Adventure Game Studio

As it gets near the end of the year, perhaps it is time to have the old AGS Awards debate:

1. Is the nomination system OK?
2. Is the final voting system OK?
3. Are there any categories missing?
4. Any any of the existing awards mis-named or confusing, etc.

For reference, here's the 2007 awards Wiki page (http://www.americangirlscouts.org/w/index.php?title=AGS_Awards_2007) and the thoughts I posted on my blog about the 2007 awards at the time (http://ags-ssh.blogspot.com/2008/02/ags-awards-2007.html)

My answers to the above questions are as follows:

1. Yes, although a better nomination page would help
2. Yes, although a better voting page might help
3. Yes: Best Voice Acting for sure and maybe Best Remake or Parody
4. Yes: Best Use of Sound should be Best Sound Effects to distinguish it from above new Voice Acting award...

And one final question:

5. Was the AGS-made presentation ceremony a good thing?

I will take my time to answer the full survey. Let me only say that (question 5), it was such a nice, hilarious and well made thing that I've saved it on my personal folder and I watch it now and then when I want to smile for a bit.

While we're here, also a note to all game creators: make sure your game is the the DB by 31st December 2008 or it will not be eligible for this year's awards. That includes demos, too, if you want to be up for the demo category.

NB: the 103 (as of this edit) games eligible so far are listed here (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=digest&sortby=2&sortdir=0&startfrom=0&year=2008)

I'm wondering, we lack two categories..
Really.

Most innovative
And best newbie appearance(someone who made his first game)

We DO have "most innovative", but it's just chosen by a mysterious "jury" of some kind, not by public vote, and it doesn't show up in the database.

I'm talking from experience here.  ;)

Ok, to answer the first 4 questions:

1-2 the nomination system / voting one: they both work fine, I didn't find any particular problem in placing my vote.

3 - A best newbie appearance, as Dual said, could be fun and rewarding for them. I think the committee could chose that too.
Also, best Voice acting, as you said, would be a great addition.

4 - best documentation could be renamed (I don't know, best tutorial, best introduction to adventure gaming, something like that), since as it is named now it makes me think of big unformatted readme.txt files.
I am puzzled by the exact meaning of "best Gameplay too", but I feel that I'm the only, dumb one who did not get that.

edit: also, why not show the "best innovation" award in the game database?

Hmmm, need to get CJ on to fixing that "not in the DB" issue...

Best Newbie is fine, but determining if someone is a newbie is a bit fraught. Do you count "my first gaem" efforts, demos, non-adventures or not. How new is a newbie? If m0ds finally released a full game, could he win?  ;D

As for gameplay, you can either take it as a measure of how fun the game is to play, how intuitive or innovative it is to control or how good the game would be if you ignore its graphics and sound.  Its a bit vague, but perhaps usually goes to a game that maybe isn't best overall but yet is great fun. Although in odd-numbered years its always gone to the Best-Game winner!

Quote from: SSH on Thu 02/10/2008 12:24:32
Hmmm, need to get CJ on to fixing that "not in the DB" issue...

Best Newbie is fine, but determining if someone is a newbie is a bit fraught. Do you count "my first gaem" efforts, demos, non-adventures or not. How new is a newbie? If m0ds finally released a full game, could he win?  ;D

I think: registered in the current year.

Also, I'd like to see the p3n15 award back (and, contextually, to nominate my gem, Happy Horse (http://rapidshare.com/files/141324364/HHorse.zip.html)).

Quote from: bicilotti on Thu 02/10/2008 12:25:48

Quote from: SSH on Thu 02/10/2008 12:24:32
Hmmm, need to get CJ on to fixing that "not in the DB" issue...

Best Newbie is fine, but determining if someone is a newbie is a bit fraught. Do you count "my first gaem" efforts, demos, non-adventures or not. How new is a newbie? If m0ds finally released a full game, could he win?  ;D

I think: registered in the current year.

But what if Dave Gilbert re-registered as a new user?  :=

Ok, concerning the newbie, want me to list all the considered as candidates for so far newbie award? If that comes in...

but anyway, to help you and the rest get it, it's like:

One game(a complete, non-joke, non-demo)
by one user(one man/woman one nickname)
that has logged into the AGS forums(any date any year).
It's more like an award called "The newbie award".

Notes:
If someone gets ivy to do the graphics for his first game, the game's getting the award(not the user)
If someone gets to do only music, it's not his first game, it's the first game's he's been on.
If someone makes graphics or story(programming ONLY doesn't count), and the audience considers that he has done at least the 40% of the game or he's done the bigger amount of game he gets the award).

Examples: If Grundislav hadn't made any other games with AGS, he wouldn't be illegible for helping Ivy, since she had the story and graphics.

If akatosh, hadn't made other games as well, he'd be illegilble since the other person isn't a member, but if he was he would  get the award, since he's done probably more or the same amount of work with akatosh(he had the idea, and made the graphics).

If I hadn't made other games and HHGTG would be completed this year, I would get the award, since I've actually scripted, made the music, graphics, animation..

So that concludes into:
a)The man who posts the game at the completed games, is usually the one behind it
b)He must haven't made any other game(or partecipated, unless he's done only the music, or helped a bit at programming).
c)If someone has made more amount of work than the other/s, and he's made another game, the game should not be able to partecipate

In other words, its complicated enough that it would probably need to be done by committee...

Quote from: SSH on Thu 02/10/2008 11:43:38
5. Was the AGS-made presentation ceremony a good thing?

Vehemently, yes! It was the best thing about the whole awards, especially how tall Nelly Cootalot was compared to the other sprites!

I'd have to disagree, I prefer a live ceremony in chat. I can't believe I waited for so long last time only to find out a day or so before that the awards weren't going to be on IRC. It used to pull in lots and lots of people, did it begin to decline? Half the fun of the awards, for me, is to be able to clap in the developers face after they win! So, I'll probably be a sour puss and abstain this year round if it's going to be a download ceremony.

You mean you won't attend the unattendable ceremony?

No, I mean I want a decent explanation as to why there isn't a ceremony like that anymore otherwise I don't feel like voting. It was a tradition in my eyes, that got slashed without any notice. Unless of course I missed something. Every year a thread gets created & all hell breaks loose when you open to the floor the suggestion of categories. I think this again over-shadows the real issue which is why you're chosing to not bring the community together for what is always a fun night & instead make us all find out the results personally, alone. It's great that you run the awards Andrew & you do a fantastic job of it. It's great that you know how to program too and want to impress us with your skillz behind the wheelz for the AGS Awards but I really do not see why a good social evening should be turned away just to be replaced with a pretty .exe file. It's fun to vote, but it's more fun to be a part of the ceremony that used to take place afterwards. And the IRC awards night was always a mini-AGS-gathering of its own.

From here on, we can always go back and download the ceremony game, read the Wiki award pages to find out who won etc, but nothing compares to being there that night, with the guest speakers, the specially chosen hosts (didnt Layafoo do it one year??) and of course, the TENSION!1 Man, I was soooooo bored when I watched the Ceremony EXE. So bored I eventually turned it off & read the results on the Wiki. Well okay, so it was partly due to boredom and partly due to Nelly winning everything bar music...lol! But y'know, it just ain't the same! Other than that, the voting system works a treat, always has!

The trouble with organising the IRC ceremony is that it required a lot of organisation. Persuading people to come, informing of times, arranging guest presenters, finding a time that wouldn't make lots of people complain... also, I believe that IRC is not frequented so much these days, either. I'm quite happy to supply a list of the winners to anyone prepared to take over running of an IRC ceremony. If no-one volunteers then I'll just stick with the game version as last year.

I think that not going to all that effort for something that no-one ever thanked me for and instead creating something different  is hardly "choosing not to bring the community together". You know, it was a bit of a last minute decision to do it that way and I wasn't sure it worked, which is why I politely asked, but there's no need to imply that I only did it to try and show off in some way. If you didn't like it fine, that's the feedback I'm looking for, but can we avoid making it personal?

EDIT:
Actually having just reviewed the 2006 awards IRC log (http://caverider.com/log.html#) I note two things:

a) 13 of the winners were not present to receive their awards
b) One of those absentee winners was m0ds.

Draw your own conclusions....

It wasn't personal, you know that. You asked for feedback on something you made and are doing and I fedback on it. I can't not relate it to you if it's something relating to you!  ::) We all go to lots of efforts here that are sometimes never thanked for, but that generally doesn't stop people. I agree that IRC popularity has declined a lot, but that doesn't mean we need to through relay chat in the bin. There aren't really any other AGS related events that would get people involved in relay chat, so it's a shame to abandon it completely. I regret not making it to the 2006 awards which made me determined to make the next one, and from that you can then see then why I was so peeved that there wasn't a 2007 ceremony. I feel bad that I wasn't able to congratulate my team that year.

