AGS Awards 2021 - Results!

[cat]

AGS Awards 2021

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

Step # 0 - play them games!
You have some time to play games made in 2020. Do it!
Step # 1 - nomination time!
Select games you deem worthy in each category!
Step # 2 - vote, folks!
Pick from the nominees and we get a winner!
Step # 3 - party!
Big party to celebrate the winners!



The awards are over

Congratulations to the winners!

Big thanks to everyone who helped make this happen! <3


Voting Results


Best Game Created with AGS
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Freeware Game Created with AGS
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Writing
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Character
"Lady Valérie Winterbourne" from If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Gameplay
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Background Art
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Character Art
Strangeland


Best Animation
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Music & Sound
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Voice Work
Strangeland


Best Demo
Nightmare Frames Demo


Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS
One More Fathom


Best Short Game
Breakfast on Trappist-1


Best Programming
Strangeland


Best Puzzles
Strangeland


Lifetime Achievement Award
Dualnames has been an active and engaged community member for years. He has led some of the most significant community activities such as hosting and working on the Awards ceremony and running the MAGS competition. He has also made many contributions to the modules and plugins section and helped many in the technical support sections. On top of all of that he has released several high-quality games.

Best Innovation
For abstauber's contributions to the ready-to-use UI designs and elements that mimic the most iconic designs we all know and love, most notably Tumbleweed Verbs and 9-verb MI Style UI, as well as additional UI helper modules such as CustomDialogGUI and ButtonHelper.

MAGGIES

Joint 1st place
Breakfast on Trappist-1 by FormosaFalanster and Lorenzo
Santa Claus in: A Flight to Remember by OneDollar

Joint 2nd place
One More Fathom by WHAM
I Rented a Boat by eri0o


Nomination Results


Best Game Created with AGS

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Retold
Strangeland


Best Freeware Game Created with AGS

Absurdistan
Breakfast on Trappist-1
Broken Windows - Chapter 3
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
The Garden of Hades


Best Writing

Absurdistan
Breakfast on Trappist-1
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
M*A*S*H: Point n' Click adventure game
Strangeland


Best Character

"Alan Goldberg" from Nightmare Frames Demo
"Lady Valérie Winterbourne" from If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
"Zheny" from Breakfast on Trappist-1


Best Gameplay

I Rented a Boat
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
One More Fathom
Strangeland


Best Background Art

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Ossuarium
Strangeland


Best Character Art

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Ossuarium
Strangeland


Best Animation

If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland


Best Music & Sound

Absurdistan
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland


Best Voice Work

Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
La maleta
Strangeland


Best Demo

Graceward (Early Access)
Lucas Mendoza - Amateur Detective
Nightmare Frames Demo
Sphonx Tech Demo
The Phantom Fellows (Demo)


Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS

Desolate
Gem Collector
One More Fathom
Shoaly You Can't Be Serious! (Deluxe version)
The Rat Pack (Full version)


Best Short Game

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Contact
Content
I Rented a Boat
Ossuarium


Best Programming

Gem Collector
I Rented a Boat
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland
The Rat Pack (Full version)


Best Puzzles

Absurdistan
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
M*A*S*H: Point n' Click adventure game
Strangeland
Thinker


Congratulations!



How do the AGS Awards work?
(This is information mostly for new members, same procedure as every year)

Every year, the AGS community embarks on a quest to find the best games made in the last year. All games are eligible, that were added to the AGS Database in the year 2021. There is a For Your Consideration thread where authors can promote their games and players get a good overview what might be worth playing.

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

Party like it's 1990 in this thread!

[cat]

The For your consideration thread is growing, but we still need more games promoted there.

While we are preparing the nomination phase, you can start playing the games released last year - the more games you play, the better!

[eri0o]

[cat]

There was some discussion about how to deal with games that use resources from public resources and usage of previously existing intellectual property.

Please have a look at the thread here to discuss this for next year's awards: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59698.0


For this year, nothing will change for now, but I ask authors to state in the For your consideration thread whether suggested categories rely on such resources. Then it is up to the voters to decide how they value it.

