The Independent Game Festival (IGF) has announced finalists for the 2010 competition. I'm happy to say that my game A Slow Year is among the finalists in the Nuovo category, designed "to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which advances the medium and the way we think about games."

The Nuovo jury has also issued a statement about their finalist picks. Here's what they had to say about A Slow Year.

This newly coded set of mini-game experiences—made for the distinctly retro Atari 2600 console—consists of "slow-moving meditations on time and attention". And A Slow Year made it to its Nuovo finalist position due to its charmingly retro art and thoughtful, deliberate, determined gameplay, which a number of jurors found relaxing and genuinely evocative.

The other finalists in the category are fantastic, including Cactus's Tuning, Daniel Benmergui's Today I Die, the unique Closure, and Justin Smith's wonderfully weird Enviro-Bear 2000.

You can see all the IGF finalists in the official announcement.