No matter what, it's not a personal stab, but I said this last year and I'll say it again - I don't like to download the ceremony. I like to be at it.

I will gladly organise an IRC event & make sure its advertised well in advance on the AGS website, YouTube & bigbluecup forum & news bar, etc. It's the only thing worth looking forward too in the dark months of the new year, it's even more important than my birthday (and more fun! :P) so yes, if you say you'll give the information over on an IRC night, then it should be done & I'll gladly do it. Even if no-one turns up, it won't be a dead loss. I'll still have wine!

I think the awards system is adequate enough as is, but I really think non-adventure games should be allowed to compete in the other categories as well.

As far as the ceremony goes, I really liked it, but I can see where M0ds is coming from too. It would probably be too much work to make both the ceremony "game" and organize the IRC ceremony, huh?

m0ds, you might want to try the new Stickam feature of "debate" rooms which features 2 prominent video streams and up to 999 people per room: its like video IRC and might suit the awards ceremony.

But hey, the live ceremony is your baby now! Bwuahahahah!

Quote from: SSH on Thu 02/10/2008 17:15:19
But hey, the live ceremony is your baby now! Bwuahahahah!

\o/

I miss the live IRC ceremony, and I hated having to miss it towards the end as it was timed when I had to be elsewhere or had something else going on. But all the times I did manage to be there it was great fun.

Also, voice acting and sound effects should probably be separate categories. There could be a game with brilliant use of sound effects, only to fall in the shadow of a few games with full voice acting, not necessary all that great anyway. Not that I'd know examples, this is just something I'd assume.

And best documentation should be left as it is, if it indeed does mean documentation that comes with games. There was a certain help file that interacted with the game, now that's what this award in my eyes is about.

Quote from: Ishmael on Thu 02/10/2008 19:26:49
And best documentation should be left as it is, if it indeed does mean documentation that comes with games. There was a certain help file that interacted with the game, now that's what this award in my eyes is about.

Awesome! What game are you talking about?

I enjoyed the year before last's AGS Awards the most, partially because I was nominated (whoo) and partially because I enjoyed the whole run up to the awards themselves (SSH and Zooty announcing the nominees on  Skypecast, the setting up of the various IRC rooms for the night, etc).

SSH's AGS-based awards last year were a cool last minute replacement, and nobody is disparaging the work he put into it, but in the end it (obviously) lacked the spontaneity of the live version; people were already discussing who had won before I even had a chance to watch SSH's presentation, and the awards themselves felt like an afterthought that year.

Timezones are a problem, of course, as are people finding "better" things to do (the bastards!), but you work with what you can get and I'd rather have a small live event than no event at all.

8PM GMT is a fair enough time all-round, I'd say. That's 10PM at the latest in Europe, early afternoon in the States. Only the Pacific and Aussie people are left out really, and who cares about them!

A post to answer some of the questions you asked here and in your blog:

Should Demos be allowed to compete in other categories?
No. I may sound harsh or unfair, but it's one thing to whip up a website, post some backgrounds and sprites and release a demo and it's another thing to release a finished game. The awards should encourage more people to release finished games, not release more demos of games that may never make it to the final version. I think demos should stay in their own category. If an aspect of a demo truly shine, the AGS awards will be there the year the finished game is released.

Should non-adventures be allowed to compete in other categories?
As long they're finished games, yes.

Are there any categories missing?
Any of the existing awards mis-named or confusing, etc.

Could anyone explain the "best innovation" award? Is it best gameplay innovation or just best innovation in general? Because if it is the latter, Best Gameplay could be split in 2 category: Best gameplay innovation and Best gameplay implementation, something we discussed a lot recently with the checklist and Vince Twelve's Broken Game threads. I suppose it would be possible for a game to win both.

I also second separating speech from sound and the suggestion to add a Best Voice Actor/Actress award.

Maybe a Best Atmosphere or "Most attention invested in the little details" award, but I don't know.

Also, could you explain more about the best Remake/Parody? Is it to cover the gray area when a game maker release a deluxe version of one of their previous work, to update the graphics or add a speech pack? It also open an interesting door, can someone constantly update a game in hope to win an award?

Quote from: AGA on Thu 02/10/2008 22:56:13Only the Pacific and Aussie people are left out really, and who cares about them!

Yeah, them Pacific and Aussie people aren't gonna win any awards anyway :P

Guess I know where my vote is going  ;D  SSH, need any help with that .exe file?

My opinions:

-Demos should not compete in other categories. Honestly, I'm skeptical that a "best demo" category is needed at all - for me, a demo is just a part of another game, and if a demo has been released in time for the AGS awards but the full game has not, that game (and consequently its demo) really belongs to the year in which the full game was released.
-Non-adventures should be allowed to compete in all of the categories. They're games, too, and their creators have put a lot of effort into them. I don't see any reason why they should be disqualified.
-I think that the IRC ceremony sounds like a lot of fun, but... well, I'm on the Pacific. Even if it was at a good time for me, I'd probably forget about it. The AGS-made ceremony .exe sounds like a lot of fun, too, so I'd definately be for that even if we did do an IRC ceremony and release the .exe afterward.
-I think that a "best debut game" award and a "best atmosphere" award both sound like superb ideas.

The Best Atmosphere thingy was a reply to what SSH said on his blog regarding Art of Theft beating ATOTK for the best programming award. I thought "There must be a way to somehow reward aspects, like sound, animation or coding, which, while not super spectacular, shouldn't be overlooked due to the amount of effort the maker put into it.." but then I thought "Man, this just sounds like a rehash or a silver medal for best sound, animation, dialogue or coding awards." so I really don't know.

Plus, I thought "Best Atmosphere" was completly ambiguous and it wouldn't really apply to any insane amount of detail someone might put in one aspect of the game which doesn't apply to the atmosphere, what if someone add tons of useless but funny/insightful messages to a game? Or code a different reply to every inventory item uses like a lot of people dream to do one day? Plus, atmosphere is rather hard to define. If you think it's a good award idea and can further develop it, feel free to run with the ball because I really don't know what to do with it.

Innovation, that surely concerns about something that has never been done using AGS, example Vector Vendetta.

I think I've said this before, but for the shake of me and the lack of time right now, I can't remember what the result was.

If Dave (and others, like Alkis) have a budget, and maybe a considerable budget, shoudln't their games be excluded from the AGS awards? Someone with enough money, could get... Picasso to make the BGs and get a big enough chance to win that category...

EDIT: Just remember that the reply, previously, was that generally commercial games DON'T get all the awards, so there's no reason to exclude them! The non commercial games overpower in essence the commercial ones, if only in number but also to the sheer quality that some show!

In other words, probably never mind this post...

Thanks for the input, peeps, this is all helpful.

Some points:

a) I may well prepare an EXE as well as m0ds's IRC ceremony, planned to be released after it. Those who couldn't attend the IRC ceremony can have some fun, then. (Anyone want to do some better backgrounds for the stage, theatre, etc?) and also its a backup in case the ceremony takes as long to happen as Fountain of Youth ;)

b) I was discussing the Best Programming on Stickam. Perhaps the way to handle it is to have Best Non-adventure Programming and Best Adventure Programming as two separate categories. Like the Golden Globes Comedy/Drama split.

c) Best Remake or Parody has a dual-purpose. Firstly it is to recognise the huge effort that can sometimes go into a remake or parody, but it isn't really fair  (or likely) for a rehash to win any story awards, etc. and secondly it will maybe allow the other categories to concentrate on original material and not feel obliged to reward a game based on 15-year-old ideas just becuase it took a long to time to make (no games in particular in mind here, honest!) I would say that, for example, Little Girl in Underland maybe isn't going to win in any of the old categories given the stiff competition in other short games, but on the other hand, many may think that its the best parody of the year.

d) AS you edited, Nik, experience shows that commercial games have had less players (at least amongst the AGS community) and hence get less votes, despite their potentially higher production values. Perhaps, though, as with remakes,  a Best Commercial Game category could give them recognition and yet also not make people feel obliged to vote for them in "normal" categories unless they truly deserve it. However, I'm only aware of one commerical release this year...

e) Yes, its hard to define Best Atmosphere for the reasons bluskirt says. And while one may have a particular game in mind when one thinks of awards, that doesn't mean everyone else does too. And the silver medal in the AGS Awards is that I usually use the "nearly winners" as an easy source of picks-of-the-month...

f) Best Innovation is decided by committee and it usually comes down to what the committee decides it tro mean based on common sense and obvious candidates. The two winners so far have been Linus Bruckmann and _access which I think are both fair.

g) Best Game by a Newcomer also seems popular and I'll see if the committee can come up with a sensible choice. Question: Last year, would you have said that Nelly Cootalot was a newcomer's game?

h) Should there be some kind of nomination-announcing event? Sounds like it was popular (although once again, I'm only getting that feedback 2 years later...  ::) )

i)  Any suggestions by PM of good people for the Lifetime Achievement/ Innovation/Newbie awards committee are welcome. Anyone who suggests themself is automatically excluded ;) :P

I've never been fond of the irc presentation because of the way it's been handled, really.  Devoice, announce, winner comment, voice for random people, devoice, repeat.  I fully understand the reasons for it but the irc approach has just never appealed to me.  I think the downloadable executable worked better because

A) I don't have to be around for a specific person's idea of what the best time is in order to see the event

and

B)  more time can be spent on making the award ceremony interesting/funny in a visual environment.