[heltenjon]

Just a quick question to make sure: I noticed that Pedro's Adventures in Spanish now also is available in English on Steam (target group people learning English, obviously) under the title Peter's Adventures in English. The AGS database only links to the Spanish version. Am I correct to assume that it's only the Spanish voice work that's eligible for the 2021 Awards? And that, if the developers create a new entry in the database, the English voices are eligible for 2022? The rest of the game is the same, so I would guess it could only compete in the Best Voice Work category. Or am I mistaken?

[cat]

This is not clearly defined in any rule set, but your interpretation sounds reasonable.

[cat]

Nominations will start soon - use the time to play as many games as possible!

[cat]

Nominations have started!

As you may have noticed (the huge banner on top of the page should give you a good hint), nominations have started.

You can select up to 10 games for each category. You can change your nominations until the deadline. This way, you don't have to do all nominations at once.

If you have any questions, just ask!

[cat]

*bump*

[arj0n]

On the nomination page the lists aren't filtered (e.g. adventure games are listed under 'best non-adventure games')?

[Kastchey]

Yes, the lists aren't moderated yet. This is something we are considering for the future but as of now, we need to work with what we have

[cat]

Kastchey, you have this super smart excel sheet. Could you somehow extract lists for the most obvious categories (short game, non-adventure, demo, voice acting, freeware) and post them here? I can update the first post with them. This could be helpful to voters.

[heltenjon]

Kastchey, you have this super smart excel sheet. Could you somehow extract lists for the most obvious categories (short game, non-adventure, demo, voice acting, freeware) and post them here? I can update the first post with them. This could be helpful to voters.

The categories are only obvious if you have had the time to play the games. I fear such lists would end up missing some games which should have been included. (But it should be possible to sort the list due to different criteria in the excel sheet itself. It would only pick up those values that are already in the sheet, though.)

[cat]

All data I mentioned should be available in the games database - it's the responsibility of the author to choose the correct category for their game and tick the voice acting box if it applies.

[lanchong]

I've submitted my nominations. It took me a few hours but that's the least I can do to thank all the game authors.

[cat]

@lanchong Awesome! Thanks a lot for taking your time and nominating! I hope a lot more people will follow 


I know nominations can seem quite overwhelming, so here are some ideas on how to tackle nominations:

• You don't have to do all nominations at once. Do some today, then more tomorrow.
• Play the games as soon as they come out and takes notes. This is IMHO the best option.
• Play the games promoted in the For your consideration thread. Here the games are nicely presented and you can easily choose the ones that appeal to you.
• Watch let's plays of the games on Youtube. This is also a valid option if you can't or don't want to buy a commercial game.
• Play only a part of some games. You can probably judge the quality of sprites and background as well as voice acting within the first 10 minutes of playing.
• Only play games you are interested in. No interest in demos or non-adventure games? Don't play them and focus on other things.
• Absolutely no time to play games? Just think about the games you have played during last year and only nominate them in appropriate categories. The list of games released last year might come in handy.

Remember, nominating does not mean that you have to play all games. Nominating a game for a certain category does not mean you think it is superior to all other games, it just means that the game is very good at a certain aspect.

[cat]

*bump*

Have you already nominated?

[cat]

Only 5 days left!

We still need more votes. There are several categories where we do not have 5 nominees, yet. Remember, only the top 5 games that have at least 5 votes in a category are nominated.

[Kastchey]

cat, which categories need more votes the most?

(my money's on Best Character and Best Demo as usual )

[cat]

Best Short Game!

But we also need more love in the other categories. Maybe if you focus on playing short games, some of them will also be nice candidates for other categories like gameplay or music.

[cat]

*bump*

Come on, folks, we need more votes - only 3 days left!

Please have a look especially at those categories (others could do with more votes as well!)

Best Character
Best Animation
Best Music & Sound
Best Voice Work
Best Short Game
Best Demo

[cat]

Last 2 days! We need more nominations - remember, you can nominate up to ten games per category.

[cat]

Last day! Please nominate more games for Best Short Game - it would be a pity if we can't have 5 nominees in this category.

Also, please check if you did your votes for Best Character correctly - you need to select a game and write down the character name. We can fix typos and stuff later on, but you have to make sure that game and character match.

[heltenjon]

Also, please check if you did your votes for Best Character correctly - you need to select a game and write down the character name. We can fix typos and stuff later on, but you have to make sure that game and character match.

