Jetpack Joyride, Sword & Sworcery and Infinity Blade II among 30 IMGA award 2012 hopefuls
Everyone likes being appreciated, and while the world of cinema congeals around the Oscars, music around the Brits and TV around the Emmys, the eyes and ears of mobile gamers and game makers will soon descend upon Barcelona, in time for the illustrious International Mobile Gaming Awards.
The ceremony, due to take place on 1 March, as part of Mobile World Congress, will be the eighth edition of the annual event and will see six categories of games adjudged by a panel of gaming luminaries, including Pocket Gamer's own Chris James and Jon Jordan.
Almost 500 games in total were submitted for review, though those have been whittled down to 30, including Halfbrick's Jetpack Joyride and Chair's Infinity Blade II.
You can see the full list, as well as the categories, further down this article.
Runaway jury
"We have had an unprecedented response for the year's awards", said Maarten Noyons, CEO and founder of the IMGA.
"We see a trend of very high quality, big productions coming to the mobile platform and on the other hand a lot of fresh innovative casual games. I think the jury has made a very interesting choice.
"The eighth IMGA shows a wealth of new ideas and ground-breaking quality coming from studios all over the world. I would like to congratulate each of the developers that have games nominated and thank everyone who submitted games to the awards."
And the winner is...
The winners will be announced at the IMGA Summit and Awards ceremony, due to take place during the Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona.
The deserving winners of the awards will each receive 100,000 worth of publicity from ProSieben Sat1 Games, one of the IMGA's Platinum sponsors, while the individual overall winner will receive a sizable 400,000 of publicity.
Keep scrolling to see the list in full.
Best Casual Game
CreaVures - Muse Games - US
Hector Episodes 1-3 - Telltale Games - US
Jetpack Joyride - Halfbrick - Australia
Sprinkle - Mediocre AB - Sweden
The Blocks Cometh - Halfbot - Canada
Best Real World Game
CityRace - Cityrace.me - Poland
Flatmates - Flaregames - Germany
Meatspace Invasion - C4MProd - France
NBA: King of the Court - Ogmento - US
Shadow Cities - Grey Area - Finland
Best Sports Game
Bike Baron - Mountain Sheep Inc/Qwiboo (London) - Finland
Flick Tennis: College Wars - Rolocule Games - India
Sports Car Challenge - Fish Labs - Germany
Touchgrind BMX - Illusion Labs AB - Sweden
Trial Xtreme 2 - Deemedya M.S. Ltd. - Israel
Best Mobile Social Game
Charadium II - On5 - Lithuania
Funpark Friends - Tagplay - UK
Poker Pals - Aspyr Media, Inc. - US
SpellCraft School of Magic - Appy Entertainment - US
The Pirate King - Bulkypix - France
Excellence in Gameplay
Battleheart - Mika Mobile - US
Contre Jour HD - Mokus Games LLP- Ukraine
Death Rally - Remedy Entertainment - Finland
DrawRace 2 HD - RedLynx - Finland
Infinity Blade II - Chair Entertainment - US
Most Innovative Game
Forever Drive - Tak Fung - UK
Kodo - Fabrication Games Europe AB - Sweden
KuraKuraMaze - Yoshimi Kurihara - Japan
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP - Capy - Canada
WildChords - Ovelin - Finland