Google is getting serious about gaming. The tech giant just completed the first-ever Google Play Indie Games Festival, which opened on Saturday in San Francisco and the winners of the festival were announced on Tuesday.
Thirty semifinalists were chosen through a round of voting, after which those finalists were able to pitch their creation to a panel of experts. Seven finalists were then chosen and three winners were decided among them.
The first winner of the competition is an app called bit bit blocks, which is basically a puzzle game that allows you to either play yourself in single-player mode, or to challenge your friends. The app is aimed at being easy to control and involves trying to arrange blocks by color so that you can send them your opponent’s way and win the game.
The second winner is an app called Numbo Jumbo, which is another puzzle game that is available for both iOS and Android. In Numbo Jumbo, you simply have to group numbers together that add up, gaining points. There are four game modes to choose from — including Timed, Moves, Stack, and Infinite.
The third and final winner of the Google Play Indie Games festival is called Orbit. In this puzzle game, players have to flick planets around to try and get them to properly orbit into black holes. In the app, you can also create your own universe, mess with time, and play with gravity.
So what did the winners walk out with? Google did not say exactly who won what, but it did say prized ranged from tickets to Google I/O 2017 to a Tango Development kit to a Razer Forge TV bundle.
Google also announced that in a continuing effort to shine a light on indie developers, it will be bringing the Indie Games Festival to Europe. It has yet to detail which countries the festival will come to, but says more information will be announced soon.
Updated on 09-27-2016 by Christian de Looper: Added news that winners have been announced.