I don't know if it's a bug or whether I did something, but I discovered that my nominations in this category was thrown out of order. One name was set two times, and the other suggestions were pushed one place down the list, making the characters match the game directly above. I believe this must have happened during one of my (frequent) updates of the list, as my last suggestions have not been altered. (And by now I have played all the games, so I won't change it any further.)

In case there is a bug in the update function, I advice people to check if their votes match correctly.

[Cassiebsg]

Problem with nominating best character, for me anyway, is remembering the characters name. 
so I'm happy that some of the authors, provided the characters names on the "for your consideration" thread.

[cat]

Thanks for fixing your nominations!
We do our best to match up character names, i.e. nominations for "Guybrush", "Threepwood" and "Guybrush Threepwood" should all count for the same character.

Last few hours!

[Ponch]

Problem with nominating best character, for me anyway, is remembering the characters name. 
so I'm happy that some of the authors, provided the characters names on the "for your consideration" thread.

I have the same problem. 

Anyhoo, I added a few more nominations to my vote ballot, just before the deadline!

[cat]

Nominations are over!

A huge thank you to everyone who participated 

We need a bit of time to prepare the results but you can expect them in the next few days.

[cat]

Here are the nominated games for the AGS Awards 2021

Best Game Created with AGS

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella Retold
Strangeland


Best Freeware Game Created with AGS

Absurdistan
Breakfast on Trappist-1
Broken Windows - Chapter 3
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
The Garden of Hades


Best Writing

Absurdistan
Breakfast on Trappist-1
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
M*A*S*H: Point n' Click adventure game
Strangeland


Best Character

"Alan Goldberg" from Nightmare Frames Demo
"Lady Valérie Winterbourne" from If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
"Zheny" from Breakfast on Trappist-1


Best Gameplay

I Rented a Boat
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
One More Fathom
Strangeland


Best Background Art

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Ossuarium
Strangeland


Best Character Art

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Ossuarium
Strangeland


Best Animation

If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland


Best Music & Sound

Absurdistan
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland


Best Voice Work

Chronicle of Innsmouth - Mountains of Madness
La maleta
Strangeland


Best Demo

Graceward (Early Access)
Lucas Mendoza - Amateur Detective
Nightmare Frames Demo
Sphonx Tech Demo
The Phantom Fellows (Demo)


Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS

Desolate
Gem Collector
One More Fathom
Shoaly You Can't Be Serious! (Deluxe version)
The Rat Pack (Full version)


Best Short Game

Breakfast on Trappist-1
Contact
Content
I Rented a Boat
Ossuarium


Best Programming

Gem Collector
I Rented a Boat
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
Strangeland
The Rat Pack (Full version)


Best Puzzles

Absurdistan
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers
M*A*S*H: Point n' Click adventure game
Strangeland
Thinker


Congratulations!

[heltenjon]

Big congratulations to the nominees! There are some very good games on that list (and not one that doesn't deserve it).

However, I'm disappointed that Pedro's Adventures in Spanish wasn't nominated in anything, not even voice work. This was the year a full length game was released as a language learning device, and the failure to acknowledge that is unfortunate. One could simply watch one of the commercials to check out the voice work, but I guess it must mean it didn't have enough players from this community to receive the five nomination votes it deserved.

As for A Curious Pastime, which I nominated in almost every category possible, I would simply guess that first person games aren't as popular as 3rd. Oh well, it wasn't mentioned in the FYC thread either.

[Kastchey]

Big congratulations to the nominees! Please expect a PM from someone from the Awards team soon - we will need a bit of help from you before the ceremony

[cat]

Voting is open!

You can now vote for your favourite games using the link from the big red banner.

[TheFrighter]

Fatto! 

_

[selmiak]

and my votes are locked!

[Potajito]

Voted! For me it has been super hard to decide between Strangeland and IOAWN in almost all the categories. Also bummed that Pedro Adventures is not there And thanks for the nomination for best voice for my little game!
Congrats everyone!

[Cassiebsg]

Everyone that has a game nominated, should now have a PM from me with info about assets for the Awards client . 
If you haven't got it, let me know. 

[Cassiebsg]

Oh, if you want to use a character as avatar during the awards, you can just export it directly from the game using the "export character" (right click on character) and provide that file. 
Unless I'm mistaken, idle view is used for special action (if you want your character to do a special animation when you press the button). So just make sure you select which view you would like before exporting.

