AGS Awards 2010! [RESULTS!]

Started by , Sat 08/01/2011 17:55:06

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bicilotti

Quote from: Snarky on Fri 18/02/2011 23:53:16
Sorry, but can anyone explain/remind me how the "gameplay" category differs from "puzzles"? In most adventure games, and in all the games nominated, the gameplay consists of puzzles, so I fail to see the difference.

Quote from: Radiant on Mon 06/10/2008 17:46:41
Gameplay is definitely distinct from puzzles, though. For instance, LOOM has great gameplay but barely any puzzles.

That's a fitting response by Radiant to a similar question (from a couple of years ago).


SSH

#141
Thanks so much for doing a great job organising all this, bici! Soon it will be over and you can hibernate for about 9 months.

Meanwhile, perhaps someone could make all the different years awards pages match the 2010 formatting?
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Snarky

Quote from: bicilotti on Sat 19/02/2011 01:24:03That's a fitting response by Radiant to a similar question (from a couple of years ago).

Quote from: Radiant on Mon 06/10/2008 17:46:41
Gameplay is definitely distinct from puzzles, though. For instance, LOOM has great gameplay but barely any puzzles.

To me this makes about as much sense as having a category for "Best Puzzles" and another category for "Best Inventory Puzzles", but if that's what the categories mean... OK.

Radiant

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 19/02/2011 09:18:11
To me this makes about as much sense as having a category for "Best Puzzles" and another category for "Best Inventory Puzzles", but if that's what the categories mean... OK.
Well, it depends on what gameplay you like. If you play adventure games primarily for the puzzles, then you're likely to vote the same to both questions. If, for example, you play them for the exploration, then it's different.

So anyway, it looks like there have been only five games written last year :) what's up with the same five names showing up in almost every category? (not that I mind, really, but I found it rather funny to see the nom sheet)

Snarky

My argument is more that puzzles only matter for how well they work as gameplay. There's no way, in my opinion, to have a great puzzle that makes for terrible gameplay: if it doesn't play well then it isn't a good puzzle. Quality of puzzles is therefore fully captured by the "Best Gameplay" category, and is clearly one of the main components of that category (since puzzles make up the majority of gameplay in most adventure games). So I don't see the point in breaking out puzzles as its own sub-category, any more than I'd see the point in breaking out inventory puzzles as another category.

straydogstrut

I agree, puzzles are one component of the gameplay category, just as I agree with Radiant when he suggests exploration is another (and I play adventure games for the latter). But I don't think puzzles alone make the gameplay. A game may still have terrible gameplay despite having a really great puzzle in my opinion. I think that's why the puzzle category exists: to recognise the great puzzles as distinct, regardless of the worth (or not) of the game they find themselves in.

Snarky

Quote from: straydogstrut on Sat 19/02/2011 12:06:53A game may still have terrible gameplay despite having a really great puzzle in my opinion.

I think that requires either that the game is fundamentally broken on some level (e.g. UI, controls, bugs), or that something other than puzzles makes up a large part of the gameplay - for example that there is a lot of exploring in the game (though at some point I think an exploration task becomes a kind of puzzle) - and that this part of the gameplay is really badly done.

I don't think the latter case is particularly plausible (an exploration-focused, puzzle-light adventure game with terrible exploration but brilliant puzzles?), and in either case I don't think it matters, because as I said, puzzles are only important for their role as gameplay. What you describe sounds like a game with a few bright spots in otherwise bad gameplay, and I don't see the point in having a category just to have a chance to accommodate those games. (Especially since it's more likely that the games with the best puzzles will have good overall gameplay, and therefore dominate both categories.)

Radiant

Okay. Maybe it would help if we have some concrete examples?

Could some people give the names of well-known adventure games that, in their opinion, have either good puzzles and bad gameplay, or good gameplay and bad puzzles?

straydogstrut

Quote from: Snarky on Sat 19/02/2011 12:27:09
Quote from: straydogstrut on Sat 19/02/2011 12:06:53A game may still have terrible gameplay despite having a really great puzzle in my opinion.

I think that requires either that the game is fundamentally broken on some level (e.g. UI, controls, bugs), or that something other than puzzles makes up a large part of the gameplay - for example that there is a lot of exploring in the game (though at some point I think an exploration task becomes a kind of puzzle) - and that this part of the gameplay is really badly done.

I was thinking more along the lines of the former since gameplay covers more than just puzzles. It can encompass all our interactions with the game and the context of those interactions. In adventure games this could include exploration, dialogue and so on (each of which can also be puzzles, I agree). I don't really have an example of a broken game as such though so I will concede this point.

I was also leaving room for games which are simply puzzles. For real examples, lets say Blockz or the Professor Layton games. While in such cases, puzzles would almost exclusively make up the totality of the gameplay, I personally feel the two should be distinct. That is not to suggest that either couldn't appear in either category, but I'm not sure it's fair to compare them under one category alone.

