22 Seumas McNally Grand Prize winners

Aquaria is a side-scrolling action-adventure game designed by Alec Holowka and Derek Yu, who published the game in 2007 as the independent game company Bit Blot. The game follows Naija, an aquatic humanoid woman, as she explores the underwater world of Aquaria. Along her journey, she learns about the history of the world she inhabits as well as her own past. The gameplay focuses on a combination of swimming, singing, and combat, through which Naija can interact with the world. Her songs can move items, affect plants and animals, and change her physical appearance into other forms that have different abilities, like firing projectiles at hostile creatures, or passing through barriers inaccessible to her in her natural form.

Bad Milk is a puzzle video game developed by New York City-based developer Dreaming Media, the working name of brothers Ted and Mick Skolnick. It was originally released in November 2000 for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS. Created entirely in Macromedia Director 7 and intended to be an art game, the game features a number of puzzles involving full motion video and audio clues. It won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2002 Independent Games Festival, as well as the award for Innovation in Audio.

Blueberry Garden is a puzzle-platform game. It was developed by Erik Svedäng and released on June 10, 2009 for Microsoft Windows, and on January 24, 2014 for Mac OS X and Linux via Steam. It has a piano soundtrack written by Daduk. It is the winner of Seumas McNally Grand Prize for "Best Independent Game" at the 2009 Independent Games Festival.

Cart Life is a simulation video game developed by Richard Hofmeier using Adventure Game Studio for Microsoft Windows released in 2010. The game was added to Steam in March 2013 but later removed when Hofmeier released the full source code for free. The game is designed on a pixel-grid in grayscale, with minimal detail, to better allow the player to deduce the mood of each of the three vendor characters.

Crayon Physics Deluxe is a puzzle video game designed by Petri Purho and released on January 7, 2009. An early version, titled Crayon Physics, was released for Android from 2006-2007 developed by Acrodea Korea, Inc. Deluxe won the grand prize at the Independent Games Festival in 2008. It features a heavy emphasis on two-dimensional physics simulations, including gravity, mass, kinetic energy and transfer of momentum. The game includes a level editor and enables its players to download and share custom content via an online service.

Darwinia is a 2005 real-time tactics and real-time strategy video game for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. It is the second game developed by Introversion Software, and is set within a computer environment that simulates artificial intelligence. It received favourable reviews and won three awards at the 2006 Independent Games Festival. A multiplayer sequel, Multiwinia, was released for Windows in 2008. Darwinia and Multiwinia were released together as Darwinia+ for the Xbox 360 in 2010.

Fez is an indie puzzle-platform video game developed by Polytron Corporation and published by Trapdoor. The player-character Gomez receives a fez that reveals his two-dimensional (2D) world to be one of four sides of a three-dimensional (3D) world. The player rotates between these four 2D views to realign platforms and solve the game's puzzles. The objective of the game is to collect cubes and cube fragments to restore order to the universe.

Fire and Darkness is a cancelled three-dimensional real-time strategy video game developed by Singularity Software. The game consists of a player controlling one of two factions, and their main mission is to defeat the enemy faction to secure the planet's resources. Its development started in 1996 and lasted for three years, with developers working mostly on summer. Although the project was incomplete, it became the first game to win the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the Independent Games Festival of 1999. The development team invested time, but no money into the project. However, the game was later cancelled indefinitely. There has since been unlikely plans of a future port, using a modern engine.

Gish is a 2004 platform game developed and published by Chronic Logic. After eight months in development, it was released in May 2004 to a positive reception. A sequel, Gish 2, was canceled. The game became open-source software in May 2010 and received a 15th-anniversary update in January 2020.

Her Story is an interactive film video game written and directed by Sam Barlow. It was released on 24 June 2015 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and iOS, and the following year for Android. In the game, the player searches and sorts through a database of video clips from fictional police interviews, and uses the clips to solve the case of a missing man. The police interviews focus on the man's wife, Hannah Smith, portrayed by British musician Viva Seifert.

Monaco: What's Yours Is Mine is a stealth and action video game released in 2013 for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and the Xbox 360, and in 2019 for the Nintendo Switch. All releases of the game were developed and published by Pocketwatch Games, with the exception of the Xbox 360 version, which was published by Majesco Entertainment. The Nintendo Switch edition is titled Monaco: Complete Edition.