PS: (sorry to double post, but I just want to make sure this post will show up as new for those that are using "Show unread topics since last visit.")

[Pax Animo]

My votes are locked in. Well-done and good luck to all.

[eri0o]

Voted! Also, I will answer the DMs soon. 

[PPAentertainment]

Hi:
My name's Pijin Pastrana and I've been developing games with ags for a while. Robotragedy 1 and 2, Dr. Lutz and the time travel machine, Maverick Gunn and the Eye of Oggun, The manuscript of Sarmanyanha and Postcard Adventure. I believe this game's years nominations are very good and fair but I have to say that I don't feel treated with fairness because the backgrounds of Postcard Adventure can compete with some of the games like ossarium or breakfast on trappist 1, and I don't mean any disrespect to the developers, they are great but year after year the games I released , no matter how hard  I tried to achieve the best looks possible, NEVER GOT even a nomination. I wonder if the reason I'm cuban and out of the mainstream is the reason .

[Babar]

Hi:
My name's Pijin Pastrana and I've been developing games with ags for a while. Robotragedy 1 and 2, Dr. Lutz and the time travel machine, Maverick Gunn and the Eye of Oggun, The manuscript of Sarmanyanha and Postcard Adventure. I believe this game's years nominations are very good and fair but I have to say that I don't feel treated with fairness because the backgrounds of Postcard Adventure can compete with some of the games like ossarium or breakfast on trappist 1, and I don't mean any disrespect to the developers, they are great but year after year the games I released , no matter how hard  I tried to achieve the best looks possible, NEVER GOT even a nomination. I wonder if the reason I'm cuban and out of the mainstream is the reason .

Hi Pijin Pastrana! Nominations for games aren't done through some secret hidden group with an unknown agenda- games are put up for nomination and nominated by the authors and public members of this community. If the public isn't aware of your games, they wouldn't be in the right mindframe to nominate them. For example, while I had known of the Robotragedy games, I wasn't even aware of Postcard Adventure. You're right, they're very pretty backgrounds, and I'm sure they could've been nominated. Usually authors will post a thread in the Completed Games forum section to show their game's release, and near the awards time, they will post their games in the "For Your Consideration" threads so that people can be made aware of them for nomination for awards. I notice your game had neither, so I suspect people had simply forgotten about it (if they had known of it in the first place).

[cat]

As Babar said, it's a matter of marketing. Every year I create a For your consideration thread and link it in the awards thread. All authors should advertise their games there to make players aware of them and point out the strong points. While all games that were added to the database last year are automatically eligible for being nominated, people have to be aware of a game so they can play and nominate it.

And a thread in Completed Games forum will also help to get more people play it.

[heltenjon]

My name's Pijin Pastrana and I've been developing games with ags for a while. Robotragedy 1 and 2, Dr. Lutz and the time travel machine, Maverick Gunn and the Eye of Oggun, The manuscript of Sarmanyanha and Postcard Adventure. I believe this game's years nominations are very good and fair but I have to say that I don't feel treated with fairness because the backgrounds of Postcard Adventure can compete with some of the games like ossarium or breakfast on trappist 1, and I don't mean any disrespect to the developers, they are great but year after year the games I released , no matter how hard  I tried to achieve the best looks possible, NEVER GOT even a nomination. I wonder if the reason I'm cuban and out of the mainstream is the reason .

Hi! I second everything Babar and Cat said in their replies to you. I think especially posting in the forum makes a game visible.

Another aspect is that it seems like short games get fewer downloads, fewer comments and fewer ratings on the database pages. I can sort of understand it - if a player has had several days of enjoyment from a playing a game, he/she is more likely to take the extra time to leave comments and ratings. This year, it seems like few votes came in in the short games category, and I believe this may be part of the reason.

Personally, I think differently, and it's the short games (MAGS, really) that drew me to this site in the first place. I don't know if it's any consolation, but I nominated Postcard Adventure. And I played all the games last year. And it's a good candidate for Pick of the Month, too, like Maverick Gunn, Robotragedy 2  and Dr. Lutz has been before it. You have an audience in this group, but sure, it would be nice if it were bigger.

