AGS AWARDS: 'Apprentice' leads the pack with 14 nominations!

DGMacphee · Wed 14/01/2004 02:18:33

'Apprentice' leads the pack with 14 nominations!

Herculean Effort Productions (HEP) walked away with 14 AGS Award nominations today for their game 'Apprentice'!

The game scored a Best AGS Game nomination and swept the Story and Character categories.

'Apprentice' also achieved nominations in all technical categories except Best Documentation.

Past AGS Award winner Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw of FullyRamblomatic trailed closely behind HEP with 11 nominations, including Best AGS Game, for 'Five Days a Stranger'.

Wintermute Studios followed with 10 nominations for their game 'Grr! Bearly Sane'.

'Grr! Bearly Sane' surprisingly did not score a nod for Best AGS Game despite a higher number of nominations than other Best Game nominees.

SOCKO! Entertainment's 'The Adventures of Fatman' made history as the first commercial project nominated for Best AGS Game.

'Fatman' scored a total of 7 nominations.

The AGS Community also honoured another past award winner, Dave Gilbert, with a Best Game nomination for 'Bestowers of Eternity.

Mr Gilbert's game achieved six nominations.

Finally, Ratracer Adventure Games scored eight nominations, including Best Game, for 'The Uncertaintly Machine'.

Other categories provided surprises as well.

The AGS Community re-nominated last year's winning 'Snow Plug-in' for Best Utility or Plug-in.

'Snow plug-in' Author Scorpiorus competes against other plug-in such as the 'Credits plug-in' and the 'TCP/IP plug-in'.

Captain Mostly and Squinky face-off against themselves as both are nominated across all three games in the Best Non-Adventure category.

Their co-project 'Vegetable Patch Extreem Turbo 2' battles against Squinky's 'AGS Mittens Shooter' and Captain Mostly's 'Vegetable Patch Extreem Turbo 1'.

Voting for the winners will run from 18-31 January 2004.

The ceremony date will be announced later in the month, along with the Lifetime Achievement winner.

All the nominees can be found here:
http://www.sylpher.com/AGSAwards/2003.htm

Anyway guys and gals, voting will start on the 18th.

Use the time until then to play the nominated games and decide the winner in each catehory.

Until then, see ya!

Gregjazz · Wed 14/01/2004 06:50:37

Woohoo! "Except best documentation"... We'll work on it.

Captain Mostly · Wed 14/01/2004 10:11:22

Come on then Squinky. There's a base ball ground where I teach the local little-league just outside of town. We won't be bothered there. 2am dressed all in black. Just knives...

Layabout · Wed 14/01/2004 11:28:29

Hah, vels game only got nominated for the music award!!!! HAHAHA.

Barcik · Wed 14/01/2004 11:28:54

Personally, I am disappointed. Two great games released in January, "Just Another Point N' Click Adventure" and "Keptosh I: Search for the Junc", were ignored completely. Both games offered good gameplay, art and music. Heck, Keptosh sure had a better story than the "Apprentice" cliche one (no offense, Herculean, I loved your game). "The Uncertainty Machine", released back on March 10th, was left out on nominations it surely deserved in the music and sound effects departments. I think this shows just how short the memory of the community is. What a pity.

Anyway.... congratulations to all nominated games and their creators, best of luck.

Vel · Wed 14/01/2004 11:42:54

I also noticed that Beyond Reality was ignored completely...

Timosity · Wed 14/01/2004 12:00:43

I agree with Barcik about JAPNCA & Keptosh, I know I nominated them in just about all categories, but it doesn't help when you release a game in the early part of the year, and then not pimp it. There was also NIAR & Purity of the Surf.

But I respect these makers for not pimping, They are still some of the best creators and I'm sure their games are still being enjoyed, that's the important part. Also, Modesty is a great quality.

The awards is just a bit of a novelty each year for a bit of fun, you can't take it too seriously.

All the nominees are worthy, I've enjoyed all the games, well most of them and many others, Good luck to you all.

Totoro · Wed 14/01/2004 12:48:00

Well people, that's always the game about it. THere won't be any award or competition or whatsoever where nobody thinks its unfair. Its always a question of good luck or not whether people remember the right game just in the moment of voting. So lets take this as a part and honor thing, everyone's personal favourite game stays in her or his heart anyway, awarded or not!

SSH · Wed 14/01/2004 13:05:09

Thanks for the hard work in pulling this togteher, DG. Hope you don't mind if I make a suggewstions: could you have a download page with links to all nominated games pages to make it easier for folks to get the ones that they haven't played yet?

