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2013 Aggie Awards

Written by AG Staff
It will take you 35 minutes to read this feature.


Article updated Friday, February 21st. Already read about Day One and Day Two?  Skip straight ahead to the final day's presentation!
 


This was supposed to be THE year – the year when all our favourite old-school developers returned to the genre in a blaze of glory.

As it turned out, some of them made it only halfway to the finish line, while others are still heading around the final turn into the home stretch, leaving unlucky 2013 a little thin on high-profile adventures. But as always, there were more than a few games that came out of nowhere to dazzle us and make for another year of hard Aggie decisions. You should know – you got to vote, too!

After all the hemming and hawing and waiting for bribes that never came, at last all the ballots have been cast and counted (and counted again in Florida), and it's time once again to reward the genre’s best offerings of the previous calendar year, both from staff and readers alike.

The beauty of awards is that they encourage healthy debate, and we welcome more of the same this year. Just remember: this is a celebration of success, not the Hunger Games. Whether first place or fifth, all the games here are deserving of recognition and praise, so enjoy yourselves and join us in applauding the talented developers who brought us another great year of gaming.

The awards presentation will run daily from Wednesday through Friday, so check back in each day to find out which games will take home the coveted golden statuettes.  And now, roll on, Aggies!

 


Table of Contents


Day One


Page 1: You are here
Page 2: Best Story
Page 3: Best Writing - Comedy
Page 4: Best Writing - Drama
Page 5: Best Character
Page 6: Best Gameplay
Page 7: Best Concept

 

Day Two (To be posted Thursday, February 20th)


Page 8: Best Setting
Page 9: Best Graphic Design
Page 10: Best Animation
Page 11: Best Music
Page 12: Best Voice Acting
Page 13: Best Sound Effects

 

Day Three (To be posted Friday, February 21st)


Page 14: Best Independent Adventure (Commercial)
Page 15: Best Console/Handheld Adventure (Exclusive)
Page 16: Best Non-Traditional Adventure
Page 17: Best Traditional Adventure
Page 18: Best Adventure of 2013
Page 19: Final Notes

 


First up: Best Story... the envelope, please!


 


Best Story: Gone Home


It is a late, stormy night in 1995. You are Katie Greenbriar, a high school graduate who has just returned home after a year abroad in Europe. The house you arrive at, however, is one you have never been to since your family only moved into it a few months earlier. As you step into the sprawling, unfamiliar household, one thing becomes immediately apparent: Your entire family appears to be gone. The only immediate clues left behind are a note from your sister and a desperate message on the answering machine from a mysterious girl. This is just the tip of the iceberg in the intimate family mystery that is Gone Home. As you begin to explore the deserted house, you will gradually discover the troubled stories of your mother, father, and most notably your sister, Sam.

What makes Gone Home truly stand out isn't just the unexpected twists and turns the story takes as you follow Sam's moving journey. It's how integrated the gameplay is with the multi-layered story. Everything you do and see and hear, from the very personal audio diaries you find to a simple jewelry receipt left lying around, unlocks another small piece of a very poignant story that touches on sensitive issues that most games won’t even approach. With very few puzzles to solve, exploration is the gameplay, and connecting the individual pieces of the story becomes the narrative puzzle you’ll feel driven to complete. The result is an incredibly nuanced, immersive experience that will resonate with you emotionally at the time and continue to linger well after the credits have rolled. It's an experience that will appeal to anyone who enjoys a good character-driven adventure, making it a fairly easy choice for this year’s Best Story Aggie Award.

Runners-Up: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, BEYOND: Two Souls, Lost Echo, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief

 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


Phoenix Online Studios’ serial killing-within-serial killing mystery got off to a rousing start in 2012 and carried its momentum through another three compelling episodes in 2013. With all due respect to the developer’s own talented team of designers, we’ll go out on a limb and suggest that a certain “consultant” named Jane Jensen might have had a little something to do with Cognition fairly comfortably claiming the reader award for top story of the year.

Runners-Up: Memoria, BEYOND: Two Souls, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons

 


Next up: Best Writing – Comedy... the envelope, please!


 


Best Writing – Comedy: Goodbye Deponia


Daedalic’s popular trilogy is on a winning streak, the first two games collectively garnering our best comedic writing award in last year’s Aggies. This year’s entry, Goodbye Deponia, caps the ongoing story with the raucous antics of Rufus, a self-promoting daredevil still trying to escape his junk-strewn planet to reach the floating paradise of Elysium. Rufus is master of the provocative remark, the caustic one-liner, and the groan-worthy pun. His overconfidence steers him to the wrong place at the wrong time with gleeful abandon. During the series finale, this slapstick anti-hero is electrocuted, shot from a cannon, chloroformed, and used as a recipe ingredient. He is trapped inside an execution machine, guessing which button does what. He demonstrates disco moves in front of enemy security cameras and chases a bearded baby along a swinging construction beam. He even finds himself stuck in the game’s tutorial section with no instructions forthcoming – and concludes that he has finally gone to hell.

