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Overcooked Phil Duncan receiving Award for BIG 2017’s Best Game.

Press release:
São Paulo – Brazil, July 3, 2017 – The award ceremony of the 5th edition of BIG Festival, Latin America’s largest independent games event, took place on the night of June 29th, in the Adoniran Barbosa auditorium, in São Paulo Capital city, Brazil. General public, special guests and game developers crowded the audience, anticipating the final results that would announce the winners of the 13 categories in the competition, including Best Game, Best Brazilian Game and People’s Choice. And the cooperative cooking game Overcooked, by Phil Duncan’s Ghost Town Games, took home the most coveted trophy of the night: the Best Game of BIG Festival 2017.

The other categories were Best Brazilian Game, Best Latin American Game, Best Educational Game, Best Narrative, Best Innovation, Best Sound, Best Art, Best Gameplay, Best Virtual Reality Game, People’s Choice and the two categories of BIG Starter, a special initiative that selects and awards the best projects still in development.

The complete list of winners is just below:

Best Game: Overcooked
There are many fun and well executed games in this Festival, which made the judges to sweat their brains to figure out which one to select in the end. After long hours of deliberation, “Overcooked” was crowned the winner due to its winning mixture of innovation, accessibility and fun. “Overcooked” will put to the test the durability of your friendships and of your couch.

Best Brazilian Game: Distortions

Best Game by People’S Choice: Distortions
Among every Brazilian game in this competition, “Distortions” gets the highlight for its fantastic synthesis of visual and sound design which contributes to the creation of an environment and a narrative that are as electrifying as they are emotional.

Best Latin American Game: The Deadly Tower of Monsters
In this adventure, the gamer takes on the journey of a movie action hero, accompanied by faithful companions, and a tower filled with monsters. The audiovisual style is a tribute to the classic sentiment of the sci-fi movies of the Atomic Age.

Best Educational Game: Orwell
In a digital world such as ours, we are living in a society in which surveillance and private information gathering has become omnipresent. “Orwell” is a frightening exploration of how easy it is to observe (and misinterpret) everything we do (or can do) online.

Best Virtual Reality Game: SUPERHOT VR
“SUPERHOT VR” uses masterfully the resources of the virtual reality platform, bringing it to a whole new level. Fun and interesting, this award is more than deserved.

Best Art: Old Man’s Journey
“Old Man’s Journey” is a beautiful and captivating game. The Best Art award recognizes the aesthetic tastes and artistic talents of the development team.

Best Narrative: Figment
The narrative of “Figment” deals with the issue of aging. Sensitive subjects, like diseases, stress and depression are carefully discussed and represented in a world of dreams.

Best Innovation: Yankai’s Peak
The developer Kenny Sun captures the attention of the player with an innovative gameplay that is at the same time simple and complex. “Yankai’s Peak” elevates the puzzle gameplay into an art form.

Best Sound: ETHEREAL
In “ETHEREAL”, the audio isn’t just the “sounds of the game”. The sound IS the game. This sound adds a great depth to the minimalistic visuals and gameplay and, little by little, infiltrates completely inside the player’s mind.

Best Gameplay: Overcooked
“Overcooked” is a local cooperative game, frantic and super fun. Although it is based on simple actions, the secret ingredient in this recipe is the necessary coordination between every player to keep completing orders when faced with challenges that become more complex and surprising. Beware the rats.

BIG Starter – Entertainment: King Boom
“King Boom” has reinforced its potential for success by uniting a solid commercial plan to its colorful, dancing and charismatic universe.

BIG Starter – Educational: Medroom
“Medroom” brings a mature proposition, with opportunities for global application to formation, learning and training in Healthcare – in which the introduction of new technologies is fundamental.

About BIG Festival
BIG Festival (Brazil’s Independent Games Festival), the first market festival focused in the independent production of videogames in Brazil, and a pioneer in Latin America, aims to strengthen the independent production of games in Brazil through professional training and exchange of experiences, establishing itself as a business hub in Latin America for national and international game developers. In total, counting both competitions, BIG Festival has received the submission of 768 games, from 54 different countries. The program includes activities exclusive to professionals and others open to the public.

Jonas “O.J” Ek
The Gaming Ground
Twitter: @TheGamingGround