You could also record it and put it up on youtube.

Quote from: SSH on Fri 03/10/2008 09:58:49
a) I may well prepare an EXE as well as m0ds's IRC ceremony, planned to be released after it. Those who couldn't attend the IRC ceremony can have some fun, then. (Anyone want to do some better backgrounds for the stage, theatre, etc?) and also its a backup in case the ceremony takes as long to happen as Fountain of Youth ;)

I definitely endorse this. I was going to offer to draw an alternate background (before reading this) but then I had a better idea. I think there should be a special background blitz where AGSers can compete to 'host' the awards in their background(s), possibly an interior and a 'red carpet', as before. You could set the technical requirements, and you'd be bound to get an interesting crop which might last for a few years. That would also help build up anticipation and excitement.

Also:

Quote from: SSH on Fri 03/10/2008 09:58:49Question: Last year, would you have said that Nelly Cootalot was a newcomer's game?

Yes! I think we can all agree that Nelly Cootalot didn't get enough awards. Does hanging around for three or four years before making a game stop you from being a newcomer? This is an injustice of unprecedented magnitude!

I have never seen one of the "live" award ceremonies, so I'm not entirely sure how they work, but my two cents are:

- If one chooses to have a live award ceremony, it should be available for those who miss it for a time. As I said, I have no idea how it works, but: If it's just an IRC chat, put the IRC log online so that we can read it afterwards. If it's more than that, like sound or video, put a file online. If it takes too much bandwidth and disk space, put it online for one week only, so that people will be able to see it even though they're not there at the moment.

- If one chooses to go for the AGS Award .exe, like last year: First, what I really missed in that presentation was interactivity. Why use AGS to make what's basically a crude cartoon? Make a menu that lets us jump between the awards, at the very least make a review button. And add some more music, please. Another idea: Would it be possible to contact the winners beforehand to make them write their own thank-speeches? In one way I think that would make a better ceremony, but then again it would completely ruin the surprise ... for them, at least.

I like the idea of a live ceremony, but I know I'm probably going to miss it, and at the same time I like seeing the characters on the screen recieving their awards ... The best thing would probably be if SSH made sock-puppets resembling all the nominees and hosting a live video chat puppet show which would later be available for download.

The transcript of the IRC ceremonies has always been available in a more or less hi-tech format for those who missed it to see afterwards.

I was thinking of the presentation game would be released after any IRC ceremony if there is such, so that any possible developer comments could be included in it and it wouldn't ruin the suprises? But then again, would it somehow make the presentation somehow less official looking or something?

Quote from: SSH on Fri 03/10/2008 09:58:49
Question: Last year, would you have said that Nelly Cootalot was a newcomer's game?

Nope, if I'm not mistaken Ali is a long time member, so he'll have to cope with having won only 5 ;)

Quote from: Ali on Fri 03/10/2008 10:41:19
I think there should be a special background blitz where AGSers can compete to 'host' the awards in their background(s), possibly an interior and a 'red carpet', as before.

Awesome idea!

SSH, m0ds:
Can we have a "best ceremony for the 2008 ceremony" award? ;)

OK, so here's my current thinking on the category list: All games must be added to DB during 2008.

Lifetime Achievement, Best Innovation and Best Game by a Newcomer are chosen by committee

Games in the DB as "Demos" are eligible for:

Best Demo

Games in the DB as "Non-adventures" are eligible for:

Best Non-adventure, Best non-adv programming, and all the main categories except Best Game, Best Short Game and Best Programming

Games in the DB as "Joke games, MAGS games or Short games" are eligible for all the main categories plus Best Short Game

Games in the DB as Commercial are eligible for Best Commercial Game as well as the main categories

Games in the DB as medium or full length games are eligible for the main categories:

Overall: Best Game, Best Remake or Parody
Design/writing: Best Gameplay, Best Story, Best Dialogue, Best Puzzles, Best Tutorial or Documentation
Art: Best Character Art, Best Background Art, Best Animation
Sound: Best Voice Acting, Best Effects, Best Music

It will be done :) And before FoY too!

QuoteOnly the Pacific and Aussie people are left out really, and who cares about them!

And don't forget ProgZMax :P

Don't you have anything better to do than troll, m0ds?  :=


You'd think with all this time you seem to have to post you could've done all the music for my game!

And where are those Ben Jordan outtakes?



And Fountain of Youth?  And all those other games you haven't finished yet?

Concerning Nelly, yes. The award should be re-named as
Newbie. Newcomer means that it's about someone that has just logged in the forums, while newbie means that Ali here, was virgin about making AGS games, and h just lost his virginity with Nelly Cootalot. ::)

I endorse the Best Innovation category. I suggest that if there are several games out there introducing new things, then perhaps more than one game should be awarded with Special Achievement in Innovation. As an example, Gesundheit for innovation in game design and The Adventures of Fatman for being the first fully talkie AGS game* (but of course ONLY for games released in 2008).

Some of the names could be better:

Best Game by a newcomer should perhaps be Best Debut or Best Debut Game. Best Debut seems to go more towards a particular person or group, so I like that better.

Best Parody or Remake should be Best Adapted Game (Remake, Parody, or Fan-Made)

Though Best Game should always stand above all else... perhaps it should be renamed to something like AGS Game of the Year

Best Puzzles always puzzled me. I was never quite sure what it all meant, mostly because a lot of the times the games that got it I didn't really think they had the best designed puzzles. Perhaps the nominations should refer to a particular puzzle or a particular set of puzzles.

Best Programming is another one. I mean like that would kind of mean also reading the code right? Perhaps this should be something like Technical Excellence.

On other things:

The nominations process have always been mixed, as a lot of people just vote for the games they've played. While there's been a lot of promotion on games, there should be a way to mention certain games that people should check out. I'm not sure if the "for your consideration" thread worked last time...

Another one is the voting of the nominees. Not all people play or try all the games, and while some do, sometimes for the smaller categories a lot of people just vote for that one game they played, instead of trying them all out.

Perhaps the nominees need to be asked to participate a bit more. For example on the nominations page for best background each candidate should submit a couple of backgrounds that they think are best, in the same format that ended up on AGS. The arts are probably the easiest ones.... while the others you'd obviously have to download the game to get them.

And I like the live event, though it was nice to incorporate the art of the games into the awards. Which is why I mentioned the example above.

* This might not be true, but it's just an example.

I'd like to address some of Edmundo's points.

I half agree with the definition of Best Innovation, though I wouldn't give something like Fatman any kudos. Being the first to implement a feature isn't really an innovation (if it is, then where's my innovation award for being the first panoramic AGS game?! :=), and it's this muddying of just what a particular award covers that may result in some confusion.

Best Debut seems a good replacement for the "newbie" award. It doesn't refer to the length of time someone has been part of the community, which I think is what people have a problem with.

I don't think we need a parody or remake category, as we don't really get enough of either. I'm sure these games could be absorbed into an existing category or a newly combined one.

AGS Game of the Year seems like a good alternative to Best Game.

Best Puzzles is certainly a sticking point. How do you define best? Most straightforward? Most fun to solve? Best technique? It seems too vague, and, imho, could also be covered by Best Gameplay.

Programming is something that a lot of people who play these games, and vote, may not be familiar with - in a large enough capacity, that is, to differentiate between the pros and cons of a particular game's scripting. I suspect a number of people simply put the game they may be nominating as "Best Game" into this category also, regardless of any outstanding technical achievements in said game.

I'm not so sure about the whole "for you consideration" situation, nor whether all games that happen to be eligible should be automatically eligible. Perhaps a thread where a game has to be officially submitted before a second cut-off point? Although this would result in a nominate the nominees for nomination-type situation, which seems even worse. :-\

QuoteProgramming is something that a lot of people who play these games, and vote, may not be familiar with - in a large enough capacity, that is, to differentiate between the pros and cons of a particular game's scripting. I suspect a number of people simply put the game they may be nominating as "Best Game" into this category also, regardless of any outstanding technical achievements in said game.

I think this is especially true and has been one of my issues with this category for awhile.  Most casual players don't seem to realize (or care) about the amount of scripting effort and fiddling with ags it takes to make a competent beat-em-up game or any non-standard adventure, really. 