Much of the no-holds-barred humour in Goodbye Deponia (including a few instances which probably should have been barred) comes at the expense of the wacky characters that Rufus cajoles, deceives, and wrangles. These include a tone-deaf cowboy, a peeping-Tom ghost, a perky noose salesman, and laundry cultists. Pop culture references abound, as do send-ups of Star Wars, Eastern mysticism, and TV sitcoms. Through it all, Rufus embraces ridiculous situations, celebrates noxious inventory combos, delights in the humiliation of others, and eventually finds a way to do the right thing (after trying every bizarre alternative). He’s very rarely likeable, but he sure is laughable. So we now say goodbye to the offbeat planet of Deponia with another golden Aggie to add to the junkpile, and our thanks for the pratfalls, the wit, and the whimsy that made this the funniest game of the year.

Runners-Up: The Cave, The Night of the Rabbit, Astroloco: Worst Contact, Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold – Episode 1: A Fistful of Pocket Lint

 


Readers’ Choice: Goodbye Deponia


The protagonist of Daedalic’s Deponia series is a scumbag; he’s crass, narcissistic, rude, and obnoxious... and that’s on a good day. But apparently we’re degenerates, too, because together we found him pretty darn funny, particularly since he always seems to get his comeuppance, usually in hilarious ways. For keeping us all laughing right to the end of the series finale – even when we knew we probably shouldn’t be – you folks joined us in awarding this game the top comedy of 2013.

Runners-Up: The Cave, The Inner World, The Night of the Rabbit, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2

 


Next up: Best Writing – Drama... the envelope, please!


 


Best Writing – Drama: Gone Home


In fiction writing, an author’s job is to fool the reader into thinking that a world made out of words is real. Games have it easier (pictures being worth a thousand words and all that), but even a beautifully rendered scene is empty until good writing brings it alive. Well, if you think the setting of this year’s Best Dramatic Writing winner is an empty house, you’ve got it all wrong. The house you explore in Gone Home is brimming with words – practically every item you look at, uncover, turn over, or flip through has a story to tell – and the quality of the script is what makes the game so captivating.

The masterful writing is most obvious in Sam Greenbriar’s audio diaries, narrated to her older sister Katie throughout the year Sam started a new high school, rebelled against her parents, and fell in love. Nuanced, intimate, and painfully relatable, Sam’s diaries remind us what it’s like to be a confused teen wrestling with emotions we all had to learn how to deal with even if our personal situations differed. But Gone Home’s writing goes far beyond these tape-recorded monologues. Every magazine, sheet of notebook paper, postcard, and even boxes of cereal strewn throughout the family house in some way contribute to the meticulous construction of a world three-dimensional not only in its graphics, but also in its narrative. And let’s not forget that writing isn’t only about words. Structure, pacing, foreshadowing, irony, climax and epiphany – good fiction nails these, and The Fullbright Company did exactly that.

Runners-Up: The Walking Dead: 400 Days, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, BEYOND: Two Souls, Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies

 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


Cognition is not for the faint of heart, pulling no punches in its brutal tale of Boston FBI agent Erica Reed, who’s out to solve her brother’s murder even as a new killer stalks her every move. For its take-no-prisoners handling of such mature subject matter, and for keeping everyone guessing all throughout this gritty cat-and-mouse mystery, Cognition very narrowly caps off its best story Aggie with the top dramatic writing award as well.

Runners-Up: Gone Home, BEYOND: Two Souls, Memoria, The Walking Dead: 400 Days

 


Next up: Best Character... the envelope, please!


 


Best Character: The Cave (The Cave)


In Ron Gilbert’s latest adventure, you choose which of seven intrepid explorers to guide into the bowels of an enigmatic cave, but it’s the Cave itself that steals the show. Part omniscient narrator, part jaded observer, part bored tour guide, the Cave is your constant companion on this curious journey, providing running commentary while each spelunker quests to find the thing he or she desires most. It may seem unusual for us to reward an inanimate object as the Best Character of 2013, but this Cave isn’t just any cave, and once inside you’ll find it’s far more animated than you might at first believe.

This game’s explorers – and also its players – are drawn to this place not knowing what awaits within. Without its insights, well, The Cave wouldn’t be The Cave. As a disembodied voice with no limbs to gesture or face to convey expression, this year’s Aggie winner managed to nab the title through dialogue alone. Speaking lines written by Gilbert and Chris Remo and voiced by Stephen Stanton, the Cave pops in and out while we explore its damp caverns and twisty passages, going quiet to let us figure out puzzle solutions and chiming in to let us in on the significance of our actions. The tour may be rigged and the explorers’ fates sealed, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some fun at their expense, and the Cave’s wry rejoinders to the explorers’ attempts provide much of the game’s humour. But the more cynical observations are what deepen the narrative beyond its surface elements, revealing context and irony that morph The Cave from a light, cartoony story of exploration into a darker morality tale about human nature.

Runners-Up: Sam (Gone Home), Constable Zellner (The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief), Jodie Holmes (BEYOND: Two Souls), Jerry Hazelnut (The Night of the Rabbit)

 


Readers’ Choice: Constable Anton Zellner (The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief)


Swiss Constable Anton Zellner is anything but your prototypical adventure game protagonist. He’s middle-aged, overweight, and bald, and he’s done nothing to distinguish himself in his career. But he’s also delightfully amiable, and his playful sense of humour belies a stubborn streak that makes him so determined to succeed in his latest assignment. He’s a most unusual choice of heroes, and a breath of fresh air that earned The Raven star the best character honours from our readers.

