IGF announces 2012 main competition entrants, explodes with indie goodness

Battlefield and Modern Warfare may be about to go off to modern battlewar (on a field), but the gaming world is (thankfully) much, much larger than that.

Battlefield and Modern Warfare may be about to go off to modern battlewar (on a field), but the gaming world is (thankfully) much, much larger than that. Case in point: the Independent Games Festival's main competition, which has a whopping 570 gamesvying for top honors.

Sure, some are bound to fall flat, but the amount of innovation here is simply staggering. Proteus(pictured above), especially, caught my eye. It's a "minimalist game of pure exploration and sublime discovery in a musical wilderness environment." The soundtrack is generated by your actions, too, so I'm guessing players will be like "Well, I don't see what the big deal is. It just... wait, when did it become nighttime outside? And also the year 2017?"

Also, there's a new game called (Four Letter Word)from the creator of platforming sensation VVVVVV, and its description is currently "?" with a video titled "???" Is that some sort of trick to make me obsessively wonder about it? Because it's working . Anyway, I'm off to spend the rest of the day digging through the list. See you all, um, sometime. Probably.