🏆 AGS Awards 2023 - Awards are over!

[cat]

🏆 AGS Awards 2023

Welcome to the AGS Awards, the event where you, the player, choose the best games of the year!

Step # 1 - nomination time!
Play the games released in 2023. Then select the games you deem worthy in each category!
Step # 2 - vote, folks!
Pick from the nominees and we get a winner!
Step # 3 - party!
Big party to celebrate the winners!


Results!


Best Game of the Year
Abscission


Best Freeware Game
Shards of God


Best Short Game
Trapped On The Balcony


Best Non-Adventure Game
Super Star Trek (1978) meets 25th Anniversary


Best Demo
An English Haunting DEMO


Best Audio
Abscission


Best Visuals
Shards of God


Best Writing
Stranger in Utopia


Best Programming
Dreams in the Witch House


Best Character
"Dr Noriko" from Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 5


Best Gameplay
Abscission


Lifetime Achievement
heltenjon
for keeping tirelessly playing all or nearly all games made by the AGS community, giving motivational, thoughtful, detailed, insightful comments, rating and reviewing games in the database, and being a prolific and thorough tester for many developers.


Best Innovation
Fernewelten
for being the main force behind the new script compiler for AGS 4.0, which does an extraordinary job of pushing AGS beyond past limitations.


MAGGIES
The Distant Door


Congratulations!



Nomination results

Votes have been counted and recounted. Here are the nominated games of the Awards 2023.

Congratulations!

Best Game Created with AGS

Abscission
Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 5
Dreams in the Witch House
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia


Best Freeware Game Created with AGS

D-List Diva
METRO CITY: Night Shift
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia
Tunnel Vision


Best Writing

Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 5
D-List Diva
Dreams in the Witch House
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia


Best Character

"Dr Noriko" from Barn Runner 5: The Forever Friday 5
"Mother Tiabata" from Shards of God
"Sister Ava" from Shards of God
"Walter Gilman" from Dreams in the Witch House



Best Gameplay

Abscission
D-List Diva
Dreams in the Witch House
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia


Best Visuals

D-List Diva
Dreams in the Witch House
METRO CITY: Night Shift
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia


Best Audio

Abscission
Dreams in the Witch House
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia
Tunnel Vision


Best Demo

An English Haunting DEMO
Captain Disaster and The Two Worlds of Riskara DEMO
Magret and Facedebouc
Stormwater (Early Access)



Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS

How to: Witchcraft Cuisine
Lost & Found
Mad Jack: Breakdown Shakedown
Super Author Simulator 2023
Super Star Trek (1978) meets 25th Anniversary


Best Short Game

D-List Diva
Stranger in Utopia
The Distant Door
Trapped On The Balcony
Yip Quest


Best Programming

Abscission
Dreams in the Witch House
Shards of God
Stranger in Utopia
Tunnel Vision



This year, we have made a few changes to how the awards work, so please read carefully!

The main changes to last year are:

Schedule
There is going to be a tighter schedule this year. Nominations start already NOW and last till the end of January. The voting will start a few days after closing the nominations. In the next few days I will create a poll to find a date for the ceremony that suits as many people as possible.

Categories
We unified the art categories (background art, character art, animation) into Best Visuals.
Best music and voice acting now form the category Best Audio.
Best gameplay and puzzle were merged into Best Gameplay.

Game lists
Only games that are eligible for specific categories are included in the drop-downs for nominations based on their database entries. This should make the nominations easier, as the lists for some categories will contain fewer games.


The rest stays the same:

Every year, the AGS community embarks on a quest to find the best games made in the last year. All games are eligible, that were added to the AGS Database in the year 2023. There is a For Your Consideration thread where authors can promote their games and players get a good overview what might be worth playing.

The awards are a two-step process: First there is a nomination phase where all community members can nominate the eligible games in several categories. The top five games of each category make it to the voting (as long as they've received at least five nominations). During voting, all members of the community can vote for their favourite games.
The final result is then announced in a live ceremony that can be joined either with a special client or any regular irc client.

Party like it's 1990 in this thread!

[CaptainD]

Thanks Cat and the Awards Team! 

[Danvzare]

Wow, you really are being speedy this year. Thank you everyone on the Awards Team for all of your hard work so far. 

[The Last To Know]

Thanks cat & Co., it was a pleasure to nominate. There were some great games in 2023!

[cat]

First nominations are in already 

Remember, you don't have to do it all at once - you can do your nominations in several chunks, saving in between. You can also change them until the deadline.

[Kastchey]

A quick heads up for the game authors: if your game ends up nominated in any category, I will reach out to you at the beginning of the voting phase, asking if you would like to provide additional screenshots or an avatar for the ceremony.

This will be entirely optional (we can always use the database screenshots for the slideshow, and you can use one of the default avatars), but IF you feel you want your game to shine more during the ceremony, consider preparing some screenshots or an avatar in advance.

Again, this is optional. If you are happy with the database screenshots and default avatars, that will be perfectly fine.

[cat]

How are you getting along with nominations? Do you like the changes we did this year? Are they helpful?

[Rik_Vargard]

I'm new to this part of AGS, so it's a little overwhelming to see all those games in the list. And the possible up to ten nominations per category.
I'll do my best to play some more games for this time and do my best, I guess?
I'll have to keep this in mind for 2024. 

[Kastchey]

Please remember you really don't have to play all games, or even many games to nominate. Any nomination for a game that you think deserves to be recognized is valid. You can always change your votes later if you get to play more games.

Really appreciate everyone's votes!

[Rik_Vargard]

Please remember you really don't have to play all games, or even many games to nominate. Any nomination for a game that you think deserves to be recognized is valid. You can always change your votes later if you get to play more games.

Really appreciate everyone's votes!

Alright then! Thank you for your reply 

[Kini Games]

Has it been a year already?! Time for me to get nominating!

[CaptainD]

Is the nomination stage still open? I've nominated already but was hoping to play another couple of games that seem like they might be worth a nom and add them, but I can't see a link to the nomination page anymore.

[cat]

Yes, nominations are still open. The link is in the first post, but here it is again: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/awards/nominate/

[CaptainD]

Thanks, feeling stupid now   

[cat]

Nor worries, I'm glad this is sorted and you can continue with nominations.

[Rik_Vargard]

Aaaand here goes nothing. 

[cat]

Only one week to go! It's very close in some categories, so your votes do make a difference.

We also need many more votes for the best character category. I noticed that one person typed two characters in the same field. We cannot count this, please make a single nomination entry for each character (nominating different characters from the same game is possible if you make an entry for each.)

[heltenjon]

Only one week to go! It's very close in some categories, so your votes do make a difference.

We also need many more votes for the best character category. I noticed that one person typed two characters in the same field. We cannot count this, please make a single nomination entry for each character (nominating different characters from the same game is possible if you make an entry for each.)

@cat - This is not possible. I tried to nominate more than one character from the same game, but when I refresh, only one character is counted, and the second one is removed. There is no error message, though.

Idiotic workaround - If you cannot fix this, as possible workaround would be to pick another game, but specify in the name field that you are voting for Ms X from game Y. (If this is a stupid idea that won't work, forget I mentioned it or answer this post with an appropriate insult.)

Edit: And idiotic it was.

[cat]

Please don't do this workaround. If there is a problem with nominations, we should see if it can be fixed. @AGA can you have a look at it, please?

[AGA]

Submitting multiple nominations for the same game in Best Character should work now.  There is an issue where it will show the first character's name multiple times if you reload the form to nominate again, but please rest assure the correct nominations are being stored in the database.