Runners-Up: Erica Reed (Cogniton: An Erica Reed Thriller), Jodie Holmes (BEYOND: Two Souls, Rufus (Goodbye Deponia), Jerry Hazelnut (The Night of the Rabbit)

 


Next up: Best Gameplay... the envelope, please!


 


Best Gameplay: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons


Controversy alert! It’s true that Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons doesn’t play the way we’ve come to expect of traditional adventure games. There’s no pointing-and-clicking, no dialogue trees, and no inventory, and there is some running, jumping, and even flying. But Brothers is all the better for blazing its own trail, a shining example of how puzzles and light platforming can be melded together with a captivating story. Controlling two brothers on their quest to find a cure for their dying father, the gameplay mechanics are fundamentally linked to the main characters. To guide the respective brothers simultaneously – and you’ll often have to – you use the left and right analogue sticks and triggers on a gamepad (or two separate key clusters on the keyboard, though that’s not the recommended way to play). It sounds simple on paper, but it takes some getting used to in practice. Stick with it, however, and you’ll begin to feel a deepening connection with the pair. These are brothers, and you’re responsible for keeping them together through thick and thin. When a simple trigger pull elicits a strong emotional response, you know you’re playing something extraordinary.

Each brother has his own talents and strengths and it is this that makes up much of the puzzle-solving. Whether it’s something simple like helping the weaker swimmer cross water or overcoming more sinister obstacles like defeating a creepy monster, there’s seemingly no task that these brothers can’t do when they work together. The game often rewards you with quiet moments too, allowing you to spend time playing ball with a fellow villager or sitting on a bench to soak in the view. Brothers is never overly complicated, but that’s not the point. The gameplay works in perfect tandem with the story, keeping you fully entertained while pulling you along. There is some dexterity required to succeed, but if you’re looking for an adventure that’ll offer a gameplay experience like no other, you’ll find your match in this year’s Aggie winner for Best Gameplay.

Runners-Up: Papers, Please, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller – Episodes 2-4, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, BEYOND: Two Souls

 


Readers’ Choice: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons


Oh dear. United in our selection, and not a dialogue tree, inventory item, or mouse cursor to be found! But we adventurers are becoming a more adventurous lot, and both staff and readers alike clearly embraced this unique platforming adventure that combined epic exploration, cooperative (yet single player) puzzle-solving, and lots of physical exertion for its two silent protagonists. And what a diverse range of runners-up! We adventure gamers really are spoiled for choice.

Runners-Up: Cogniton: An Erica Reed Thriller, Papers, Please, Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies, BEYOND: Two Souls

 


Next up: Best Concept... the envelope, please!


 


Best Concept: Papers, Please


For years now the adventure genre has been home to all manner of interesting gameplay ideas and narrative concepts, but more and more developers are pushing the innovation envelope. In a year where other stand-out titles straddled the lines of interactive fiction and exploration, Lynchian art pieces, and puzzle-platformers, Lucas Pope’s Papers, Please bent the rules and stretched the boundaries of adventure gaming more than any other. Thrusting you into a collection of repetitive, desk-based paperwork as a border control officer in a faux-Communist setting, the game presents a tapestry of minor characters and self-contained stories that players perform a crucial role in shaping as the petty bureaucrat who allows (or not) those people into Arstotzka. Turning that seemingly tedious premise into one of the most engaging games of the year is the genius of Papers, Please.

Complementing its daringly unconventional work simulation, the game’s execution is extremely refined and superbly thought out. The complex paperwork is intuitively controlled with a set of convenient tools that let you identify crucial discrepancies, while the narrative backdrop is peppered with intriguing – and often quite dramatic – events such as terrorist attacks and conspiratorial plots. You’ll also need to balance ever-changing rules, the expectations of your superiors, and even your own needs as a poor government employee for whom discretion may not always be the better part of valour. Papers, Please uses its border control framework to encompass dark storylines, political commentary, plenty of humour, and a rich, engaging world, so much so that the sheer audacity of its premise is completely forgotten once you’re swept up in its addictive, just-one-more gameplay. For its brilliant originality in pulling off an idea that could so easily have been dreary and monotonous, Papers, Please fully deserves our Best Concept Aggie for 2013.

Runners-Up: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home, DEVICE 6

 


Readers’ Choice: Papers, Please


You can just imagine the pitch: How about a game where the protagonist never goes anywhere, just sits in a dreary cubicle at work and does paperwork all day. And better yet, it'll be placed at Communist border control – surely the singlemost humourless office in the history of labour... There were so many reasons for Papers, Please NOT to work, but by brilliantly mixing observation-based problem-solving with intriguing characters and storylines that players got to influence with their choices, Lucas Pope created a uniquely engaging adventure-simulation-thing. Call it what you will, just remember to call it 2013's Best Concept Aggie Award winner.

Runners-Up: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, Gone Home, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2

 

Next up: Best Setting... the envelope, please!


 


Best Setting: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2


Ah, that mythical, faraway land known as Kentucky, full of surreal wonder and Lynchian mystery... Well, maybe not normally, but in the hands of developers Cardboard Computer, Kentucky Route Zero becomes a strange mash-up of comfortable down-home Americana, Twin Peaks, and the labyrinth from House of Leaves. Despite all the weirdness – tunnels that don't obey the laws of physics, forests full of giant animals, gas stations shaped like a giant horse's head – there's always a sense of world-weary realism. Things creak, rust, and sway in the wind. Cars pass quietly on a distant highway. Mosquitoes flit around in the headlights of your delivery truck. It looks, sounds, and feels like the American South.