As the winner of the last p3n15 award, I'd like to see it's comeback. As long as people don't go voting for Al emoo and the thingy majig again.

Quote from: LimpingFish on Sun 05/10/2008 01:38:16
Programming is something that a lot of people who play these games, and vote, may not be familiar with - in a large enough capacity, that is, to differentiate between the pros and cons of a particular game's scripting. I suspect a number of people simply put the game they may be nominating as "Best Game" into this category also, regardless of any outstanding technical achievements in said game.

Having seen 3 years of individual nominations and votes, I can assure you this isn't true. Don't underestimate the voters. Most "I think people vote in stupid way X" are misapprehensions.

Quote
I'm not so sure about the whole "for you consideration" situation, nor whether all games that happen to be eligible should be automatically eligible. Perhaps a thread where a game has to be officially submitted before a second cut-off point? Although this would result in a nominate the nominees for nomination-type situation, which seems even worse. :-\

All games that are eligible ARE automatically eligible. The FYC has no bearing on anything: it's just an advertising thread.


Finally, no matter how many people or who they are ask, I am not reinstating the booby prize. Someone else is quite welcome to have their own "Golden Raspberries" awards, but I don't want it as part of the AGS awards:

1) It makes the awards and AGS in general look unprofessional, silly, jokey and puerile to outsiders.
2) It means that some of the award winners in the games DB are crap
3) It can offend people who didnt want to be nominated
4) It doesn't add anything to the awards by having it in

So, as with the IRC ceremony, someone is welcome to do their own awards (like the Foregos and Ergos in times past)

Quote from: SSH on Fri 03/10/2008 14:28:29
Lifetime Achievement, Best Innovation and Best Game by a Newcomer are chosen by committee

I'm not sure of the need for the Best Game by a Newcomer. In a way it seems to be implying that newcomers aren't able to produce a high quality game that will stand on its own merits, and need their own award to make them feel special instead ... I dunno, it just seems like it could be unintentionally patronising. And what if the same game wins Best Game by a Newcomer and the main Best Game award? It would be a bit silly.

QuoteGames in the DB as "Non-adventures" are eligible for:

Best Non-adventure, Best non-adv programming, and all the main categories except Best Game, Best Short Game and Best Programming

Games in the DB as "Joke games, MAGS games or Short games" are eligible for all the main categories plus Best Short Game

Games in the DB as Commercial are eligible for Best Commercial Game as well as the main categories

Games in the DB as medium or full length games are eligible for the main categories:

Overall: Best Game, Best Remake or Parody
Design/writing: Best Gameplay, Best Story, Best Dialogue, Best Puzzles, Best Tutorial or Documentation
Art: Best Character Art, Best Background Art, Best Animation
Sound: Best Voice Acting, Best Effects, Best Music

This all sounds a bit complicated ... I'm wondering if we actually need "Best non-adventure" at all? Why not allow the likes of Art of Theft to compete on the same stage as the rest of the year's games? If it's good enough then it could win the main Best Game award; it seems a bit silly that we're effectively sidelining some games just because they don't quite fit the Adventure genre.

Also, I'm not sure of the need for a Best Remake/Parody either ... again, why not let these compete with all the other games? I'd probably exclude remakes from being nominated for Best Story/Dialogue/Puzzles categories, but the rest of the game assets are original and I'd say they should be allowed to compete with other games.

I think best non-adventure game is important because AGS is intended/promoted/designed for making adventure games, and so those who use it for something completely different deserve recognition. Every year we have enough non-adventures out there anyway. However, it shouldn't mean that these games don't qualify for other categories as well. I see it analogous to the foreign film or the feature animation award at the Oscars.

Quote from: SSH on Sun 05/10/2008 09:56:21
Someone else is quite welcome to have their own "Golden Raspberries" awards,

Ooh, ooh, me sir, pick me sir! I'll take that as a challenge. Between now and janurary (when I plan to begin my new awards) I shall think of the  most unprofessional, silly, jokey, and puerile awards ceremony, dedicated solely to the humourous side of AGS games. Some awards off the top of my head-

Most Comedy (intentional)
Most Comedy (unintentional)
Least comedy in a comedy game.
Least proffessional from a proffesional

etc, etc.

And none of the awards will appear in the database, nor harm the AGS awards' good name, to boot.

Quote from: SSH on Sun 05/10/2008 09:56:21
Having seen 3 years of individual nominations and votes, I can assure you this isn't true. Don't underestimate the voters. Most "I think people vote in stupid way X" are misapprehensions.

Most active AGS developers may understand the ins and outs of programming, but I would personally hold the opinion that a large number of players would not. I certainly don't. When I do vote in that category, I usually end up nominating whichever games seemed to technically hold together the best, and contained the least amount of bugs. I wouldn't recognize complex scripting if it bit me in the face, though that's what the award is generally supposed to recognize, right?

Quote
All games that are eligible ARE automatically eligible. The FYC has no bearing on anything: it's just an advertising thread.

What I was getting at was the unfocused nature of all games being eligible by date, and the possibility of some form of secondary or follow-up period of eligibility. Technically all films from date X to date Y are eligible for the Academy Awards, but only those that meet the  rules of eligibility (http://www.oscars.org/78academyawards/rules/rule02.html) can be considered for nomination. I know we're not the Oscars, and the awards are traditionally just a friendly bit of fun. Perhaps then, just as AGS grows beyond the walls of this community, the awards need to evolve as a whole.

Quote
So, as with the IRC ceremony, someone is welcome to do their own awards (like the Foregos and Ergos in times past)

I don't agree with this splintering of the ceremony, with one version being more "official" than another. The FOREGOS and ERGOS aren't necessities, I agree, but who deemed the IRC ceremony redundant? The IRC ceremony may have failed last year, but that doesn't mean it has become obsolete. I'm a fan of the different input into the IRC ceremony, and, no offence (or depreciation of the work and time SSH puts into the awards), watching the ceremony become a one man show doesn't appeal to me, regardless of who that person may be. It was a laugh to see once, but watching an in-game ceremony, as it were, grow larger (and possibly longer!) each year (without the prospect of spontaneity, or random people showing up like they sometimes do on IRC) seems like a drag to me.

If anything, I would consider the in-game ceremony to be the optional factor of the awards. :-\

QuoteI'm wondering if we actually need "Best non-adventure" at all? Why not allow the likes of Art of Theft to compete on the same stage as the rest of the year's games? If it's good enough then it could win the main Best Game award; it seems a bit silly that we're effectively sidelining some games just because they don't quite fit the Adventure genre.

I somewhat agree with this, CJ.  Perhaps the logical compromise would be to change 'Best Game' to 'Best Adventure Game' and leave in 'Best Non-Adventure Game'.  This way people can vote on their favorite adventure and non-adventure game without feeling conflicted by which should take more precedence.  There seem to be more and more non-standard games being made with AGS these days, which is why I think a second category is useful.  It hasn't been as true in the past, though.

One thing that's honestly bothered me about the awards for some time now is people being nominated who don't even give a piss about winning the award or being a part of the ceremony/community.  I'd really like to see the authors themselves have to put up their game(s) for consideration, and I know from some discussions I've had with other members of the forum I'm not the only one who feels this way.  It shows a genuine interest on the part of the game creators to involve themselves in the awards rather than random fanboys/girls recommending their games, and modesty should have/has nothing to do with it.   I'm really against the award by proxy concept.



Just a thought.

Quote from: ProgZmax on Mon 06/10/2008 08:44:49
One thing that's honestly bothered me about the awards for some time now is people being nominated who don't even give a piss about winning the award or being a part of the ceremony/community.  I'd really like to see the authors themselves have to put up their game(s) for consideration, and I know from some discussions I've had with other members of the forum I'm not the only one who feels this way.  It shows a genuine interest on the part of the game creators to involve themselves in the awards rather than random fanboys/girls recommending their games, and modesty should have/has nothing to do with it.   I'm really against the award by proxy concept.

But Yahtzee hasn't made any AGS stuff this year anyway...

Wow, lots of suggestions here.

I don't really think we need so many new categories.

"Best newcomer" sounds more like a FOREGO award, besides we seem to be unable to give it a meaningful definition. If Mr. A releases a short demo-ish game and then a big one, whereas Ms. B starts a handful of projects and abandons them without releasing anything, before doing a big game, why would A be less eligible?

I don't think "best parody" or "best remake" is necessary either, considering neither is at all an under-appreciated genre (and besides, we don't get enough submissions to fill those extra categories). Likewise, I don't see the point of adding a category to give an award to the (few) commercial games we get each year, as those are hardly under-appreciated either. Unless the point is to omit commercial games from the other awards, which I don't think is a good idea.