Shame that the Princess Marian games didn't get any nominations :'( Also, Buccaneer and Astranded should maybe have had some recognition, but as ppl have said: thats how awards go. I'll probably feel the same when LOTR gets best director but not best picture at the Oscars....

M · Wed 14/01/2004 13:09:57

*sigh* Oh well, at least Poom is nominated at The Crows Nest.

ratracer · Wed 14/01/2004 13:15:16

I am not being modest, as I think several nominations of TUM were deserved, but there were a few categories where lesser-played games should have been there instead of TUM (or other frequently nominated games)...

That just goes to prove that people should play more AGS games (that advice also serves me well...)

GarageGothic · Wed 14/01/2004 13:30:07

Congrats on the nominations everyone!

As for ratracer's comment, I think people just tend to nominate their favorite game in all categories. It seems that it's not enough to be good at one thing, but the game has to be all-round popular for people to remember it. I agree that Keptosh and Purity of the Surf had deserved nominations. Hell, I voted for them myself. But I suppose it's the way things work. Same thing with the Oscars. I doubt we'll see a totally crappy game with amazing music nominated anytime soon.

I hope next year will see some more interesting nominations in the smaller categories. I for one can't wait to vote Byzantine for best sound. But I'm sure that will be one of the major titles in other categories as well.

Dave Gilbert · Wed 14/01/2004 15:59:45

I was surprised to see "Flashbax" nominated for the p3nish award. I thought it was a great game, despite the icky cutscene.

And thanks everyone for nominating "Bestowers" so many times, as well as nominating Rosa for best character. I was surprised to see Joey nominated for "Best Supporting Character," as he doesn't appear very often in the game, but I'm sure he appreciates it, nonetheless. Dead people need love too.

Elianto · Thu 15/01/2004 09:13:19

Quote from: Timosity on Wed 14/01/2004 12:00:43
But I respect these makers for not pimping, They are still some of the best creators and I'm sure their games are still being enjoyed, that's the important part. Also, Modesty is a great quality.

I agree. Maybe some support should come from the ones who played the games... It's really impossible to play all the games listed in the awards list. Maybe some time before the nomination everyone should suggest a good number of good games he's played tha maybe another one hasn't noticed.

Maybe....

In the end also in the film awards some less sponsorized films really don't made to the nominations....

Thumbs up to all the creators!!!

PS: Also I was a bit surprised for the p3n1s nomination for FLASHBAX....

AGA · Thu 15/01/2004 12:32:12

I think some people seem to believe the P3N1SH award is for comedy games, rather than comedically crappy games. Somebody told me on IRC they'd voted for the JS demo in the P3N1SH category because they thought it was funny, and I don't *think* JS is particularly crappy

Squinky · Thu 15/01/2004 15:20:53

Quote from: Captain Mostly on Wed 14/01/2004 10:11:22
Come on then Squinky. There's a base ball ground where I teach the local little-league just outside of town. We won't be bothered there. 2am dressed all in black. Just knives...

Bah! I think I'm gonna have to work that day or something, heh. No worrys Cap, my ags shooter game is quite crappy. In fact, I wonder why it was even nominated....

* Squinky thinks back to the last time he was really drunk

Nellie · Thu 15/01/2004 15:43:38

Has anyone got a link to "The Case" demo where I don't have to sign up to Boomtown to get it?

rodekill · Thu 15/01/2004 23:31:23

Congrats to all the nominees.
It's good to see such high quality stuff coming out of the community.
I hope it gets even harder for me to get nominated next year.
Er, this year.
Whatever.
Woot on you.

Hueij · Fri 16/01/2004 01:06:13

Thumbs up for all nominees (and for all the games that didn't get nominated but should). Last year there were some awesomes new games. Thanks for giving me some really enjoyable hours. (We need some new smilies)

eVOLVE · Fri 16/01/2004 12:16:04

Nellie, fraid there's no-where else to get it but Boomtown... I had another mirror when the demo was first released, but he took it down because it was sapping all his bandwidth.

What's the problem with signing up to Boomtown anyway? I work for em and can assure you won't get any spam... Besides, you could put fake information in there anyway...

Boomtown's a great host for me though, because they've said they'll host the full game no matter the end size. If hosting the file there influences the voting, I'll be very disappointed

Still, I'm interested to know why you're against the sign up to Boomtown?