[From the industry] The finalists have been revealed for the 2025 WINGS Award

This is a press release posted in addition to our usual editorial content.

In partnership with the 27th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) Awards, WINGS Interactive is excited to announce the nominees for the WINGS Award. The WINGS Award will highlight outstanding games where women and other gender-marginalized developers hold key positions and will be presented during the 2025 IGF Awards on Wednesday, March 19, 2025.

The full list of finalists for the WINGS Award is as follows: 

Consume Me (Jenny Jiao Hsia, AP Thomson, Jie En Lee, Violet W-P, Ken “coda” Snyder)

• Consume Me is a darkly humorous personal game about creator Jenny Jiao Hsia’s relationship with food, drawing from her past experiences with dieting and disordered eating.

Caravan SandWitch (Plane Toast/Dear Villagers) 

• Caravan SandWitch is a relaxing sci-fi mystery game set in Provence where players will search for their missing sister.

The Crush House (Nerial / Devolver Digital) 

• The Crush House is a darkly comic LGBTQ+ simulation adventure where players produce a reality TV show set in the year 1999.

Tavern Talk (Gentle Troll Entertainment / Gentle Troll Entertainment)

• Tavern Talk is a cozy visual novel about running a tavern in a Dungeon & Dragon-inspired fantasy world.

Urban Myth Dissolution Center (Hakababunko / SHUEISHA GAMES)

• Urban Myth Dissolution Center is an occult mystery adventure game where players solve cases involving cursed relics.

Additionally, we wanted to make sure you saw that the hosts of the 27th annual Independent Games Festival (IGF) and the 25th annual Game Developers Choice Awards (GDCA) have been announced – with Emma Kidwell as the host of IGF and Alexa Ray Corriea as the host of GDCA. 

Emma Kidwell is a writer currently at Firaxis Games and is working on the recently released Sid Meier’s Civilization 7. The game she wrote, Hindsight, was nominated for multiple awards in categories where a piece of media made an impact on a meaningful or societal level. Her credits include Marvel’s Midnight Suns, Borderlands 4 and Life is Strange 2. Today, Kidwell continues to make independent games and posts them to her itch.io page. 

Alexa Ray Corriea is a writer and narrative designer. She is currently working on Marvel’s Black Panther video game in partnership with Marvel Games and Cliffhanger Games. She is a host on the Academy of Interactive Arts and Sciences Game Maker’s Notebook podcast. Her credits include Aztech: Forgotten Gods (2022), single-player and multiplayer stories for Call of Duty: Vanguard and the Call of Duty: Warzone Pacific (2021) live-service game, indie darling Bugsnax (2020), and critically-acclaimed The Lord of the Rings-based Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (2017). She has also published a book about Kingdom Hearts with Boss Fight Books (2017). This is Alexa’s third year speaking at the Game Developers Conference.