And the "best innovation" category strikes me as rather arbitrary. Doing some clever scripting trick is really best programming instead (and likely won't be noticed anyway); doing a feature that simply hasn't been done in AGS before is hardly innovative either.

I think my point here is that having more categories dilutes the purpose of all of them, which I don't think is a good thing.

Gameplay is definitely distinct from puzzles, though. For instance, LOOM has great gameplay but barely any puzzles.

Personally I'd like bringing back the P3n1s award, but restricting it to games made as a joke. But given the flame wars we've had on the subject, I can see why people wouldn't want to.

Quote from: Radiant on Mon 06/10/2008 17:46:41
Personally I'd like bringing back the P3n1s award, but restricting it to games made as a joke. But given the flame wars we've had on the subject, I can see why people wouldn't want to.

In that case, how about we have "Best Joke Game" instead? This will make it an award for inventiveness rather than a potentially insulting booby prize.

ProgZmax has highlighted something that I feel could be avoided by having a more active eligibility process; if developers had to be personally responsible for submitting their games for consideration for nomination, for instance. As far as I know, Yahtzee doesn't even bother adding his games to the database himself. Nor has he posted, on these boards, his thanks for people having voted for his games. It's like Marlon Brando sending a Native American to collect his oscar.

Actually, it's more like a fan of Marlon Brando sending a Native American to collect his oscar!

I think if we got more developers actively involved, we might find a bigger audience for the awards. For those who can't be bothered, and therefore may miss out on an award or two, well, dems de breaks!

Radiant echoes my earlier points about superfluous awards, and I agree that less categories (and perhaps clearer definitions about the remaining ones) would (hopefully) streamline the awards process.

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.

Enlightening, thanks!

Quote from: ProgZmax on Mon 06/10/2008 08:44:49
One thing that's honestly bothered me about the awards for some time now is people being nominated who don't even give a piss about winning the award or being a part of the ceremony/community.  [...]

I understand that but don't agree. I feel it all boils down to what you think the "scope" of the awards is: if you consider them a community activity you might want developers "involved" with the boards.
If you, like me, see the Awards as something addressed to forumers but to "outsiders" too (a showcase of AGS as a tool of creation), you want every AGS game to compete.

Well, I very much do think the awards have been and are a community activity and a community reward for outstanding games made by members.

Also:

QuoteBut Yahtzee hasn't made any AGS stuff this year anyway...

This wasn't really necessary, was it?  I think it's pretty clear that I wasn't just talking about Yahtzee.

Indeed, the awards are a community activity and thus should stay as a fun, relaxed event to the community, atleast as long as they don't start attracting media around the world. AGS hasn't gone that professional yet, that we'd need polished and professional looking awards, in my opinion.

I don't really see the grounds for the best remake/whatever category being too strong. There are so few released every year to my knowledge that having a category for them would need them excluded from the rest, which again doesn't sound that ideal. Then again, if it were so it might encourage people to make remakes and run for quality in them, as it might seem like an "easy" award with a lot of value.

The Best Adventure/Best Non-Adventure divide sounds good, with both types being eligible in the more specific categories, as far as they go in those aspects.

Since the Best Programming awards seems to cause so much confusion, should it be renamed to something a bit more elaborate? If the award was about the game done with most care to it, as in no bugs, functional and easy interface, etc, maybe something like "Best Technical Design and Execution" or something. Since "programming" as it is is perhaps hard to see to the outside by most of the players maybe the award should be geared a bit more towards the technical output and what is carried over by the scripter's work to the player.

Another thought, "The P3n1sh Award aka Best Joke or Other Non-serious Game". (Authors of nominated games could maybe be asked to confirm that their game can be a nominee here, to avoid upsetting anyone too badly or something...) Community spirit and legacy, or some such somethingorother, anyone?

Stray observations:

I like the "Best Debut" idea. I think it's nice to recognize the people who have stepped out on the scene and made a game for the first time. There are some definitional problems with what counts as a first game, and if it still counts if you got help from AGS veterans, but I think a committee could easily vet the nominees.

I also think "Best Innovation" is an important quality to honor. It's not about clever scripting or implementing some obvious feature that no AGS game has got around to including before. It's about coming up with new, creative ideas that increase the scope for how adventure games are told and played. There have been many innovative and original AGS games (including previous winners, as well as several games by Radiant), and I think that innovative games often don't get the attention they deserve.

While "Best Gameplay" and "Best Puzzles" are not exactly the same thing, I don't think we need separate awards for them. I'd argue for just one "Best Puzzles/Gameplay" category instead. Puzzles are just one particular form of gameplay, so a game with excellent puzzles could win the gameplay category on that strength. I also get the impression that some people are confused about what "gameplay" means, so this might help.

I like the "Parody/Remake" idea in theory, since it's often very hard to decide how to treat them compared to other entries, but there's not much point if there aren't enough eligible games.

I really dislike the idea of creators having to submit their games for nomination. For one thing, I think it's unfair to players and voters: If I feel that some game by a non-forum member was the best AGS game of the year, I should be allowed to vote for it.

I also kind of miss the P3N15 award. In the discussions at the time, the consensus seemed to be to keep it, and the unilateral decision to eliminate it kind of rubs me the wrong way. A separate awarding body might be an acceptable compromise, though.

Quote
I like the "Parody/Remake" idea in theory, since it's often very hard to decide how to treat them compared to other entries, but there's not much point if there aren't enough eligible games.

Well, there's at least 3 top quality ones: QFG2VGA, Quest for Yrolg and Little Girl in Underland.

Quote
I really dislike the idea of creators having to submit their games for nomination. For one thing, I think it's unfair to players and voters: If I feel that some game by a non-forum member was the best AGS game of the year, I should be allowed to vote for it.

People have been confused by the two-step process already, so a three-step process doesn't seem to have a point.

Quote
I also kind of miss the P3N15 award. In the discussions at the time, the consensus seemed to be to keep it, and the unilateral decision to eliminate it kind of rubs me the wrong way.

You don't want to rub your P3N15 the wrong way, thats for sure.


My current feeling from the debate is that we try having these extra awards out this year and see how it goes. If the Debut and Remake/Parody awards fall flat or just duplicate other awards then we can drop them again. After all, I dropped the best resource award after the time when it only had one nominee...

Quote from: SSH on Tue 07/10/2008 10:00:39
Well, there's at least 3 top quality ones: QFG2VGA, Quest for Yrolg and Little Girl in Underland.

Do you reckon Quest for Yrolg is a QFG parody, though? Just because of the title? Other than that, and perhaps the three classes of hero, I don't see much else to connect them. I think it could be up for best Innovation, though. (There's a little bit of Dungeon Keeper in there, but the Rube Goldberg-style puzzles make for a very different gameplay mechanic.)

Quote
You don't want to rub your P3N15 the wrong way, thats for sure.

:P

QuoteMy current feeling from the debate is that we try having these extra awards out this year and see how it goes. If the Debut and Remake/Parody awards fall flat or just duplicate other awards then we can drop them again. After all, I dropped the best resource award after the time when it only had one nominee...

I'm fine with that. (Yes, you can print that as an endorsement.)

The last list you posted of award categories confused me. You mention a lot of categories that games could be eligible for, but those categories don't show up in the list. Could we have just a complete list of the categories you plan to use, please?

Oh, and I forgot to mention: I thought the in-game awards ceremony was a fun idea. Thank you, SSH! Are you still planning to do it again this year even if m0ds does one on live IRC? If so, here are some ideas for how to take it to the next level:

-Show the current award category on the screen. Last time I kept forgetting which award they were talking about.
-Last time it got pretty obvious that it was all your "voice." Instead, winners should write their own speeches. Either let them know in advance that they've won, or ask each of the nominees to send you a speech to use in case they win.
-You could do the same thing for the presenters, maybe. At least get people to send you more of their characters from the games from the year.
-Music! Sound effects! (Cheering etc.)
-A more elaborate presentation of the nominees would be nice, especially if it could demonstrate what they were being nominated for. I think the way that "background art" was presented last year is a good model for the other categories. Stuff like "best music" and "best dialogue" should be easy enough to demonstrate. For puzzles, you might even give the viewer the option to play a little snippet of the game, if you want to get insanely ambitious about the whole thing.
-A nicer background screen, and maybe some cutaways to the crowd in the auditorium and so forth. I fully support the idea of a background blitz to create these screens.
-The scenery should also include some sort of huge monitor or projection screen where the samples from the games are shown, so they don't just get overlaid randomly on screen.
-The huge Nelly was fun last year, but I think in the future I'd prefer that the in-game awards run in a high resolution and the low-res sprites get scaled up, to maintain roughly consistent proportions between characters.
-Yeah, it would be nice to be able to jump to specific awards. Not really a high priority, though.
-Trophies?