With most games trying their hardest to recreate similar-but-different versions of Middle Earth, Coruscant, or New York, it is a refreshing change to see designers tackle something different, and we were duly impressed that a place that could so easily have been mundane was imbued with such a rich sense of history and intrigue. Through a masterful combination of folksy music, moody art, and evocative sound effects, this magical realist vision of Kentucky comes to life, a place where the familiar and the bizarre sit around a campfire and play guitar. For immersing us so deeply in a place so delightfully unusual, Kentucky Route Zero earns this year’s Best Setting Aggie over some serious competition.

Runners-Up: Lilly Looking Through, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home, Goodbye Deponia
 


Readers’ Choice: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons


You wouldn’t want to live there, but the world of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is a great place to visit. As you set out from your rural seaside village, you’ll soak in awe-inspiring sights like blood-stained battlefields of giant warriors, snow-covered landscapes, forests lined with hanging bodies, and an abandoned giant castle, to name just a few of the reasons this game copped the readers’ choice for Best Setting.

Runners-Up: Goodbye Deponia, Memoria, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2

 


Next up: Best Graphic Design... the envelope, please!


 


Best Graphic Design: Memoria


Daedalic’s jaw-dropping Memoria explores two different time periods in the history of Aventuria – a magical, dangerous place where demon armies gather for battle and an ancient mask holds deadly secrets. This sense of mystery and enchantment is expertly enhanced by the game’s hand-drawn interiors and landscapes, which are expansive yet still manage to convey a sense of intimacy. Small details are beautifully depicted: ironwork patterning is reflected on a polished floor; skulls, chests and scrolls clutter a magician’s attic; and exotic blossoms embellish a cave lost to the grasping hand of time. Backgrounds reveal a dramatic sense of scale, where spire-tipped mountains march across the landscape, monumental stone dragons frame an arched doorway, and gnarled trees ascend in tiers through the mist. The locations are remarkably diverse, from the angry red sands of a corpse-strewn battlefield to the cold majesty of a fortress floating above the clouds. The quality of light also varies: mage fire in a tomb glows a sickly green; purple dusk steals through a forest, and sunlight dapples a rooftop garden.

The game’s 2D characters fit smoothly into these environments. Sadja, a princess from Aventuria’s past, is on a secret mission. Dressed in muted colours, boots, and a hooded shirt, her hair is restrained and she’s neat as a pin. Geron, the hero from the first game in the series (the equally gorgeous The Dark Eye: Chains of Satinav), is wan and scruffy. His medieval togs are rumpled – he’s neglecting everything in his urgency to find a cure for Nuri, a young woman transformed by a curse. Mythical creatures aid or threaten, from a phoenix-like being made of pure light to a craggy rock giant smashing everyone in its path. Perhaps the most intriguing is a sentient wooden staff, twisted and gold-banded, its bony tip vaguely human. From the rustic landscape to its outlandish temples, from warriors and tricksters to exotic artifacts and beasts, Memoria distinguishes itself amid a crowd of comely rivals, capturing the Best Graphic Design award for 2013.

Runners-Up: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, BEYOND: Two Souls, Lilly Looking Through, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
 


Readers’ Choice: Memoria


Daedalic is no stranger to this award, but the German developer not only had to contend with some incredible competition from others this year, it also had to split votes among its own impressive trio of games. But once again, the studio’s talented stable of artists came through with its stunning hand-painted depiction of Aventuria – and doing so with only a fraction of the budget of its nearest runners-up. For that, Memoria sweeps both our staff and reader Best Graphic Design Aggies for 2013.

Runners-Up: BEYOND: Two Souls, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, The Night of the Rabbit
 


Next up: Best Animation... the envelope, please!


 


Best Animation: Lilly Looking Through


Many of the most beloved adventure games have earned their places in players’ hearts by virtue of unforgettable stories and characters that resonate with us emotionally. More often than not, they are fleshed out by virtue of great writing and storytelling, delivered in the form of narration and dialogue. But what of a game that features none of the former and only a small handful of spoken sentences? How does such a game convey emotion and evoke a heartfelt response from the player? As Lilly Looking Through beautifully illustrated this year, the use of painstakingly-crafted animation can have a great deal to do with how we as an audience connect to a game, and for that it nosed out some impressive, slickly-produced competition for our Best Animation Aggie Award.

Lilly’s fantastical world, as well as Lilly herself, has been animated with the utmost love and care. The hand-drawn art style is soft and lushly detailed; environments project a serene calm and it is a joy to just let your eye wander and organically pick up small nuances like the swaying of a flower or the ripple of water. Even more impressive, however, is the way Lilly moves through and interacts with her world. Moving from Point A to Point B may entail Lilly dashing along a path, slowing down as she approaches a gap, throwing out her arms to balance across a board, then struggle as she scrabbles up onto a raised platform. It’s endearing to watch her respond to a new discovery with wide-eyed amazement, or wince at a loud crash while covering her head. But her character truly comes to life as we watch incidental animations, like Lilly throwing herself at a boulder with arms and legs splayed, then slowly sliding down as she fails to find purchase, or taking it upon herself to try kicking off a game of leapfrog with an actual frog. These realistically childlike moments never feel like “just another animation sequence”, and they gave us all the incentive we needed to care about Lilly, with barely a word spoken.

