Waste by Vinny Roca, an experimental video game installation that articulates a lengthy, absurdist Rube Goldberg-like production process. The Excellence in Design winner, Tactical Breach Wizards by Suspicious Developments, is a turn-based tactics game where players must control a team of wizards who fight against a theocracy. The Excellence in Narrative prize was awarded to Caves of Qud by Freehold Games and Kitfox Games, a science fantasy roguelike epic steeped in retrofuturism, deep simulation and swathes of sentient plants.

The WereCleaner by The WereCleaner Team won the Audience Award, which is chosen by fans through a public voting process. Lastly, ChromaCorp (Art Center) won the alt.ctrl.GDC Award, which honors the most engaging, intriguing, and well-executed game using unconventional, accessible or alternative physical controls. Like the IGF Awards nominees, the alt.ctrl.GDC titles are showcased in playable form on the GDC Expo floor from March 19-21.

The winners of the 27th annual IGF Awards are:

Excellence in Visual Art ($2,000)
Hauntii (Moonloop Games / Firestoke)

Excellence in Audio ($2,000)
Despelote (Julián Cordero, Sebastian Valbuena / Panic)

Excellence in Design ($2,000)
Tactical Breach Wizards (Suspicious Developments)

Excellence in Narrative ($2,000)
Caves of Qud (Freehold Games / Kitfox Games)

Nuovo Award ($2,000)
Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken "coda" Snyder)

Best Student Game ($2,000)
Slot Waste (Vinny Roca)

Audience Award ($2,000)
The WereCleaner (The WereCleaner Team / USC Games)

alt.ctrl.GDC Award ($2,000)
ChromaCorp (Art Center)

Seumas McNally Grand Prize ($10,000)
Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken "coda" Snyder)

The Independent Games Festival has served as a springboard for breakthrough independent titles. Previous IGF prize winners include Venba, Neon White, TUNIC, Return of the Obra Dinn, Her Story and many more critical and cultural hits.

The awards are live-streamed annually on the official Game Developers Conference (GDC) Twitch channel and are archived both on Twitch and on the official GDC YouTube Channel.

For more details on the Game Developers Conference, please visit the GDC’s official website, as well as gamedeveloper.com. You can also subscribe to regular updates via Facebook, Twitter, BlueSky or RSS. Official photos are available via the Official GDC Flickr account: www.flickr.com/photos/officialgdc/.

About GDC

The Game Developers Conference® (GDC) is the world’s largest professional game industry event with market-defining content for programmers, artists, producers, game designers, audio professionals, business decision makers, and others involved in the development of interactive games and immersive experiences. GDC brings together the global game development community year-round through events and digital media, including the GDC Networking Meet-ups, GDC Vault, GameDeveloper.com, Independent Games Festival and Summit, and the Game Developers Choice Awards.

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