Ummm, yeah. That should do it. You can whip up all that stuff without problem, right SSH?

Quote from: Snarky on Tue 07/10/2008 16:17:20
-The huge Nelly was fun last year, but I think in the future I'd prefer that the in-game awards run in a high resolution and the low-res sprites get scaled up, to maintain roughly consistent proportions between characters.

They were. Even with that, Nelly is still waaaay bigger.

Quote from: Snarky on Tue 07/10/2008 16:17:20
-Last time it got pretty obvious that it was all your "voice." Instead, winners should write their own speeches. Either let them know in advance that they've won, or ask each of the nominees to send you a speech to use in case they win.

But that was my favorite part of the ceremony!  :)

Quote from: SSH on Tue 07/10/2008 16:40:52
They were. Even with that, Nelly is still waaaay bigger.

So... scale them some more? (I know using different scaling for different characters is a bit tricky, but it wouldn't be too difficult to add a scalingfactor property to each character and prescale it by that amount, would it?)

So, what about the full list of categories, and the question of whether to do another in-game ceremony?

Since nobody else followed up on it, I must say that I think SSH's suggestion of running the awards on Stickam is an excellent idea. To me, it would feel more like watching a "real" awards ceremony. Of course the nominees and host would have to dress up - I want to see SSH in a kilt :)
There could be "red carpet interviews" with attendees before the actual awards begin and using ManyCam it would also be possible to show still frames or even broadcast (pre-recorded) footage from the nominated games. Since the debate function only offers video for the host and the winners, we wouldn't need a separate channel for comments like we had on IRC to avoid clutter. Of course a few winners won't have webcams, or may not want to appear on video, but I'm sure their responses won't be drowned out in the chat window.

The video feed could even be recorded using screen grabber software and offered as download/streaming video for those not able to participate, just like the old IRC logs.

Stickam wouldn't be a bad idea aside from there being no way to prevent people from starting cam spots and interrupting the proceedings.  Unless it was password protected the large number of visitors would likely draw a lot of annoying randumbs as well.

Yes, this is one Stickam room that would need a password. I think the awards could work really well there. Granted, I have never seen the awards, or been on IRC....  ;D

Quote from: ProgZmax on Tue 07/10/2008 19:34:58Stickam wouldn't be a bad idea aside from there being no way to prevent people from starting cam spots and interrupting the proceedings.

As far as I know that should not be a problem when using the debate mode - only the mods can allow participants to broadcast video. But yes, it should be password protected if possible not to have too many random people coming and going.

Edit: Can't find anything about password protection, but you can read more about how debate rooms work here: http://webmaster.stickam.com/2007/01/debate_room_beta.html

The Stickam idea would indeed be fun, although pulling it off would be tricky. IRC is hard enough to get organized, and all it requires is people being awake at their keyboards. They don't even have to be presentable; something Stickam would probably be quick to highlight. Cool idea, though.

Snarky's list of upgrades to the in-game ceremony sound cool too, though they also sound like a lot of work. They also ask potential nominees to participate just as much as we've been complaining about in this thread, which probably means they'd cause the same problems. Informing the winners before hand seems to take some of the fun out of presenting the awards; unless they're only informed the day before, which would give them little time to prepare anything.

Still, if the in-game ceremony was to play a larger part, I'd be happy to lend a hand. And in the spirit of doing so...

Possible opening titles idea! (http://homepage.eircom.net/~limpingfish/Titles.avi)

It's rough, it's a Xvid AVI file, and it's only 700kb. Click or Right click to download. :)

Whoa! Many things discussed in the last days.

Regarding the whole "Being imvolved in the community to be eligible for awards" thingy: The AGS awards aren't just a little community activity only for the members of this community. For one, doing so would remove the value of many awards, I want award winners to know they truly deserved their awards, I don't want winners to feel they won a silver medal because other good games weren't competing against them. For two, the AGS awards aren't just a little unofficial side activity, they have their own search category on the official game database and are de facto the official award for all things AGS, and many many other indie and adventure games websites think the same and report the results of the AGS awards for their readers. The AGS awards are already bigger than this forum, and as such, they should reflect all AGS games made during the years and not just the games made by the people who are active on this forum.

About merging the Gameplay and Puzzle: Before it is decided to merge Best Gameplay and Best Puzzle, I think we'd need to define both. In my book, Best Gameplay stand for the gameplay itself, how innovative the game is gameplay speaking, how smooth the gameplay is (easy to use and intuitive GUI, good character walking speed, etc.)... while the Best Puzzle award focus for the puzzle aspect of gameplay, puzzles that aren't too easy nor too hard, that are logical, that are creative and not boring, repetitive or overdone, whether the game features multiple solutions etc. A game could have a bad gameplay but some great puzzles, or play like a charm but feature the most boring and overdone puzzles in existance.

I don't think the Best Remake/Parody category is necessary. Also, Quest for Yrolg might make fun of some fantasy settings conventions, but it's certainly not a parody and doesn't have its place in that category.

I second what Chris said about non-adventure being eligible to all awards as long they fit. That being said, something should be done to the Best Programming award because, it's hard to a lot of voters to judge the code's complexity and non-adventure will always seems more complex than adventures, whether it's true or not.

Could we have a little recap of what is set in stone so far and what isn't? So many suggestions and ideas have been thrown in this thread that it's hard to follow.

Quote from: blueskirt on Tue 07/10/2008 22:51:05
"Being involved in the community to be eligible for awards"

I don't think that's what's been proposed; not by me, anyway. I just thought that if the eligibility process was a little more involved, that it might bring more developers into the fold, and perhaps elevate the desire to win an award. As it stands, some developers don't even acknowledge that fact that they won.

If you had to work a little harder to be eligible, you might appreciate the award more. Or not. Who knows?

Quote from: blueskirt on Tue 07/10/2008 22:51:05
About merging the Gameplay and Puzzle: Before it is decided to merge Best Gameplay and Best Puzzle, I think we'd need to define both. In my book, Best Gameplay stand for the gameplay itself, how innovative the game is gameplay speaking, how smooth the gameplay is (easy to use and intuitive GUI, good character walking speed, etc.)... while the Best Puzzle award focus for the puzzle aspect of gameplay, puzzles that aren't too easy nor too hard, that are logical, that are creative and not boring, repetitive or overdone, whether the game features multiple solutions etc. A game could have a bad gameplay but some great puzzles, or play like a charm but feature the most boring and overdone puzzles in existance.

I've always considered Gameplay to be the element of challenging interactivity within the game. The mechanics of play, if you like. So I would give the Gameplay award to the game that offers the most creative, interesting and entertaining interactive mechanic. That could be great puzzles, great minigames, or a great "virtual world" to interact with. Games that are addictive probably have great gameplay. I would also consider things like pacing, learning curve, variation, etc. when evaluating gameplay.

Things like UI and walking speed can affect the gameplay (but then again, so can writing, music, graphics and programming prowess), but are different from what I mean when I use the term. Actually, I would say that gameplay is the thing that means that even if you change everything else, you still have essentially "the same game".

QuoteThe AGS awards aren't just a little community activity only for the members of this community.

I find it odd that people actually believe this when the awards were created for the purpose of rewarding people who made exceptional games for this community.  Why do you think having the game in OUR database is a requirement?  Just to establish a date of release?  I don't think so  ;).

How can anyone even say this isn't a community activity with a straight face?  :o

Y\

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 08/10/2008 07:26:48

QuoteThe AGS awards aren't just a little community activity only for the members of this community.

I find it odd that people actually believe this when the awards were created for the purpose of rewarding people who made exceptional games for this community.  Why do you think having the game in OUR database is a requirement?  Just to establish a date of release?  I don't think so  ;).

How can anyone even say this isn't a community activity with a straight face?  :o

People have made exceptional games for other communities(themselves), and we still loved them, so if anyone can say that this not a community activ, that would be Blahtzee. Other than that, I have to say that well, if any game is qualified as made with AGS it should be able to fit in, instead of having to be in the database, but well it would be harder to spot on any AGS game made. Anyway, as for remakes, CASTLE OF FIRE!!!

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 08/10/2008 07:26:48
Why do you think having the game in OUR database is a requirement?  Just to establish a date of release?  I don't think so  ;).

DGMacphee used to trawl the CGA forum for any games that weren't in the DB, which was an arduous task and not one I'm prepared to undertake. Also, the games DB establishes a date of release. Games need to be in the DB for CJ's final voting script to work, too (in fact, when I submit Pick of the Month I see the possibility of nominating the dummy entries CJ has to make in the DB for the Best Character awards, etc. :D )

So, actually, they need to be in the DB for convenience's sake, mainly.

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 08/10/2008 07:26:48
Why do you think having the game in OUR database is a requirement?  Just to establish a date of release?  I don't think so  ;).