Having said that, the more I think about this, the more i'm swaying to your argument: the puzzles category isn't really necessary if we have a gameplay category. I think the problem lies in our definition of gameplay. Someone who doesn't play for the puzzles may not recognise a great puzzle as great gameplay. I don't see the harm in distinguishing puzzles - a major component of adventure games - so that they get due recognition.

Stupot

If a game consisted of JUST puzzles... and you had to go from one room to another, solving puzzles and NOTHING else... then no matter how good those puzzles happen to be, I wouldn't dream of nominating it for a 'best gameplay' award.

Snarky

But like I've been saying all along: do we need an award for that? Is there a good reason to honor games that have good puzzles but bad gameplay? The role of puzzles in adventure games is to provide interesting gameplay, surely?

(Personally, I wouldn't have a problem nominating a game like Linus Bruckman for the "best gameplay" award, even if the gameplay consists of one big puzzle, since I think the puzzle plays uncommonly well because of how it's integrated with the storytelling and the control scheme. Or Professor Layton, for that matter. If the gameplay consists of puzzles, and the puzzles are good, which is to say they provide good gameplay, why wouldn't it qualify for best gameplay?)

Igor Hardy

#151
Personally I vote a bit differently in each of these two categories. In Puzzles I vote for how original and cleverly constructed are the puzzles. Stand-out and elaborate puzzle concepts is something I find very important to encourage.

When choosing Best Gameplay, on the other hand, I tend to reward things like the puzzles' integration with the rest of the game, the pacing, immersion (in terms of how convincing is the player's illusion of agency), the amount of extra content.

To give a brutal example, I'm significantly more critical of a game's gameplay if it keeps throwing at the player annoying messages like "You're playing a stupid amateur game!" and "This was dumb!" like it happens in Jimmy The Troublemaker, regardless of how good puzzles the game has.

A7A

There should be a category for innovation is all I have to say. And for best debutant.

cat

DOTT: using the paint on the fence to get a skunk-cat is a puzzle; being able to switch characters and send items through time is a gameplay feature (that, of course, allows for more sophisticated puzzles)

Transpacific: the Mindinterface is a special gameplay feature. The puzzles itself where mainly escape the room, not too innovative.

Loom: completely new gameplay

For me, the gameplay award is for gameplay mechanics and not puzzles. A game can have good puzzles without any special gameplay. But good, innovative gameplay can lead to good puzzles.

bicilotti

Quote from: A7A on Sun 20/02/2011 12:33:46
There should be a category for innovation is all I have to say. And for best debutant.

A worthy candidate for 2011 best debutant!

There is a category for best innovation though! (decided by a committee and not public vote).

Dualnames

Quote from: A7A on Sun 20/02/2011 12:33:46
There should be a category for innovation is all I have to say. And for best debutant.

I've suggested the best debutant, but I guess no one liked/likes it/likes me.
Worked on Strangeland, Primordia, Hob's Barrow, The Cat Lady, Mage's Initiation, Until I Have You, Downfall, Hunie Pop, and every game in the Wadjet Eye Games catalogue (porting)

Snarky

cat, you make an interesting distinction. I would respond that the puzzles you describe are also part of the gameplay. What you call gameplay or gameplay features, I would be more inclined to call the "mechanics," though of course the mechanics influence the gameplay.

Could you maybe suggest how the 2010 nominees distinguish themselves in terms of gameplay features/mechanics? For all their qualities and original elements, they are fairly traditional in how they work, aren't they? The only thing I can think of that is a little unusual is the interaction between the real world and the trance in Technobabylon I, and that's pretty much straight-up lifted from Beneath a Steel Sky.

I think we've now had at least three different interpretations of what the gameplay category is for as distinct from puzzles. To me, this strengthens the case that the two should be merged into one category, perhaps "Game Design (puzzles and other gameplay)."

Stupot

#157
For me, 'gameplay' covers more than just puzzles.

Things like replayability, multiple endings, multiple characters, linearity... make no mistake, these are all gameplay features... and they all exist regardless of how good/bad or plentiful the puzzles are.

[edit]
Thinking about it, I would use the Blackwell series as examples of games where I would consider voting for Best Gameplay, but not for Best Puzzles.  In these games you can switch between characters, you can use the phone and the internet to make enquiries... things like this, for me, really add to the gameplay.  And of course, these gameplay elements form the basis of many of the puzzles (i.e. using Joey to go through a wall and overhear a conversation), but in my opinion, the puzzles themselves in Blackwell are not really that special compared to the puzzles in some other games out there.

antrules


The Devil's Shroud





- Best Original Story

- Best Puzzles

- Best Background Art

- Best Programming

SSH

I think that this point in the process is a little late to have arguments over what categories should be in there. The problem with best newcomer is the definition of newcomer: forum registration date? number of completed games released? number of "proper" games released?
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