Hosted at the Metronome in Nottingham on 2nd February 2024, the Debug Indie Game Awards 2024 is a new award show that celebrates everything about indie games. With a whopping EIGHTEEN different awards, so many incredible indies had plenty of opportunities to win an award. The nominees for sixteen awards were announced beforehand for public voting with the last two categories picked exclusively by Debug.
Plenty of big names were part of the ceremony, including Safe in Our World, Everyone Can, and Press Engine. Each of these sponsored a part of the event. Trista Bytes also hosted the entire show, flexing her considerable presenting talents.
As someone who unabashedly loves the indie game scene, it warms my heart to see events like the Debug Indie Game Awards 2024 take place. And for full disclosure, I was invited to the event but unfortunately couldn’t attend. Extremely sad times! Having said that, let’s take a look at the winners!
Safe in our World Award for Mental Health
Winner
Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical
Everyone Can Award for Accessibility
Winner
Cocoon
Best Soundtrack
Winner
El Paso, Elsewhere
Best Sound Design
Winner
Cocoon
Best Art Direction
Winner
World of Horror
Best Gameplay
Winner
Cocoon
Best Narrative
Winner
Videoverse
Best VR Game
Winner
Noun Town: VR Language Learning
Innovation & Creativity Award
Winner
Slay The Princess
Physical Release of the Year
Winner
Cuphead: Collector’s Edition
Free Play Award
Winner
An Arcade Full of Cats
Retro World Award
Winner
Chew Chew Mimic
ICYMI Award
Winner
Rain World
Best New Studio
Winner
Geometric Interactive
Subscribers’ Choice Award
Winner
Full Void
Most Anticipated Award
Winner
Stories From Sol: The Gun-Dog
Debug Game of the Year
The Debug Game of the Year was chosen exclusively by Debug staff members.
Winners
Cocoon
Unsung Hero Award
As with the Debug Game of the Year, the Unsung Hero Award was chosen by Debug. Unlike the other awards, this one had multiple winners!
Winners
Stuart De Ville | Ryan Brown | Lauran Carter
Congratulations to all the winners! All very well deserved! It’s safe to say that Cocoon had a bumper evening, winning a total of four awards. A personal highlight was seeing Full Void win the Subscribers’ Choice Award. I recently played through the entire game on my Evercade EXP and it was such a good experience!
If you want to see the entire live-streamed event, I’ve linked it here.
