Topic: 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.