[Cassiebsg]

I'm pretty sure I nominated Postcard Adventure as well, just like I nominated Pedro... out of my 10 nominated. But alas, only 5 get picked, and they all need to have at least 5 votes.

Your nationality has nothing to do with it, since I didn't even knew what it was before you mentioned it just now. don't take it personally, do the best you can, post and make your game visible. The more visible it's in the forum, the more likely it is it will be played by active forum members. I for one, am unlike to go download and play a game from the DB that does not have a forum post. This is simple cause I don't go there and check what new games have come... but I check the forum ever single day, several times of the day... meaning I'm more likely to see it, if it has a post.

[cat]

We are still waiting for the resources of several games. Please provide them or the game cannot be included in the awards client.

[Ponch]

Voted! Everyone should. All the cool kids are doing it! 

[cat]

5 more days!

[cat]

Voting closes tomorrow evening - only one day left!

[Pax Animo]

Get those votes in! it means a hell of a lot to the developers and the overall AGS community. 

[cat]

Voting is over! Thanks to everyone who voted!

The results will be revealed in a ceremony using a special client that is updated and maintained by Dualnames this year: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59640.0

To decide on a ceremony date, please take part in this Doodle poll (let me know if it is working for you):
https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/lejXyDzb

[heltenjon]

To decide on a ceremony date, please take part in this Doodle poll (let me know if it is working for you):

The doodle poll is working. We can choose the allotted dates and see what choices others have made.

[cat]

Thanks!

Just one more thing: the weekend from 15th-17th is Easter, please consider this (holidays, visiting relatives etc) in your choices.

[cat]

Please don't forget to take part in our Doodle:

https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/lejXyDzb

It also helps us finding potential presenters for the ceremony.

[Cassiebsg]

Unfortunately all I get is an empty (blank) page.
I'll have to try it from another computer.

[Kastchey]

Hi everyone!

The AGS Awards Ceremony is approaching, so if you plan to join and have a custom avatar that you would like us to implement for you, feel free to send it to us!
There are some simple rules and guidelines to follow:
- The avatars must be in .chr format. Please do not send separate frames, gif animations or, well, whatever that is not a .chr file.
- The avatars need to have the standard walking animation as a bare minimum, but if you'd like your avatar to be compatible with the extra actions supported by the client, you can add a talking animation (LucasArts style) and a special action (any kind of non-looping, fun animation you can add for show).
- If the avatars are too large for the client, it will be scaled. If you're worried about the auto-scaling and prefer that your avatar is displayed in its native resolution, please scale it down. If you're unsure how to scale your avatar, please reach out to me via PM.
- Please send a link to your avatar to me via PM and fill out the below form:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSd3fc4gCK25gUl1uZzqgVsppXq1qtblB-q6aRIeAi6Jfw9PKA/viewform?usp=pp_url

Also, another quick reminder about the ceremony date doodle: https://doodle.com/meeting/participate/id/lejXyDzb
Please vote if you consider joining the ceremony. We want to pick the slot that works for as many guests as we can!

[Snarky]

- If the avatars are too large for the client, it will be scaled. If you're worried about the auto-scaling and prefer that your avatar is displayed in its native resolution, please scale it down. If you're unsure how to scale your avatar, please reach out to me via PM.

To quantify what this means, any character much larger than 200 px tall should probably have its sprites scaled down. Conversely, if a (human-sized) character is less than about 32 px tall, it would be helpful to scale it up to x2 (or if necessary, x3) size, using nearest-neighbor scaling, before submitting. Anything in between we handle automatically in the client by setting a scaling factor that keeps consistency between characters at different sizes from different games.

Edit: A more important point is that the animations need to be aligned (center-aligned to be precise) so that there's no jump in position in switching between them, and that the "special animation" should fit seamlessly with a standing pose both at start and end. (So, for example, if the animation is of the character pulling their hands out of their pockets and doing finger guns, it should include a return of the hands to the starting positions.)

[cat]

I think we have a clear winner, regarding the ceremony date!

The AGS Awards Ceremony will happen on Saturday, 9 April, 2022 at 20:00 BST.

Get the latest information in this thread: https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59878.0


There will be a test-run on April 7th Thursday 20:00 BST. Please join and help us testing the client before the big event!

[cat]

I was notified that I got the ceremony time wrong - of course it will happen at 8:00PM which means 20:00 BST.

