Organizers of the inaugural Independent Games Festival China have announced this year’s IGF China winners during a packed riverside IGF Awards Ceremony, held on the first evening of the 2nd Game Developers Conference China in Shanghai, on October 11th 2009.

The ceremony, presented by IGF China judge and Chinese game industry veteran Kevin Li and Game Developer Magazine and Gamasutra.com publisher Simon Carless, awarded the best independent game developers and student creators from the Asia-Pacific area. The first ever IGF China Best Game award, including a RMB 20,000 ($2,900 U.S.) cash prize and two all-access GDC 2010 passes, went to Australian creator Farbs and his unique modular 2D space adventure game, Captain Forever.

Some of the other top awards went to notable Chinese game creators, with You Yun Tech’s XNA-based kung fu combat title HurricaneX2 picking up the Technical Excellence award, and Magic Day Studio’s lush fantasy strategy game Donovo winning the Excellence In Art Direction award. Best Student Game went to National University of Singapore’s Autumn Dynasty, which uses a brush and touch screen to have the player direct fantasy Far-Eastern armies with virtual brushstrokes.

The full set of IGF China 2009 winners are as follows:

• Best Game: Captain Forever, by Farbs (Australia) [RMB 20,000/$2,900 US, 2 GDC 2010 passes]
• Excellence In Art Direction: Donovo, by Magic Day Studio (China) [RMB 5,000/$730 US]
• Technical Excellence: HurricaneX2, by You Yun Tech (China) [RMB 5,000/$730 US]
• Excellence In Audio: Armor Valley by Protégé Production (Singapore) [RMB 5,000/$730 US]
• IGF Best Student Game: Autumn Dynasty: Paper Generals, by students from National University of Singapore (Singapore)  [RMB 5,000/$730 US]
• IGF Excellent Student Winner: INK, by students from Singapore Polytechnic (Singapore) [RMB 2,000/$290 US]
• IGF Excellent Student Winner: Bumper Halloween, by students from Beijing University (China) [RMB 2,000/$290 US]
  

This year’s finalists from multiple different Chinese provinces, Singapore, Taiwan, Japan, and Australia, and over 15 countries were represented in the over 100 entries in the first-ever year of Independent Games Festival China.

"We are so proud to honor these winners who have worked so hard on these local independent games," said GDC China event director Meggan Scavio. "We are all impressed not just with the games produced by our winners, but with all the finalists and submissions to the competition.  We hope that presenting an IGF in China will continue the development of indie games for years to come in the Asia Pacific region."