So Quest for Yrolg isn't a candidate for best parody/remake. Seems to be a special QFG2VGA category  ::)

Quote from: SSH
Also, the games DB establishes a date of release. Games need to be in the DB for CJ's final voting script to work, too (in fact, when I submit Pick of the Month I see the possibility of nominating the dummy entries CJ has to make in the DB for the Best Character awards, etc. :D )

So, actually, they need to be in the DB for convenience's sake, mainly.

So, technically speaking, if Yahtzee's later games hadn't been added to the database by a minion, he never could have won an award?  :o

Sounds like more than just convenience, then.

Doesn't this highlight some flaws in the current awards setup?

Quote from: LimpingFish on Wed 08/10/2008 18:16:35
So, technically speaking, if Yahtzee's later games hadn't been added to the database by a minion, he never could have won an award?  :o

Yes, in the same way that if all the Catholics in the world stopped believing then the Pope would be out of a job... it just doesnt seem likely.

This requirement for the awards has been around for 3 years and is mentioned usually 3 months in advance. And if you don't get your game in in time, you can add it later and be eligible for an award a different year (as happened with Automation).

If I did do an awards ceromony, it would not be on stickam. Sorry. I hate the f***ing thing. And it has no real relation to AGS. So x, y and that random chick I can't name who's not actually done much towards AGS goes on it. That's all. IRC is a much better choice for 2009 :)

That is all :)

Quote from: ProgZmax on Wed 08/10/2008 07:26:48

QuoteThe AGS awards aren't just a little community activity only for the members of this community.

I find it odd that people actually believe this when the awards were created for the purpose of rewarding people who made exceptional games for this community.  Why do you think having the game in OUR database is a requirement?  Just to establish a date of release?  I don't think so  ;).

How can anyone even say this isn't a community activity with a straight face?  :o

Notice the word "just" in my original quote. It's not just that. Like I said, the awards are used on the official website, and the results are discussed on various indie and adventure games websites around the web. They're something much bigger than say, a Background Blitz, and as such, AGS awards should be about all things AGS, and that include the AGS things happening outside this forum.

I don't agree, really, but that's the great thing about being individuals.  I am 100% with LimpingFish that authors should submit their own games if they want recognition.  I see no reason why the awards should be for someone who doesn't care whether their games are included or not and doesn't recognize the award, and no one has said anything so far to sufficiently explain why this is wrong or an otherwise bad idea for a community activity.

At any rate, I'm not going to pursue a circular discussion without any reasonable resolution, much like 90% of internet disagreements where everyone thinks they are absolutely right and everyone else is wrong...

Here's how I see it:

The AGS awards--while being a community activity--are here to acknowledge AGS games that have performed above and beyond the contenders, whether those games were made exclusively for the AGS community or not. The game's database just seems like a necessary requirement to catalog all the contenders and archive the entire process.

Quote from: ProgZmax on Thu 09/10/2008 03:59:21
At any rate, I'm not going to pursue a circular discussion without any reasonable resolution, much like 90% of internet disagreements where everyone thinks they are absolutely right and everyone else is wrong...

Indeed, and in the end its only my opinion that matters ;)  :P

I second ProgZmax and LimpingFish, that it's a community activity anyway, and should only cover this community. The AGS website is basically about the community too. If an author wants to take part, possibly win an award, they should at least show that little recognition to the community of adding their game themselves. After all, AGS boils down to a community effort. Though CJ's coding it by himself, without the community around him it wouldn't be what it is today, I dare guess.

Anyone got an idea of how to TELL who put it in the DB? I think another level of nomination is unworkable unnecessary red tape. Its hard enough getting enough people to vote or nominate as it is. Lets see if we can get either into triple figures this year for the first time!

I don't think any additional effort on your part is required beyond using the same 'for your consideration' thread you did before, except the authors of the games who want to be eligible should make a small post in that thread to indicate their interest in the awards rather than just anyone.  This also spares you the effort of looking up all the 2008 games :).

The database already knows the games from 2008. Trawling through a thread is more work than a database query. Also, what happens if someone else submits a game in the FYC thread?

Sorry, I don't actually want answers to these questions. I am doing it the same way as before. The AGS Awards are for all AGS games no matter how involved ppl are in the forums. I'm not going to exclude anyone just becuase they maybe didn't read the right forum threads or stopped coming to the forums or any number of reasons why they might not submit to FYC. It sounds like some people have a vendetta against some individuals who they guess are not going to enter their games. If their game is good enough to get the votes, it will win. Being part of the community will get more voters to vote for you, no doubt, so therefore community members already have an advantage.

Well then, pretty much a pointless thread, wasn't it? A heads up next year, so we don't waste our time, would be nice.

Well, I never asked if it would be a good idea to add a further layer of complexity to the voting process. I did ask about categories and there's been a useful discussion there. I've taken on board a number of points, and probably will skip the remake/parody section, now, for example. Similarly the IRC ceremony. Because I didn't like your suggestions doesn't mean the whole thread was a waste of time.

Quote from: SSH on Thu 02/10/2008 11:43:38
1. Is the nomination system OK?

I thought that meant it was open for debate. But, regardless of the debate, you seemed to have made up your mind from the outset and announced the discussion closed.

Quote from: SSH
Sorry, I don't actually want answers to these questions. I am doing it the same way as before.

So in the end, it was a pointless question. I wouldn't have bothered offering my suggestions if they were already considered void.

And I realize this makes me look argumentative and petty, which is the real reason I'm annoyed. Bah.

I never said I wanted to exclude anybody, just put a little more responsibility on potential nominees, from inside or outside the community. I still don't see how this could be considered a bad thing.

Talk of vendettas or some form of elitism is a bit much. I only used Yahtzee's award record vs his total lack of involvement in the process to illustrate my point. I couldn't give a fiddler's fug about his personal reasons for doing so.

hmmm, i see what you mean. I havent ignored your arguments in the issue, but they're not compelling for me. I hadnt decided to keep it the same at the start of this thread, but I wasnt convinced by anyone's ideas for changing the process.

And Yahtzee did send me his Trilby .CHA file for the awards ceremony this year, so he's not entirely disinterested.

Fair enough. :)

I want to know more about this fiddler's fug.

I'd appreciate comment on this mockup of a nominations page (http://ssh.me.uk/ags_nom_mockup.html). Please comment on the page practicality, etc. rather than "I thought you were going to do category X", and so on, since ITS A MOCKUP.

Huh, wow, on first view it looks quite confusing.

How are the games determined which are available for nomination and thus will have their own row on this page?

Quote from: cat on Mon 20/10/2008 17:57:24
How are the games determined which are available for nomination and thus will have their own row on this page?

*sigh* read the thread...

Games which appear in this page (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/games.php?action=digest&year=2008) will be eligible. i.e. any game submitted to the AGS Games DB between 1 Jan 2008 and 31 Dec 2008.

Ok, I was confused because there are quite a lot games released in a year. So I thought this would be too much for your layout and that there would be some filtering before. Sorry.

So far there are 12 demo games, roughly 10 non-adventures and the rest are 50/50 short/long. So given 100-odd games in 10 months, we should expect 120-130 in 12 months. Which makes about 50 max rows in one table. I think that will be OK.

Hopefully we can order the rows Randomly for each voter so no game has an advantage by being first or last or in the middle.

I like it. I think it's pretty simple once you look at it and it's all on one page.

I think it works well, but I think it could easily get out of hand with 50 rows in a table. I think that you should repeat the list of categories every 5 - 10 rows just to make it a bit easier to read. It might also be prudent to put each table on a separate page, but I'm not sure how important that would be without looking at the whole gigantic list.

I like that you have the games' titles right in front your eyes; I will no more fail to nominate a great game inadvertently just because I've played it long ago and it wasn't mentioned in the big "for your consideration" thread.

The only minor drawback of this setup (me thinks) is that the list could/will be pretty long. That means you will check some of the boxes without being able to see the labes above -> room for mistakes.

But other than that, an excellent reshape of the nominations page!

I like the concept, and the new grouping of categories. The only concern I would have, as already mentioned, is the practicality of the full version.

But this is a great start.

I think I'd better knock up a full-size version so that we can see if the problems people are worried about occur. I'd like to know, too:

1) Does it still look OK if you are colour blind?
2) I've tried it in FF3, IE6 and Chrome. Let me know if any more obscure browsers make it look odd.

Quote from: SSH on Mon 20/10/2008 20:40:26
2) I've tried it in FF3, IE6 and Chrome. Let me know if any more obscure browsers make it look odd.

In Opera it looks fine.

Hmmm... it seems pretty confusing, and like a lot of work to go through.

Before, I would usually go award by award and try to think of the best games I've played for that category. Now it seems like I have to go game by game and try to think of all the things it might be eligible for.

