AGS Awards
 

Just had a look at the AGS nominees, and noticed that there was a "Worst game" category - the P3N1S award. Am I alone in thinking that that's a little tacky? Not the penis bit, but the mere fact that they are directly trashing someone who use and promote AGS.

I didn't like Al Emmo either, but those peeps were certainly good advocates of AGS, and might probably not continue to be so after getting such a nomination.

The P3N1S award was, as far as I understood it, mostly a joke award, given not to the worst game, but the best joke game, or game so bad that it's unintentionally good. Most of the previous game nominees were done by highly regarded members of the AGS community who would often use in-jokes from that community to great effect ("Andy P3n1s' Big Adventure", for example).

In fact, the fictional character Andy P3n1s, who "posts" on the board, usually trolling, for laughs among community members, is where the award got its name. (Don't quote me on that, I'm not too sure if that's correct, but I think so)

As it stands, I don't think Al Emmo should've been nominated for the catagory. Sure it disappointed a lot of people, and I think a lot of people nominated it because of that, but I remember when I used to nominate games for the P3N1S award, it used to always be because I loved the game so much, even though it was terrible.

What can I say, AGS users are kids?

Yes, the kind of children who take snipes at another engine because of some bizarre grudge they hold.

Stupid AGSers!

I'm not sure all nominees in the past have always been in on the joke (or were highly regarded community members, for that matter), but the award has usually been for "so bad it's good" type games. Games that took zero effort to make.

Nominating a game that many people didn't like, but that clearly had a lot of work put into it and represented the best efforts of the creators is a lot more mean spirited, in my opinion. A lot of it seems to have to do with a backlash against AGDI/Himalaya in the AGS community because they're perceived as arrogant and dismissive of other games. Nevertheless, the nomination has been controversial on the AGS Forums, too.

I personally think the nomination is problematic if it is unintentionally mean: if it's only meant as a joke but is taken seriously. If everyone believed that it was just a bit of fun; a light-hearted rebuke of a game that disappointed expectations, it wouldn't be a big deal, but the pre-existing hostility makes that impossible in this case.

On the other hand, if it is meant to be serious, and the nominators and voters truly believe that it is a terrible game that is far overrated (and note that Al Emmo placed a close third in this forum's poll of worst 2006 adventure game, too, so it's not an unheard-of view), then that's fair enough. It may be rough to win a worst game award, but if a lot of people hate your game... maybe you deserve it.

The awards will be announced later today (20:00 GMT on the AGS IRC channel), so we'll know soon enough whether the nomination was just a fluke of 3 people or the tip of an iceberg of hate.

Well, from a technical point of view you might be right. I think its ease of use does, in fact, attract a younger audience. :D

Seriously, though, I don't like Al Emmo being nominated either. Especially by AGS community members, because compared to AGS games alone (which is the case here), Al Emmo should be in the top category. There aren't many AGS games that match the production values of this game.

--Erwin

That depends on what is meant by "production values", though, isn't it?

Regardless, this was just a case of three people nominating a game for an award that it probably didn't deserve. It didn't represent a consensus among AGS members. And the fact that the other game nominated for the category won the award demonstrates that.

Whether or not the P3N1S award is broken is another conversation all together. One that's taking place on the AGS boards.

Anyways, the winners have been announced! Go play them!

Why people choose to focus on things like "Worst Game - Penis whatever" is beyond me. The Himalaya team worked very hard. Nobody deserves that sort of negativity.

Regarding the rest of the awards - there are some really cool titles I didn't know about in there. Time to download!

Well, I'd say the standard quality of AGS games. Which is, IMHO, somewhat below the quality of said game. :)

--Erwin

I would agree that Al Emmo has higher production values (which I think is a fairly well defined term), but whether or not it is of higher quality is open for debate.

For instance, the game has full video cutscenes, which most AGS games don't (higher production values), but they don't look very good, and arguably add less to the game than, say, the minimally animated comic book panels used in Ben Jordan 1 Deluxe (lower quality).

Al Emmo runs in higher resolution than most AGS games, and has lushly painted backgrounds and 3D-rendered characters (higher production values), but the screens are plagued by perspective errors, and the characters don't mesh well with the scenery (lower quality).

The game has full voice acting (higher production values), but the voices are awful (lower quality).

I'll stop before I turn this into an Al Emmo bashing thread. While I think the execution falls short in many aspects (and to be fair, Al Emmo is not the only game about which that can be said), you can't fault Himalaya's ambition.

Aww, lighten up. :) I only take snipes at AGS because people always take it so seriously (like now). :P

You're right. But I still think the overall quality of Al Emmo beats most AGS games. (Although I do agree there are a few games that look much better)

--Erwin

Al Emmo may be "better" than most AGS games, but a lot of people quite obviously didn't enjoy it very much (or at least are stupid and voted it down out of idiotic spite). You can't argue with democracy, unfortunately, whether you totally disagree with the voters or not :|

Agreed, you can't argue with democracy. Al Emmo is also ranking high on this list. Coincidence?

I was not arguing whether Al Emmo sucked or not, I just think having an award for worst game is tacky. Their nomination is not a 'so bad I loved it' one, I know the difference, you should see our cheezy b-movie collection. It's like a deliberate attempt to put them off using AGS. Nobody should be on that list, even if they are arrogant. They're probably already going 'saaay, what's this Wintermute thing?'

Nobody wants to win a Razzie after putting a lot of honest hard work into something.

Perhaps there should be a worst game engine award. Wonder what would win that one.

SCRAMM, or perhaps Glumol. ;)

I am guessing SEUCK was before your time then, Squinky. Shoot Em Up Construction Kit. One word: ewwwwwwww!

Jeepers...you know I felt kind of bad for them at the AGS awards...but damn...they really do come across as an arrogant bunch, don't they? I'm not surprised they got nominated or that so many people have panned them and their efforts.
Still, I agree that AGS tends to attract some cliquish and mean folks and that a penis award nomination ceryainly wasn't a compliment for a game that was made in all seriousness...

Everyone keeps talking about how Himalaya is arrogant? I'm curious.. can you guys point me to some examples? Am I missing something? Are we talking about here on these forums?? The Himalaya forums??