[eri0o]

http://www.timebie.com/std/bst.php?q=20

Found a way to convert to my local time.

[Laura Hunt]

- If the avatars are too large for the client, it will be scaled. If you're worried about the auto-scaling and prefer that your avatar is displayed in its native resolution, please scale it down. If you're unsure how to scale your avatar, please reach out to me via PM.

To quantify what this means, any character much larger than 200 px tall should probably have its sprites scaled down. Conversely, if a (human-sized) character is less than about 32 px tall, it would be helpful to scale it up to x2 (or if necessary, x3) size, using nearest-neighbor scaling, before submitting. Anything in between we handle automatically in the client by setting a scaling factor that keeps consistency between characters at different sizes from different games.

Suggestion: I think the info that is sent to the nominees regarding asset preparation would greatly benefit from being updated with all this information. I wasn't told at any moment that I had to submit my avatar as .chr, so I submitted all the different loops separately, possibly creating more work for Dualnames or Kastchey or Snarky or whoever is responsible for including all those assets into the client. I wasn't told either how tall the avatars should be more or less, so I submitted my avatar unscaled at 1x, again, possibly creating more work for the organizers who will have to upscale it themselves, when I could have easily done that before submitting. Something to consider maybe for future awards ceremonies?

[Snarky]

Dualnames is handling it this year, perhaps with some help by Cassiebsg.

Spoiler

In my experience, 90% of the submissions are no trouble, and it doesn't really matter whether they are in .chr format or as sprites. (In fact, because I stuck with AGS 3.4.3 while many people submitted .chr files in later AGS versions, that was a good deal less convenient.) The work to import and set up views for a set of clearly labeled walkcycle/talkcycle sprites is minimal. (It's quicker if they are not sorted into separate folders, but distinguished only by filename.) I also had a set of macros to do any necessary resampling, so again, that's not really much extra work. (Again, it's quicker if they're submitted as sprites rather than a .chr, because then you don't have to import the .chr and export the sprites first.)

What took up most time was submissions that were mangled or non-standard in some way. For example if the different loops or views were not aligned, causing the character to jump around. Then I'd have to go in and edit the sprites. Or if the walkcycle and standing angles were stored in separate views. Or if the walkcycle was manifestly wrong (e.g. one frame missing from the left-angle walk but not the right-angle.). Or if the special/idle animation didn't transition properly from/to the standing view. Or if the outline had been alpha-blended against a "magic pink" background. These things happened way more often than you would think. Also when people submitted the avatars without the proper identifying information (for example, submitting three characters from the same game without indicating which one was which, either in the filename, Character.Name or submission form), forcing me to go and research who they were if I hadn't played the game.

And similarly with game screenshots, if they are all in consistent resolution for each game (ideally the original game resolution), it's very easy to run a script to resize them to fit the presentation screen, using the best resampling function depending on the resolution. But very often people would submit screenshots in wildly inconsistent resolutions, sometimes cropped, sometimes squeezed or stretched, sometimes blurry or with some kind of upscaling filter applied, sometimes including the window chrome or strips of their desktop behind the game window. Even some professional, commercial AGS games proved almost impossible to get full-screen, pixel-perfect screenshots of. Usually this isn't very noticeable in the ceremony, but sometimes you have a situation where there was e.g. text in the screenshot that should display as a clean pixel font, but rendered as a blurry mess unless I very carefully fixed the resolution/aspect ratio/displacement problems in the submitted image. When I see a screenshot submitted as a 641x397 image I do that "gwuhh-h-h-h!" Simpsons shudder.

Because of this experience, I didn't really trust people who submitted assets to do any conversions/adaptations properly, and took the view that I would rather have the original files as far as possible and do any necessary conversions myself, instead of having them do it wrong and not having any way to fix it. (I remember one avatar I had to scale down, but where the original sprites were misaligned so that I had to fix that before downscaling to avoid a half-pixel displacement.) Also, for nominees it is useful to have character assets in the original size because they're also used to create presentation screens for categories like Best Animation, Best Character Art and Best Character.

[close]

tl;dr version: It was easier for me to rescale ten avatars myself than to have ten different submitters do it and one of them doing something wrong. Dualnames may feel otherwise.

