Today the Independent Games Festival released a list of the finalists for its ninth annual competition. On March 7, 2007, the winners will be announced during the IGF Awards Ceremony at the Game Developers Conference at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco. This year 141 entries were submitted to the competition, a new record.

In a press release sent out today, IGF chairman Simon Carless says, "It was wonderful, incredible and quite a challenge to have to choose just five finalists per category from what were 141 astounding entries. It is a huge testament to the success of the IGF over the past nine years that so many inventive developers were inspired to create and submit games into the competition. We salute all entrants, and hope this year's Festival proves to be the launching pad that it has become for so many of our past nominees."

The complete list of finalists is below.

Seumas McNally Grand Prize

• Aquaria (Bit Blot)
• Armadillo Run (Peter Stock)
• Bang! Howdy (Three Rings Design)
• Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games)
• Roboblitz (Naked Sky Entertainment)

Best Web Browser Game

• Bubble Islands (dot-invasion)
• Gamma Bros (Pixeljam)
• Samorost 2 (Amanita Design)

Design Innovation Award

• Armadillo Run (Peter Stock)
• Aquaria (Bit Blot)
• Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games)
• Toblo - (DigiPen Institute of Technology)
• Toribash (NABI Software)

Excellence in Visual Art

• Aquaria (Bit Blot)
• Castle Crashers (the Behemoth)
• Golf? (Luke Hetherington Company)
• Roboblitz (Naked Sky Entertainment)
• Samorost 2 (Amanita Design)

Excellence in Audio

• Aquaria (Bit Blot)
• Bone: The Great Cow Race (Telltale Games)
• Everyday Shooter (Queasy Games)
• FizzBall (Grubby Games)
• Racing Pitch (Skinflake)

Technical Excellence

• Arcane Legions: A Rising Shadow (Slitherine Software)
• Armada Online (EvStream)
• Bang! Howdy (Three Rings Design)
• Blast Miner (Cryptic Sea)
• Bugs Of War (NinjaBee)