A sunny, sold out festival edition of INDIGO brought the Dutch games industry and their foreign peers together in-person for the first time in a while. The game business and showcase event featured a two track conference, business matchmaking and an online games showcase. The game that was unanimously selected by a professional jury as the winner of the INDIGO 2022 Award was News Tower by Studio Nul Games.

“After two fully online editions it was amazing to welcome the industry back in-person at our home on the Dotslash Campus, which also makes for a terrific festival area,” says JP van Seventer, Managing Director of Dutch Game Garden. The on-site conference counted 10 hours of talks on game development and entrepreneurship in the game industry by speakers from the Dutch and international games industry. All talks will also be made available digitally for later viewing. Over 390 business meetings were facilitated at the matchmaking part of the event organized together with MeetToMatch. The majority of these meetings were held on-site, but a small part of the matchmaking was facilitated online for remote participants.

The only part of the event that was hosted fully online was the Discover Showcase, in which 23 selected games were played by streamers. The live stream attracted over 850 viewers from all over the world. A professional jury was selected to play and judge the games individually to appoint the winner for the INDIGO 2022 Award, worth $5,000 thanks to award partner Xsolla. News Tower by Studio Nul Games was unanimously chosen as the winner. According to the judges “News Tower impressed with its setting, humor and presentation. The game is layered more deeply than expected at first glance with evolving interesting stories. It was really a joy to play.” Winner Jan-Maarten Nachtegeller is proud: “I did not expect to win at all, since the competition was very strong. This prize makes it possible to develop the game to a next level. Together with the appreciation of the judges, this is a real boost for us as a studio!”

Check out all pictures of INDIGO 2022 on our Flickr page!