Runners-Up: BEYOND: Two Souls, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Goodbye Deponia, The Walking Dead: 400 Days
 


Readers’ Choice: BEYOND: Two Souls


There’s little wonder why the animation of Quantic Dream’s latest psychological thriller shone the brightest among our readers this year. After all, the game’s actors were meticulously filmed using motion capture technology to ensure the utmost fluidity and realism. And not just for the large action set pieces either, but for even the tiniest of facial expressions. You’ll truly believe you’ve watched the real Ellen Page cry when you see tears running down the cheeks of protagonist Jodie Holmes. Perhaps the tears will flow again when news of the readers’ Best Animation award gets out.

Runners-Up: The Walking Dead: 400 Days, Goodbye Deponia, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Lilly Looking Through
 


Next up: Best Music... the envelope, please!


 


Best Music: The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief


At times jaunty and carefree, other times sinister and foreboding, The Raven’s orchestral soundtrack will stick with you long after you’ve stopped playing. When you can still happily hum those trademark notes weeks and even months later, it’s a sign of something special. The opening track manages to set up the whole premise right away: as a friendly Swiss constable rides a train through a scenic mountainside, the accompanying melodic strings establish a whimsical feel that reflects his affable nature… until the horns build, signalling the danger that lurks ahead, both for him and the train’s precious cargo… but then the sweet violins return once again. Is everything really as it seems? Later on, refrains from this theme recur throughout the rest of the score, tying seemingly disparate music and narrative events together in unexpected ways in this three-part 1960s heist adventure from KING Art Games.

Music in The Raven accomplishes what any good soundtrack should: it immerses you into the action, subtly manipulating your emotions without ever drawing attention to itself. But when you do stop just to enjoy the music, it’s hard not to keep listening. It’s no surprise that the soundtrack is included separately, or that one of the game’s extra features shows the orchestra recording some of the songs. This is a score that has been skillfully composed and deftly integrated to encapsulate each significant on-screen moment. There’s a great variety to enjoy, as even individual tracks manage to build to tense crescendos before quickly drifting back to being light as a feather. It’s reminiscent of a great Hollywood score, harking back to the John Williams films of old. It’s simultaneously exciting, thrilling, mysterious and captivating. But above all, there’s such a strong sense of adventure. And in this genre, what more could you ask for? Well, you could ask that we give it the Best Music Aggie for 2013, so that’s exactly what we did!

Runners-Up: Gone Home, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, BEYOND: Two Souls, Lilly Looking Through
 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


We can hardly disagree with your selection for Best Music, since we made the same choice ourselves last year after the initial Cognition episode. Between the wonderful score composed by Austin Haynes and the haunting closing credits song by Erica Reed voice actor Raleigh Holmes, the soundtrack is a superb musical complement to a powerfully dramatic story, and a deserving award winner any year.

Runners-Up: The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, BEYOND: Two Souls, Face Noir, The Night of the Rabbit
 


Next up: Best Voice Acting... the envelope, please!


 


Best Voice Acting: BEYOND: Two Souls


Could it have been anything else? BEYOND: Two Souls, Quantic Dream’s ambitious tale about the adventures of a young woman and the paranormal entity which accompanies her, boasted acting talent that few other adventures could match this year. The main character, Jodie Holmes, was played by none other than the Oscar-nominated Ellen Page, while Jodie’s mentor was played by the incomparable Willem Dafoe, whose own prolific resume includes playing Jesus Christ for Martin Scorsese and the Green Goblin in Spider-Man. The supporting cast also included considerable Hollywood talent, such as Kadeem Hardison (Cole Freeman) and Eric Winter (Ryan Clayton). Sony’s support provided the means to recruit an embarrassment of voice acting riches rarely seen in the genre anymore.

BEYOND certainly placed significant demands on the lead role, and Page was more than up to the challenge. Her ability to make players feel emotionally invested in a journey that encompasses her coming-of-age struggles as well as the harsh emotional realities of being an outsider was a revelation. Dafoe, who portrays Jodie’s mentor and surrogate father, was also equal to the task, turning in a performance that was as unsettling as it was unforgettable. Hardison’s turn as one of Jodie’s few friends was also notable for providing a believable emotional anchor throughout the game’s chaotic but fantastic story. Lead designer David Cage’s continued experimentations with video games as emotionally resonant works of art can only succeed if the talent he enlists can breathe life and immersion into his sophisticated characters, and the cast of BEYOND: Two Souls provided a tableau of relatable, sympathetic, and real personalities, earning it the Aggie nod for Best Voice Acting over some stiff competition.

Runners-Up: Gone Home, The Walking Dead: 400 Days, The Night of the Rabbit, The Cave
 


Readers’ Choice: BEYOND: Two Souls


It’s almost a little unfair. When the likes of top Hollywood talents like Ellen Page and Willem Dafoe take on relative unknowns in adventures with a tiny fraction of the budget, it’s probably not going to end well for the competition. And indeed, while the runners-up acquitted themselves very well in the polls, the excellent performances in BEYOND: Two Souls swept the staff and reader top voice acting honours entirely on merit, not name recognition alone.

Runners-Up: The Walking Dead: 400 Days, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller, The Night of the Rabbit, Gone Home, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
 


Next up: Best Sound Effects... the envelope, please!


