After sifting through nearly 300 titles ranging from PC to mobile that were entered into the Student Showcase of this year’s Indie Game Festival, the judges have decided upon just eight entries to go to GDC 2012 as finalists.

From the many fantastic entries in the Student Showcase, only eight will be playable on the Expo show floor of the 26th Game Developers Conference, which will take place in San Francisco starting on March 5th 2012. The student developers of those eight games will also receive a $500 prize and, more importantly, will now go on as finalists for an additional $3,000 prize awarded for the one judged as Best Student Game. The winner of this highly prestigious award will be revealed during the Independent Games Festival Awards on March 7th.

Without further ado, the list of winners and honorable mentions looks like this:

The Bridge (Case Western Reserve University)
Dust (Art Institute of Phoenix)
The Floor Is Jelly (Kansas City Art Institute)
Nous (DigiPen Institute of Technology)
One and One Story (Liceo Scientifico G.B. Morgagni)
Pixi (DigiPen Institute of Technology – Singapore)
The Snowfield (Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Game Lab)
Way (Carnegie Mellon University, Entertainment Technology Center)

Honorable mentions: Be Good (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Lilith’s Pet (University of Kassel); Nitronic Rush (DigiPen Institute of Technology); Once Upon A Spacetime (RMIT); Tink (Mediadesign Highschool of Applied Sciences)

You can find the full announcement over on the official IGF website, which is where you can also find the finalists of the Main Competition.

The program will allow GDC Play exhibitors to display their games to key distributors, publishers, press and investors visiting each conference. Game developers exhibiting titles will be given a standalone kiosk with a monitor, keyboard, speakers and Internet connection, as applicable. Developers will also be promoted via pre-show media promotions, and with sponsored profile articles featured in sister website Gamasutra.

General Manager of GDC events, Meggan Scavio, said that the area will be a great draw. She added that, “GDC Play is a great opportunity for small developers to show their games to a singularly qualified audience through an easy, low-cost entry.”

This program will kick off at GDC Online 2011, to be held in Austin on October 10-13, with a special GDC Play Pavilion located in the heart of the show floor during Expo Hours on Tuesday, October 11^th and Wednesday, October 12^th at the Austin Convention Center. Further plans are already in place with an expanded presence expected for the Game Developers Conference 2012. This will be held in San Francisco on 5-9 March, with separate GDC Play Pavilions for social & online, smartphone & tablet, and independent games.

The IGF saw a great group of games, but only one could win the $20,000 Grand Prize and that game was none other than Andy Schatz’s Monaco. Monaco also grabbed the excellence in design award. Monaco is a 4 player stealth co-op game from Pocketwatch Games.

Other winners included:

Nuovo Award: Tuning by Cactus

Excellence in Visual Art and Technical Excellence: Limbo by PlayDead

Best Mobile Game:  Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor by Tiger Style

Excellence in Audio: Closure by Closure Team

Student Showcase Winner: Continuity

Audience Award: Heroes of Nerwerth by S2 Games

D2D Vision Award: Max and the Magic Marker by Press Play

We’re two weeks away from GDC Austin and Indie Game Mag will be there to cover all the Indie Summit Lectures and Panels.  Be sure to check back here September 15-17th for coverage on GDC Austin.  We’ll be tweeting from the panels, recapping lectures, uploading pictures and video, and more!  Be sure to subscribe to our feed, follow us on twitter, and check back frequently to get all our coverage.  We’re breaking the bank attending the conference so other indies don’t have to!