Two of the most hotly anticipated XBLA titles primed for release this year have been nominated for awards at the 2012 Independent Games Festival. Polytron developed Fez and Mossmouth’s XBLA version of PC-hit Spelunky have tallied five nominations between them. Congratulations are in order.

Both games have been put forward for the Seamus McNally Grand Prize as well as the Technical Excellence award, with Spelunky snatching a third nomination in the Excellence in Design category. The caliber of the competition at this year’s Independent Games Festival is particularly high with games like Atom Zombie Smasher, To the Moon and Frozen Synapse vying for bragging rights alongside the future XBLA titles, a sure-fire indication of Fez and Spelunky’s potential to be something special.

(Fun fact: readers with a half-decent memory may remember Spelunky as one of the unlockable characters in Super Meat Boy.)

This isn’t the first time Fez has been nominated or indeed won an award since being announced all the way back in 2008. It notched an Excellence in Visual Arts prize at the 2008 IGF awards and was the winner of the Grand Jury Award at the most recent leg of Indiecade. Excited yet?

Both games were slated for release in 2011 and were consequently pushed back into 2012, so it can’t be too long before they’re gracing XBLA. For more on dungeon-crawler Spelunky and the mind-bending, Escher-inspired Fez, take a look at the videos below.