 


Best Sound Effects: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2


Sound effects often take a backseat when talking about the standout elements of a game. Perhaps that's because most developers don't seem to have put as much thought into their audio design as their graphics. After all, you can't hear a screenshot. And even when playing a game, usually the best soundscapes are those you barely notice are there – subtly, almost subliminally creating an immersive atmosphere that sets the stage for the visible action. But when you encounter a game with masterful sound design, and take a moment to stop and appreciate its underlying emotional impact, you realize just how much that extra effort can add to the experience. Sometimes, though, you may have to travel to the most unusual of places to find such a game.

Kentucky Route Zero is a quiet game, even by the standards of a genre that isn't known for bombast. There is little music, no voice acting, and the sound design itself is pure minimalism. But less can often be more, and the first two Acts of this series illustrate that credo beautifully. Fields of grass blowing in the wind, singing crickets, semi-trucks passing in the distance… With just a few sounds conservatively sprinkled throughout each episode, Cardboard Computer has built an incomparable sense of place. The game gives players just enough aural cues to fire up the imagination before stepping back and letting that imagination fill the gaps in this surreal slice of southern Americana, and in doing so it earned our nod for Best Sound Effects of the year.
 
Runners-Up: BEYOND: Two Souls, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, Papers, Please, ASA: A Space Adventure
 


Readers’ Choice: Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs


While the sequel to The Dark Descent wasn’t as favourably received as its outstanding predecessor, it certainly wasn’t the fault of its excellent sound effects. Crucial to any horror story, the soundscape here is filled with excruciating (in a good way) industrial sounds that perfectly suit the horrific environments. It deserves to be played in the dark with headphones on... if you dare. It also deserves the readers’ Best Sound Effects Aggie for 2013.

Runners-Up: BEYOND: Two Souls, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, The Cave, Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller
 


Next up: Best Independent Adventure... the envelope, please!


 


Best Independent Adventure: Gone Home


In 2012, three friends who worked together on the BioShock series quit their day jobs and moved into a sprawling house in the Portland area to make a game. The following year we were graced with Gone Home, a game coincidentally set in a sprawling, Portland-area house. Even for players who aren’t aware of this background, the amount of love and care The Fullbright Company poured into Gone Home’s production should be obvious from their tender depiction of the Greenbriar family, their passion for the game’s subject matter, and their meticulous attention to detail in constructing this ordinary, yet extraordinary world. With its singular focus on exploration, featuring a protagonist and premise typically ignored in mainstream media, Gone Home is the epitome of an indie game: one that simply couldn’t exist if big budgets and publisher expectations were involved.

Interestingly, Gone Home owes a lot to the BioShock DLC Minerva’s Den, a first-person shooter with bits of story stuck in here and there. The team that made Gone Home was also responsible for those story bits. In designing their own game, they took a risk by leaving out the action gameplay that accompanies most mainstream first-person games, focusing instead on telling a story through narrative interludes and environmental clues. In the process, they stripped out exactly what makes a game like BioShock a hit – but that didn’t prevent Gone Home from resonating with an audience far larger than most adventure games, nor from gaining recognition above and beyond most home-grown indies with comparable budgets. Here at Adventure Gamers, we applaud Gone Home’s developers for following a dream and sharing the story they wanted to tell without giving in to audience or industry expectations. This Best Indie Aggie Award is our way of saying thanks to The Fullbright Company for quitting their day jobs.

Runners-Up: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, Papers, Please, Lilly Looking Through, Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


Phoenix Online is an inspirational indie success story. The team worked diligently for many years (and through several heavy-handed cease-and-desist orders) on their King’s Quest-inspired Silver Lining freeware series before turning their attention to their first commercial project. And what a fine job they did with their grisly paranormal murder mystery tale, as Cognition handily won our reader vote for top independent adventure of the year.

Runners-Up: Gone Home, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, Papers, Please, Face Noir
 


Next up: Best Console/Handheld Adventure... the envelope, please!


 


Best Console/Handheld Adventure (Exclusive): BEYOND: Two Souls


The field for console and handheld exclusives wasn’t overly crowded in 2013, but the limited output was a classic case of quality over quantity. A number of releases stretched the definition of what an adventure can be, providing new experiments in story and gameplay, and our winner was the most ambitious (and certainly the most commercially successful) of the lot, Quantic Dream’s BEYOND: Two Souls. The French developer’s latest contribution for the PlayStation 3 provided not just a brilliant demonstration of the audio and visual capabilities of Sony’s console, but also what is possible by pushing the narrative envelope.

While BEYOND didn’t quite reach the heights of its predecessor, Heavy Rain, it does continue to cement Quantic’s legacy as a studio willing to defy convention in providing compelling, mature experiences. Its story is firmly rooted in science fiction, but the care the design team put into the game, as well as the talents of A-list Hollywood actors which provided the voiceovers and motion-captured performances, created a story, world, and characters that we intimately cared about. The graphical splendour of BEYOND was also a joy to behold, from thrilling action scenes in an underwater base to minute emotional details in characters’ facial expressions. Squabble over genre labels all you want, but of all the console and handheld adventures we embarked on in 2013, BEYOND: Two Souls was the most unforgettable, making it a deserving winner of this year’s Aggie Award.

