🏆 AGS Awards 2023 - Awards are over!

[Kastchey]

Congratulations to all the winners, and thank you everyone who attended the ceremony last night! It's amazing to see such a great turnout, and I'm glad that almost all the winners were there to accept the award in person.

Apologies to Manu who couldn't collect the award for Best Non-Adventure Game 2023 personally, due to the Mac client issue. I'm glad that you could at least join us via stream (a shout-out to Scavenger for hosting the live stream).

(Also, sorry Kini for accidentally summoning you to the stage. I try not to misclick, but it does happen!)

[Scavenger]

For those that missed the ceremony but still want to watch the awards, I recorded the stream I did and uploaded the footage to youtube:

[Ponch]

Congrats to the winners, the nominees, and the attendees. And a big high-five to the people who put the event together. As always, it was a very fun event. 

[RootBound]

Thanks again to everyone who voted for Tunnel Vision! It was incredible to see it appear in some of the same categories as games like Shards of God, D-list Diva, Abscission, Dreams in the Witch House, and Stranger in Utopia. I'm still so amazed and gratified it got nominated in three different categories.

Congratulations to all the winners and all the other nominees, and thanks again to the organizers for making the ceremony such a special and successful event. I'm very grateful for all the support of the AGS community as I learned, and as I keep learning, how to make good games. Onward!

[heltenjon]

Sorry, this will be a bit long.

Thanks to the organizers for a fun event. It's a lot of work behind it, and we all appreciate how well you are doing it. Personally, I love the banter between Duals and Kas, the jokes from the crowd and stuff like Creamy changing avatar every other minute. At the same time, we can be serious when we need to, and I feel the emojis really are the best ways to respond when we are doing eulogies for our lost ones. This is a great community to be a part of!

Secondly, thanks to the committee for honouring me with an award. While I may feel I could have waited a few years for that one, I hope it can be an encouragement to others to be active, make posts and try to support the game developers and others in our community in any way you can. My rolemodel here is @Shadow1000 , who has been doing what I do for far longer than me. And what do we do? I'll let another one of my heroes explain:

Re engagement, I will definitely leave some props/encouragement/respect if I like what I see, even if I don't end up downloading it or haven't played it yet. Everybody likes getting feedback, everybody likes knowing people have enjoyed their work in one way or another, so why not let them know. It doesn't take a lot of effort and you make someone a bit happier.

Thirdly, a big thank you to the same (?) committee for honouring @fernewelten with the Tech Achievement award. He deserves it, doubly so now that the best puzzle award is out in limbo.  I'd like the proper reasons given by the jury to be posted, too, as that one was lost during the ceremony. Congratulations, Fernewelten!

Finally, I'd like to congratulate the winners and the nominees. The quality of what you guys put out there is very high, so it's a badge of honour even to be nominated. I'm kind of happy that all the "big three" of this year shared the prizes. It's fun to see a game win a lot, but I feel that it may give a better impression of how close the race is when there are awards for more than one game.

For 2024: Make games! Play games! Comment and rate! Give feedback! It's a lot easier to vote when you find your own notes for the games in the game threads.  And buy Khris and the other helping angels a coffee. In a blue cup.

[Stupot]

I just caught up on the video of the ceremony. Great stuff everyone. You're all beautiful people.

Well done to the winners. And thanks to the team and all the presenters, to cat for presenting the MAGGIES with great aplomb, and to Dualy and Cap'n for their moving words about Les and Philip.

Also lovely to see heltenjon get credit for rating and commenting like a machine.

[Laura Hunt]

And what do we do? I'll let another one of my heroes explain:

Eek! * blushes *

Wow, that was a while back! Now that I'm more knowledgeable and I also have less time to check out and play games, you're more likely to find me on our Discord server helping new users out with scripting questions and testing new engine features than commenting here. It's interesting to see how people find their places and "roles" within the community, and this award is just the least we can do to acknowledge that, I think.

That is to say, well deserved, @heltenjon! And huge props to everybody else, organizers, developers, attendees, and the community as a whole for making this happen year after year. See you all again on the dancefloor in 2025!

[AbsurdumCodice]

Hello everyone!
I still can't believe that Trapped On The Balcony won the award for best short game. The level was very high, with very elaborate games both aesthetically and playable, so my greatest expectation was at most to be among the nominees. Thanks a lot!!
I am not a very social media person. I have never posted in a forum as much as in this one (and I am aware that I post little) and I think the last entry on my personal FB was from a trip I took about five years ago  , but this is an incredible community, and it was more than evident in the wonderful ceremony, and I am happy to be part of it. 

[Manu]

Hi everyone! Thanks to everyone who voted Super Star Trek as the best nonadventure game. When I started developing the game, I thought it was just a crazy idea to use AGS to create a turn-based strategy. Still, in the end, it became an incredibly interesting project for me, and its "success" was unexpected. Even the original author of Super Star Trek (Bob Leedom) contacted me to express his gratitude.
This was possible thanks to an amazing tool called AGS, but most importantly, to the fantastic community behind it. There are other game engines, but nothing has such a friendly community that is always ready to help, give feedback, or just chat. I must admit that without the Discord channel, I would never have completed the game or had so much fun while doing it. So thanks a lot, really! AGS is the best!
I am looking forward to winning an award for a proper adventure game next time

[Creamy]

Thank you for this nice ceremony.

Here are the winners of the AGS Awards 2023

Spoiler

Best Game of the Year
Abscission


Best Freeware Game
Shards of God


Best Short Game
Trapped On The Balcony


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


Best Demo
An English Haunting DEMO


Best Audio
Abscission


Best Visuals
Shards of God


Best Writing
Stranger in Utopia


Best Programming
Dreams in the Witch House


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


Best Gameplay
Abscission

[close]

@cat I see 3 missing categories in your list:

Innovation
Fernewelten

MAGGIES
The Distant Door

Lifetime Achievement
Heltonjon

[cat]

Thanks, @Creamy I've updated the posts (also with the reasons)

[Kastchey]

If any of the winners would like a signature banner with the awards they won this year, please send me a message.