Brazil's BIG Festival Winners Highlight Latin America's Up And Coming Game Developers

By Rocco Marrongelli On 7/1/19 at 4:55 PM EDT

The BIG Festival (Brazil's Independent Games Festival) took over São Paulo from June 26-30 for it's seventh annual showcase. After hosting more than 20,000 visitors in 2018, BIG delivered another packed line-up of business development, industry lectures, and new workshops covering vast areas of video game development from conceptualization to completion and everything in between.

This year, BIG continued to make its mark highlighting Brazil and other Latin America countries innovative and progressive game developers. To help strengthen the foundation of the indie video game scene, BIG invites developers from all over the world to compete for top awards, all while giving them much-needed exposure to network with studios, publishers, press and fans. BIG aims to demonstrate to the indie video game industry that Latin America can compete with the larger markets throughout the world. And the winner's list highlights some truly exceptional games.

Brazil BIG Festival 2019 Winners Indie Games — Twenty winners take the stage at Club Homs in São Paulo in celebration of the 7th Annual BIG Festival. Rocco Marrongelli/Newsweek

Twenty winners took home a trophy in categories ranging from the People's Choice to the Best overall game, and even the more specific Best Brazilian Game. Best Game was awarded to publisher Devolver Digital for the indie game GRIS, which was developed by Nomada studio. It chronicles the journey of a young girl who, through dealing with painful experiences in her life, has become lost in her own world. The beautiful watercolor style art also helped Nomada to snag a second trophy for Best Art.

GRIS Artwork Nomada Studio Video Game — GRIS takes players on a unique experience through the mind of a young girl with beautiful art and animation. Nomada Studio

This year marked the addition of two new awards to the show including the Humble Big New Talent Award and the Nordic Games Pitch Award. A grand total of 54 games entered the competition from countries all over the world, not just Latin America. Developers from Australia, China, and South Africa were also on display. Below is the complete list winners from this year's BIG Festival:

BIG Festival 2019 Winners List:

Best Game

GRIS (Nomada Studio), Spain