Colourful GRIS wins BIG Festival prize

Gris has impressed with multiple award wins since its 2018 debut. — AFP Relaxnews

Extravagantly illustrated GRIS won both Best Art and overall Best Game at the Brazil Independent Game Festival over the weekend, with eight Brazilian teams, an Australian app (Jumpgrid), and two French games among an international spread of prizewinners.

On Nintendo Switch, Mac and PC since a December 2018 debut, a beautifully rendered platform adventure about dealing with grief and loss has added to its accolades after two more wins at the Brazil Independent Game Festival.

The Spanish team behind Gris was awarded both Best Art and overall Best Game at the June 28 awards ceremony in São Paulo, as the BIG Festival prepared for a weekend's worth of visitors.

Winning the Best Narrative story award was another platform adventure, Forgotton Anne, threaded through as it is with conversational choices, the Ghibli-esque PlayStation 4, Xbox One and PC game having also been nominated for Best Art.

Australia's Ian McLarty scooped Best Gameplay for their reactions-based iOS and PC game Jumpgrid, having previously won the Freeplay Design award and circled the Independent Games Festival and BitSummit Japan awards.

BIG 2019's Best Sound went to audiovisual detective mystery Unheard (PC) from Chinese team NEXT, having already done the rounds at IndieCade and SXSW Gaming, while Brazil-made PC and PS4 VR game Pixel Ripped 1989 won for Innovation.

Brazilian teams won eight awards, with action-adventure Adore, which has a strong random generation aspect, deemed pick of the country's crop as Best Brazilian Game. It's due on Windows PC and available to wishlist now via the Steam store.

Also flying the flag for BIG's homeland were city planner Cidade em Jogo (Educational Category), Huni Kuin: Yube Baitana (Best Diversity Game), racer Starlit On Wheels (Best Mobile Game), Authentic Games Oficial (BIG Brands award) and Grashers (Pitch Award).

Argentinian teams won twice, thanks to Best Latin American award recipient Quantum League and Humble BIG New Talent Award winner Space Routine.

French games likewise won twice, having been well represented via training schools ISART Digital and CNAM-ENJMIN supplying five of eight nominees for Best Student Game (won by Best Game nominee Burning Daylight) and Best Kids Game (It's Paper Guy! by The Paper Team, both free PC downloads).

An atmospheric sci-fi adventure, free PC game Burning Daylight was in fact developed by a Danish group from The Animation Workshop, making it compatriots with Forgotton Anne, but entered the BIG Awards through French label Miyu Distribution.

BIG 2019's remaining winners were Spitlings (Best Multiplayer, German studio Massive Miniteam), Marie's Room (Social Matters, Belgian team Like Charlie), Moss (VR/XR, Polyarc, from the United States) and People's Choice winner Spaceline Crew (Coffeenauts, Brazil).

– AFP Relaxnews