In a system like this, I also think you need a way to review your selections at the end. Otherwise, it would be easy to end up not nominating any games for the "Best Tutorial" category, for example. How is stuff like the "You can only nominate 5 games in each category" going to be enforced, anyway?

What I think might be better would be to have a simple main page, that initially just lists the award categories. Then from each category you can go to a list of all the games eligible in that category, checkmark each game you want to nominate, and OK to return to the main page. Your selections then show up listed under the category. If you have too many, you can remove some directly from the main page. If you don't, you won't be able to submit your nominations.

It would also be great if you could have a category for "Games I've played", where you could go through and mark the games you've played (duh!). Once you do this, only those games get listed in the lists for the other categories, which would make the rest of the nominating process much quicker. (Might also make for some interesting stats.)

Finally, it would be great to have access to a screenshot from each game, in case you don't remember it from the title alone. It could simply be the screen from the AGS games database. You probably don't want it in the table itself, but maybe as a popup if you click on or hover over the game name?

I'm not sure about this potential look for the nomination page -- it is nice and compact, and easily fits all the choices into a small area. But on the other hand, it is quite a lot of information to be presented with in one go and could be confusing for some people.

How about keeping the same type of nomination page as last year, but having (say) 10 drop-down list boxes to choose nominations for each category, rather than having text boxes for people to type the game names in by hand?

I do like Snarky's idea of having an initial: click yes or no to the games you've played... then after you submit that, it'll throw you the entire nominations page with only the games you've played.  (I imagine you have the knowledge to do this - from the things I've seen you do)

Also, don't forget to make the link to the database on each game title, open a new window.  You don't want anyone closing the vote window by accident, or having the vote check boxes erase when they hit back (i've seen this happen before).

I can see the Non-player character text box being quite inconvenient for you sort out afterwards.  Bad spelling or an input like 'that guy with the knife'.  I imagine you'll only be limited to 5 names for this as well?

I think CJ's on to something with the drop-down list, though this would not be workable for the non-player character category.  Drop-down lists with the game titles for each category would probably work better than radio buttons, overall.

Good points, folks. OK, so seems like there's two better ideas:

1. Choose the games you have played and then these are the only ones available to choose from

2. Have drop-down lists

Of course, we could do both. There's also the possibility of using "multiple select" list box instead of multiple dropdowns, or even checkboxes in option #2

As for mis-spellings, in previous years I had to deal with misspellings in EVERY category. Not to mention completely invalid entries.

I checked the nomination page for AGS Awards. It looks fine. But if this a full list of games or just an example how the page will look like? There are many more games made in 2008.

You can include nomination for best location - island, planet, bar and e.t.c

OK, quick mock-up #2: http://ssh.me.uk/ags_nom_mockup2.html

This time you choose the games you have played in the checkboxes at the top, and this enables them to be selected in the listbox below. Ctrl-click for multiple nominations.

Quick mock-up #2 looks better.

Nice execution!  :D

But on IE 6.0.29 (I'm at work), whenever I select one game the list is filled with them all...

Let me post a screenshot

(http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/7006/sshbl1.png)

And whenever I deselect everything the listbox remains visible.  :-\

Fliiping IE. The listbox doesnt go away when everything is deselected becuase my coding was lazy... but IE6 seems to to respect the "display:none" style on <OPTION> tags :(

Grr. Googling indicates that solutions are very convoluted. We might need to use checkboxes instead.

I like it.  It keeps things simple.

Quote from: SSH on Tue 21/10/2008 12:29:59
OK, quick mock-up #2: http://ssh.me.uk/ags_nom_mockup2.html

This time you choose the games you have played in the checkboxes at the top, and this enables them to be selected in the listbox below. Ctrl-click for multiple nominations.

Actually, this works much better. I like this a lot, assuming we can get it to co-operate.

Yes, I think something like that could work. It could always be split into two pages -- a "select games you've played" page followed by a "select categories" page in order to let the server do the processing of generating the listboxes.

But the technical details can be worked out later once we've agreed how we want it to look.

Agreed that Best Non-Player Character would need an additional field to specify the character name.

Having thought about it a little bit more, I suggest that we break it into two pages, and divide the checkboxes on the first page into sections so that it's not one massive wall of options - maybe one section per letter of the alphabet with a bit of blank space between them, just so it's a bit easier to read through, and not so difficult to plow all the way through.

The problem with lists this big is that it's difficult to make them look like they're possible to read all the way through; I think breaking it up a little will result in more people participating in the nominations.

EDIT: If we're concerned about the order of presentation affecting people's choices, maybe we could list them by random chunks of 10 or so?

Quote from: Makeout Patrol on Wed 22/10/2008 00:03:17
I suggest that we break it into two pages, and divide the checkboxes on the first page into sections so that it's not one massive wall of options - maybe one section per letter of the alphabet with a bit of blank space between them, just so it's a bit easier to read through, and not so difficult to plow all the way through.

I was just going to suggest that.

My idea would be to have one page where you select which games you played (divided into A, B, C, etc.), the second you could have the categories, each with a dropdown menu next to it containing all the games you selected.

Quote from: TwinMoon on Wed 22/10/2008 01:30:26

Quote from: Makeout Patrol on Wed 22/10/2008 00:03:17
I suggest that we break it into two pages, and divide the checkboxes on the first page into sections so that it's not one massive wall of options - maybe one section per letter of the alphabet with a bit of blank space between them, just so it's a bit easier to read through, and not so difficult to plow all the way through.

I was just going to suggest that.

My idea would be to have one page where you select which games you played (divided into A, B, C, etc.), the second you could have the categories, each with a dropdown menu next to it containing all the games you selected.

Yes, and the menus on the second page would be ordered at random to avoid placement bias. I'm not sure what I was thinking by suggesting that we order the part where people are looking for specific games randomly...

Nice. To fine-tune the solution, I would recommend:

1. If you're going to rely on Ctrl-Click to select multiple, that needs to be explained. Very. Clearly.
2. The "select which games you've played" step should probably be optional, and not the first thing a player sees when starting the nominations process.
3. There should be "select all" and "select none" options for the "games you've played" list, and it should start out with everything selected.

I quite liked my idea of having a main page that shows the different categories w/ your current nominations, from which you can access the selection lists. It wouldn't have to be on a separate page, if you just expanded each section when a user clicked it. Obviously we have to weigh the usability benefit against the effort of implementation.

I've been experimenting with an alternative design. Have a look at this:

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/AGSAwards/Home.aspx

The idea behind this approach is that you can look down the list of games, with screenshots and descriptions; and then if you want to nominate it you check the tick-box, which then allows you to select the nomination categories for the game.

I'm not sure what people think, but I think that this way allows you to concentrate more on looking at each game you've played and working out which categories it goes in, rather than listing by award category and then having to think of games that you played that would fit the bill.

Also, I noticed there are a couple of games this year that are actually translations of other games (eg 1213 Russian, Cosmos Quest 2 Spanish) -- should these even be in the database at all? Surely these should just be extra translation files that are available from the game's website, or included in its normal download?

Nice effort! I slightly prefer SSH's attempts, but the bottom line is: everyone of this mockups are way, way better than the old nomination page.

Quote from: Pumaman on Sun 26/10/2008 16:06:03
Also, I noticed there are a couple of games this year that are actually translations of other games (eg 1213 Russian, Cosmos Quest 2 Spanish) -- should these even be in the database at all? Surely these should just be extra translation files that are available from the game's website, or included in its normal download?

1213 Russian was translated without the author knowing it (i.e. opening the .exe and changing words with a text editor).

I don't think that translations should be allowed for AGS Awards. If the gameplay, characters, and plot are absolutely excellent, the translation basically has nothing to do with it. Besides, that can be exploited in the future as a way to resubmit games.

However, if there is a translation available for a game that is nominated for Best Writing, it should be included in the description with maybe a short review, ie. "Blah Quest has both Spanish and Czech translations, but are lacking in correct grammar for the languages."

~Trent

Oh, I like that version, CJ. I don't see why something along those lines couldn't work. Just add in the ability to limit the number of games a person can nominate in each category and that's a pretty good prototype right there.

Didn't the old nomination page allow a user to nominate ten games in each category?

Being able to jump between the list alphabetically (in case you already know the name of the game you wish to nominate) would also be handy. As would the ability to sort the list by game type (Full, medium, etc). Yeah, I can see a fully-featured version of that design working out grand.

As for translations, I agree that extra database entries are superfluous. If the file can't be included in the original distribution, a post in the games CGA thread linking to the file should be enough. And they certainly shouldn't be included for the awards if the original version of the game was previously eligible.

Yeah, there's no good reason at all for those translations to be separate games.  Also, I really like CJ's layout and would echo Fish's suggestion, maybe by having an A-Z bar at the top of the page for switching letters quickly.