Runners-Up: Lost Echo, Year Walk, Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies, rain
 


Readers’ Choice: BEYOND: Two Souls


The PlayStation 3 may not have a lot of adventures, but it is the exclusive platform for Quantic Dream’s interactive dramas (much to the chagrin of PC gamers worldwide). Three years after Heavy Rain won similar Aggie honours, now BEYOND: Two Souls follows suit as the top console exclusive, convincingly trouncing its closest handheld competitors.

Runners-Up: Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies, Lost Echo, Year Walk, DEVICE 6
 


Next up: Best Non-Traditional Adventure... the envelope, please!


 


Best Non-Traditional Adventure: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons/Gone Home (tie)


Our top two finalists in this rapidly-burgeoning Aggie category couldn’t be any less traditional, nor could they be any less alike. One is an action-packed epic journey through a perilously beautiful fantasy world, while the other is an almost claustrophobic stay-at-home adventure in a single sprawling household in Portland. One is the wordless adventure of two brothers controlled simultaneously in union, while the other is a solitary first-person explorer filled with personal diaries and convincing voice recordings from a missing sister. One involves solving complex spatial puzzles and dexterity-challenging platforming elements, while the other requires nothing more than complicated than rummaging through drawers as you seek to untangle a mysterious, uncomfortably intimate family backstory. One has sweeping, timeless majestic orchestral scores, the other a variety of gritty punk tracks from renowned Riot Grrrl bands of the 1990s. But Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Gone Home have one thing very much in common: both are brilliant at what they do.

The two games are similar in at least one other way as well. Although you wouldn’t necessarily suspect it from either premise, both of these entirely unconventional interactive experiences tell remarkably poignant tales of love and loss, of hope and despair, of family bonds that can never be shattered no matter the obstacle. You don’t need to be a medieval-era farm boy or a teenage American girl to share the deep connections the protagonists have with their troubled siblings. If you don’t feel even the slightest pangs of heartache and loneliness (or at least the disquieting sense of unease from imposed separation) in playing through either game, you’d best check for a pulse to see if you’ve still got a heart to break. So how did we choose the “better” of two such different yet evenly-impressive games? We didn’t! We know ties are a bit like kissing a sibling, but since both games are all about enduring family relationships, that image is entirely fitting. And so, for just the second time in Aggie history, we have co-winners of an award, this time for Best Non-Traditional Adventure of 2013. Both are deserving, and we just can’t break them up. (At least, not yet...)

Runners-Up: Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, BEYOND: Two Souls, Lilly Looking Through
 


Readers’ Choice: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons


Like us, you readers had a tough call between the top two finishers, but in your case the brothers beat the sisters outright, albeit by only a tiny margin. The winning combination of poignant story, stunning production values, epic fantasy setting, unique controls, and a variety of both mind- and reflex-challenging gameplay proved impossible to resist. Not everyone may like the genre’s increasing shift away from traditional adventure formulas, but for those in the mood for something a little different, you couldn’t ask for better in 2013 than Starbreeze Studios’ A Tale of Two Sons.

Runners-Up: Gone Home, BEYOND: Two Souls, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, Papers, Please
 


Next up: Best Traditional Adventure... the envelope, please!


 


Best Traditional Adventure: Goodbye Deponia


Maintaining tradition isn’t always easy. But with the Deponia trilogy, Daedalic Entertainment has managed to combine a classic point-and-click adventure structure with a non-traditional hero in an appealingly madcap world. Deponia is a cartoon-like garbage planet cobbled together with haphazard shapes, quirky colour schemes, odd protuberances, and rickety machine parts. The inhabitants are no less eccentric, including Rufus, a rabblerousing quipster, and Goal, a patrician with brain implant issues. The discombobulating forces that rule Deponia provide heaps of material for unusual puzzle solutions – silly disguises, satirical dialogue, way-out pattern analysis, and inventory mishmashes. At a time when adventure games are getting shorter and easier, the Deponia games have consistently provided many hours of challenging gameplay, character interaction, well-animated cutscenes, and absurdist humour.

The stakes are higher than ever in Goodbye Deponia, the saga’s third installment. The ultimate fates of planet Deponia and the floating city of Elysium are to be determined here. Rufus responds by diving back into a past life chapter and cloning himself into three – thereby creating three times the disruption and rampant cluelessness. He will rally a rebel alliance of friends and acquaintances, who all know better than to trust him, in a final attempt to save the world. This series finale provides multiple plot twists, explores hidden character motivations, and offers a reason for Rufus’s death-defying exuberance. It also presents a gratifyingly ironic – though not exactly blissful – ending. Taking up the torch dropped by LucasArts, Daedalic’s Goodbye Deponia renews the essence and the many pleasures of the vintage adventure game. As a result, it gets our top accolades and a chorus of “Huzzahs!” for the Best Traditional Adventure of 2013.

Runners-Up: The Night of the Rabbit, Lost Echo, Memoria, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


Daedalic may be the flag bearer for the traditional adventure these days, with a whopping three of the top five finishers, but it was Cognition that took home the top reader award. Its unapologetically adult storyline and clever cognition-based gameplay were matched by stylish graphic novel-like visuals and an outstanding soundtrack to make for a memorable episodic psychological thriller.

Runners-Up: Goodbye Deponia, Memoria, The Night of the Rabbit, The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
 


Next up: The moment you’ve all been waiting for – Best Adventure of 2013... the envelope, please!