Night in the Woods is a 2017 single-player adventure video game. It was developed by Infinite Fall, a studio founded by game designer Alec Holowka and animator/artist Scott Benson, and published by Finji.

Outer Wilds is a 2019 action-adventure game developed by Mobius Digital and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was first released for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4 in 2019, with a planned Nintendo Switch port release in December 2021. The game features the player character exploring a solar system stuck in a 22-minute time loop, which ends as the sun goes supernova. The player continually repeats this cycle by gaining knowledge, which is retained, that can help them on later loops. Outer Wilds received critical acclaim and won several awards, including for game of the year. An expansion, Echoes of the Eye, was released in 2021 to positive reviews.

Papers, Please is a puzzle simulation video game created by indie game developer Lucas Pope, developed and published through his production company, 3909 LLC. The game was released on August 8, 2013 for Microsoft Windows and OS X, for Linux on February 12, 2014 and for iOS on December 12, 2014. A port for the PlayStation Vita was announced in August 2014, and was then released on December 12, 2017.

Quadrilateral Cowboy is a first-person puzzle-adventure video game by independent developer Blendo Games. The game was released on July 25, 2016, for Microsoft Windows, and on October 1, 2016, for macOS and Linux.

Return of the Obra Dinn is an adventure and puzzle video game created by American video game designer Lucas Pope, and published by Japanese studio 3909. It was his second commercial game, following 2013's Papers, Please, and was released for macOS and Microsoft Windows in October 2018 and for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One a year later.

Savage: The Battle for Newerth is a 2003 video game combining aspects of the real-time strategy and first-person shooter genres, developed by S2 Games. It takes place in a science fantasy distant future when mankind has rebuilt society after the apocalypse, but is threatened by intelligent beasts led by a sorceress.

A Short Hike is an adventure video game by Canadian indie game designer Adam Robinson-Yu. It is an open world exploration game in which the player is tasked with reaching the summit of a mountain to get cellphone reception. The game was released for Microsoft Windows, macOS, and Linux in July 2019, for Nintendo Switch in August 2020, and for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in November 2021.

Tread Marks is a 3D, third-person perspective, multiplayer-focused tank combat and racing computer game developed by Independent video game developer Longbow Digital Arts. The game won the 2000 Independent Games Festival grand prize, later renamed to the Seumas McNally Grand Prize in honor of the game's lead programmer Seumas McNally who died on 21 March 2000, after receiving the award. A notable feature of the game is fully deformable terrain.

Umurangi Generation is a first-person simulation video game developed by Origame Digital and licensed to and published by Active Gaming Media Inc. in English speaking territories, and published by Playism for Japanese and Chinese localization. Umurangi Generation was released for PC on May 19, 2020. A set of DLC levels titled Umurangi Generation Macro was released on November 7, 2020. A Nintendo Switch port including the Macro DLC was released on June 5, 2021.

Wik and the Fable of Souls, also known in the Xbox 360 version as Wik: The Fable of Souls, is a platform video game developed by Reflexive Entertainment. The main character, Wik uses a combination of jumping and his long, grapple-like tongue to navigate the world. Accompanying Wik on his journey is a mule-like creature named Slotham. On each level the player must capture a set number of grubs and deliver them to Slotham, but getting the grubs to Slotham becomes more and more challenging through each chapter. There are various bugs that try to steal the grubs or directly harm Wik, and on some levels Wik can fall off the platforms into the abyss. Each level includes three gems; a ruby, an emerald, and a diamond, finding all of these throughout the course of the game is required in order to achieve the best ending.

Wild Earth is a safari video game and motion simulator ride by Super X Studios. The player photographs 30 types of animals as a photojournalist in Serengeti National Park. Ubisoft published the game as Wild Earth: Photo Safari for Microsoft Windows and Xbox in November 2006. Majesco later published a Wii version, Wild Earth: African Safari, in 2008. The game was also installed as a motion simulator ride in multiple American zoos. It won several awards including the grand prize at the 2003 Independent Games Festival.