[Dualnames]

100% agreeing with you, Laura. I think that's an omission on our part, something to definitely be more explicit about in the future! I didn't clarify that to Cassie [until very late], who did a wonderful job communicating with me and with all of you, and set up all the assets to be proper, so that my job would be easier! This was if anything a very transitional period for the ceremony. And I do apologize for any miscommunication on my end with these things. They were of course communicated to me by Snarky, at some point at least, but it's difficult to get ahold of so many new things. Last time I worked on the ceremony, things were very different and much much less organized. In fact I'm quite confident I didn't have entrants sent me pictures, I just went and grabbed assets from the game database or game-related topics.

So TL:DR, we take/I take your very valid feedback into heart, and promise we'll find a way to be more specific about what is required from our nominees.

[Laura Hunt]

tl;dr version: It was easier for me to rescale ten avatars myself than to have ten different submitters do it and one of them doing something wrong. Dualnames may feel otherwise.

I see, that definitely makes sense, thanks for the detailed explanation. I can definitely see how trying to manage so many assets from so many different sources could be a massive headache.

So TL:DR, we take/I take your very valid feedback into heart, and promise we'll find a way to be more specific about what is required from our nominees.

No worries! Like I said, I just wanted to make things as easy as possible for everybody responsible for managing the assets, but I understand Snarky's point of view too. I'm sure y'all will make it work no matter what

[Cassiebsg]

Ah, yes. I just assumed that people would send their avatar character as .chr...
But had no idea about the formatting of them. I thought they were just scaled inside AGS...   

[cat]

The ceremony will happen tomorrow at about this time! Are there people who will attend that have not responded to the doodle poll? I sure hope so, we need more audience!

And please don't respond to the poll anymore! The date is decided but I can't close it. Just write here in this thread how excited you are to come 

[cat]

Only a few hours left! Are you already getting dressed for the event? Or have you just returned from your hair stylist? Anyway, it's time to get excited!

Get the client here in this thread:

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59878.0

[Dualnames]

https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/index.php?topic=59878.0

The AGS Awards Ceremony is now available for download!

[cat]

There ceremony is over, here are the results:


Best Game Created with AGS
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Freeware Game Created with AGS
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Writing
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Character
"Lady Valérie Winterbourne" from If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Gameplay
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Background Art
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Character Art
Strangeland


Best Animation
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Music & Sound
If On A Winter's Night, Four Travelers


Best Voice Work
Strangeland


Best Demo
Nightmare Frames Demo


Best Non Adventure Game Created with AGS
One More Fathom


Best Short Game
Breakfast on Trappist-1


Best Programming
Strangeland


Best Puzzles
Strangeland


Congratulations to the winners!

Big thanks to everyone who helped make this happen! <3

[lorenzo]

The ceremony was a lot of fun, thanks to all that made it possible!
And congratulations to all the winners!

[eri0o]

That was an amazing ceremony! Great work everyone! It was a truly nice experience! 

[CrashPL]

Excellent stuff, that was such a lovely event as usual. Huge congratulations to all the winners, nominees, as well as everyone involved! Outstanding job!

[heltenjon]

Great show and well deserved awards! And may I say that it goes to show what a great game Strangeland is that it won three awards in categories where If on a Winter's Night, Four Travelers was nominated. Any other year and it would have swept the floor - now it just swept a part of it. 

[Sinitrena]

Congratulations to the winners (and nominees) and thank you to all involved in making the awards happen!

[ukz530]

This award was great!

congratulations to all the winners!

And thank you to all the people who prepared the awards and those who attended!

[LimpingFish]

Yes, well done to all the winners and nominees!

And, indeed, as always, a big thank you to all those involved with making the awards happen!

Was anybody streaming it this year? It's always nice when somebody streams it and adds a video archive to Youtube. It wasn't posted in this thread, but did I miss somebody saying they were streaming it?

[Ponch]

Once again, a very enjoyable experience. And the presenters were so incredibly sexy this year! 

Congrats to all the winners and thanks to all the people working behind the scenes to make the event happen in the first place.

[Scavenger]

Was anybody streaming it this year? It's always nice when somebody streams it and adds a video archive to Youtube. It wasn't posted in this thread, but did I miss somebody saying they were streaming it?

