Check Out 2014's Best Student Games, According to IGF

Independent Games Festival (IGF) organizers have announced the winners of the 9th annual Student Showcase, highlighting the eight best student-produced games of 2014.

The winners include a "five minutes or less" real-time strategy game Interloper from Dutch student development team Monogon Games, as well as Rooftop Cop, an arcade-style game from NYU Tisch School of the Arts student Stephen Lawrence Clark.

Past winners have included Risk of Rain, Museum of Simulation Technology, The Unfinished Swan, and Narbacular Drop, which would later evolve in Valve's popular Portal series. The full list of 2014 winners and honorable mentions is below.

This year's Student Competition took in over 350 game entries across all platforms from a wide range of universities and games programs, making the Student IGF one of the world's largest showcases of student talent. Winners were chosen by "leading" independent and mainstream developers, as well as academics and journalists.

Each team gets $1,000 prize and two All-Access passes to GDC 2015, where they'll be showing their games. All Showcase teams are also finalists for an additional $3,000 prize for Best Student Game, to be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 4.

Student Showcase winners for the 2015 Independent Games Festival:

• a•part•ment (Team a•part•ment, University of Southern California)
• Downwell (Ojiro Fumoto - Tokyo University of the Arts)
• Close Your (GoodbyeWorld Games - University of Southern California)
• Even the Stars (Pol Clarissou - Supinfogame & Nicholas Gavan - University of Bialystok)
• Gemini (Echostone Games - Tisch School of the Arts, New York University)
• Interloper (Monogon Games - HKU Utrecht School of Art and Technology)
• Rooftop Cop (Stephen Lawrence Clark - Tisch School of the Arts, New York University)
• Stellar Smooch (Alec Thomson & Jenny Jiao Hsia - New York University)

Honorable mentions:

• A Story About My Uncle (Gone North Games - Södertörn University)
• Ahoooj (Circus Atus - FAMU, University of West Bohemia, CVUT FEL, UMPRUM)
• Circles (Jeroen Wimmers, University of the Arts Utrecht)
• Drew and the Floating Labyrinth (Dust Scratch Games, University of Windsor)
• Lisa (Rubna, Elzendaal College Boxmeer)
• Mecha Trigger (Team Casserole, Michigan State University)