I streamed it, the video will be up here shortly:

[Chomba]

I streamed it, the video will be up here shortly:

Thank you very much! I was able to watch the ceremony on delay thanks to you (it was complicated for me, because of the time zone here it was in the middle of the afternoon, something like 4pm).

Congratulations to all the winners and also to the rest of the nominees, to participate in the categories is already a great recognition from the community

[Laura Hunt]

What a fantastic ceremony! I loved all the new additions to the client, thanks so much to everybody who made it happen and who keeps making it happen year after year. And congratulations to all the other winners and nominees, can't wait to see what next year will have in store!

[rongel]

Congratulations to the winners and nominees!

It was my first time at the AGS Awards, and it was great! Really weird and fun event. A big thank you to all who made the ceremony possible!

Next year I will attend with my own dear Walter character!

[TheFrighter]

Congratulations to the winners! 

Best Demo
Nightmare Frames Demo

Now we wait for the full game! 

_

[The Last To Know]

Congratulations to all the winners! 

[shaun9991]

Congratulations to the winners!

[Mehrdad]

Great ceremony!. well done!. Congratulations to the winners and nominees! 

[Cassiebsg]

Congrats to all the winners, all the nominees, all those who made the awards happen, all the AGSer that produced a game, and everyone who played them, voted and showed up to the ceremony. 

[Danvzare]

Congratulations to everyone who was nominated, and an even bigger congratulations to everyone who won. 

[Pogwizd]

Yesterday was great fun. It's been quite a long time since I danced at a party, so I really enjoyed myself. Also, good manners of the attendees in a form of lack of any slaps are very much appreciated. Although, who knows... maybe a slap or two would have brought AGS more popularity among the general public.

But seriously, it was fun. Massive thanks to everyone involved in the community for creating, maintaining and updating the client, as well as to those organising and directing the ceremony

And congrats to all the winners!

[LimpingFish]

I streamed it, the video will be up here shortly...

Much appreciated!

[DrSlash]

Mad props to the organizers and congrats to the winners, their awards are well-deserved!

Wish I could make it to this year's ceremony, but at least I can watch it in video form, for which Scavenger deserves a special thanks!

[Blondbraid]

I missed the ceremony?! 

[Ponch]

who knows... maybe a slap or two would have brought AGS more popularity among the general public.

I'm pretty sure someone grabbed my butt during the dance party. 

[CaptainD]

Congrats to everyone who won or got a nomination.

[abstauber]

Congrats to all winners and special thanks to everyone involved in the ceremony. It's been a long time since I've joined the awards and I had a great time - so many terrific titles

Also many thanks for awarding me the "best innovation" trophy. I'm pretty sure that there are more innovative or at least active guys out there, but hey, I count it as a retro award

Anyway I'm very happy that apparently many of you found those modules useful and I am honoured to have received this award.

[cat]

Thanks again to everyone, for making this such a nice event!
I'm happy that for all AGS awards and almost all MAGGIES games the author was there to accept the trophy and give a speech.

The AGS awards are a community thing - they need people to make games, play games, organize things, nominate games, vote for games, prepare the client, decide on committee awards, moderate and attend the ceremony. I'm glad we have all those people here in our community!


Btw, there have already been 18 games added to the database - play them now, if you haven't, to prepare for next year's awards 

[Hobo]

Congratulations to all the winners! And huge thanks to everyone involved in preparing and running the ceremony! Great show, awesome community!

[Tycho Magnetic Anomaly]

Well done to all the entries and winners    , what a super selection this  year!

[Postmodern Adventures]

What a wonderful ceremony! I enjoyed it a lot! The sense of community was there, it was the best of it.

And congrats to all the winners!

[cat]

I forgot to include the committee decided winners in the result. Here they are:

Lifetime Achievement Award
Dualnames has been an active and engaged community member for years. He has led some of the most significant community activities such as hosting and working on the Awards ceremony and running the MAGS competition. He has also made many contributions to the modules and plugins section and helped many in the technical support sections. On top of all of that he has released several high-quality games.

Best Innovation
For abstauber's contributions to the ready-to-use UI designs and elements that mimic the most iconic designs we all know and love, most notably Tumbleweed Verbs and 9-verb MI Style UI, as well as additional UI helper modules such as CustomDialogGUI and ButtonHelper.