 


Best Adventure of 2013: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons


The battle for the top adventure game of the year was a tight one between all five finalists, and a virtual deadlock between the top two. Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons and Gone Home are very different games that many may balk at calling adventures at all. But we’re here to celebrate brilliant adventure experiences, not argue pointless labels, so one of them was destined to come out on top. But which?? (No ties allowed for the Game of the Year!) Round and round we went, until Brothers emerged the narrowest victor in Aggie Award history.

Brothers is a truly phenomenal game that’s like no other, and it manages to communicate an incredibly moving story without so much as a word. The main characters, a pair of young brothers, speak only in unintelligible (to us) gibberish, but the familial connection created through their cooperative actions is unmatched. With an innovative control scheme, each brother can (and must) be controlled simultaneously, contributing their personal strengths to overcome the collective obstacles that threaten them. It’s hard to believe that the way you control characters can be so integral to the emotional heart of a game, but developer Starbreeze has succeeded in accomplishing just that. This is a duo whose bond is made stronger by their hardships, and players can’t help but feel like an intimate part of this relationship with every button press.

Set in an expansive, Grimm-style fairy tale land, this is a story of love and loss, full of intrigue and fantastical exploration. The path you traverse is constantly offering up something new, every moment memorable. It’s hard to pick a standout scene when it’s all so good. Paddling through Arctic waters as a magnificent mammal leaps out in front of you; the horror of witnessing a cult attempting to offer sacrifice as blood literally flows beside them; the thrill of flying through the air and swooping through the mountains. These are but three examples in a world that never grows stale and refuses to keep you in the same place for too long, each scene laden with backstory. While the game never forces you to veer off the main path, if you do you’ll often be rewarded with some powerful, thoughtful moments.

Not to be outdone, Brothers looks and sounds as wonderfully as it plays. The music complements the varied action perfectly, offering whimsy and tension in equal doses, while the gorgeous use of colour and lighting highlights the highly atmospheric 3D scenery. Make no mistake, however: there is an element of platforming involved in the service of the game’s many puzzles, and a degree of dexterity is required. Bear with the early learning curve, however, and you will be richly rewarded. Regardless of how much praise we lavish, this is a game you simply need to play for yourselves. It’s a treat start to finish, one that every genre fan (any genre fan) owes it to themselves to experience. At the end of the day, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is immersive, thought-provoking, gorgeous and fun, making it a worthy winner of our Aggie Award for Best Adventure of 2013.

Runners-Up: Gone Home, Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1-2, Goodbye Deponia, The Night of the Rabbit
 


Readers’ Choice: Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller


Having already claimed five reader Aggies, surely it should come as no surprise that Cognition lands the Game of the Year Award as well. Partly funded by Kickstarter, long before Kickstarter was on a lot of people’s maps, Cognition proved what can be done with a little bit of money and a whole lot of talent, effort, and passion from those who clearly love and understand the genre. We’d call Phoenix Online Studios an up-and-coming developer to watch, but where is there to go when you’re already at the top?

Runners-Up: Memoria, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Gone Home, BEYOND: Two Souls, Goodbye Deponia
 


That concludes the 2013 Aggie Awards!  Still to come, a few final notes. Down below, as always we welcome feedback in the comments section! (Intelligent, respectful feedback, that is, but you already knew that.) Thanks for reading and voting, and we’ll see you all again next year for the titanic battle of Kickstarter releases (and many, many more).

The Adventure Gamers staff would like to offer our sincere congratulations to the developers (and publishers) of all games that won awards, and our thanks to the many readers who participated in our public voting poll.


Final Notes


To be eligible, a game must have been launched through digital distribution, self-published online, or commercially released in either North America or the United Kingdom in the calendar year 2013.

Although their respective first episodes were released in 2013, Broken Age, Broken Sword 5: The Serpent's Curse, The Walking Dead: Season Two and The Wolf Among Us will be carried over to 2014.

The first two episodes of Bot Colony were made available to purchase in 2013 but are still in beta, so the game not yet eligible.


Complete list of eligible games


PC/Mac (includes multi-platform releases)


Adventures of Max Fax
Alone in the Park
Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
ASA: A Space Adventure
Astroloco: Worst Contact
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
The Cave
Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller – Episodes 2-4
Cold Case Summer
Conspirocracy
Detective Case and Clown Bot: Murder in the Hotel Lisbon
Dominique Pamplemousse in "It's All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!"
Doorways: Chapter 1 and 2
Dracula 4: The Shadow of the Dragon
Dracula 5: The Blood Legacy
Dream Chamber
The Dream Machine: Chapter 4
Dreamscapes: The Sandman
Eleusis
Face Noir
Fester Mudd: Curse of the Gold – Episode 1: A Fistful of Pocket Lint
Finding Teddy
Gomo
Gone Home
Goodbye Deponia
Helga Deep in Trouble
Hypnosis HD
The Inheritance
The Inner World
The Inquisitor: Book 1 – The Plague
Jack Haunt: Old Haunting Grounds
Jack Keane 2: The Fire Within
Journey of a Roach
Kentucky Route Zero: Acts 1 and 2
Lilly Looking Through
Master Reboot
Memoria
Montague's Mount: Episode One
Murder in Tehran's Alleys 1933
Mysterious Cities of Gold: Secret Paths
Namariel Legends: Iron Lord
Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall
Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy
Nancy the Happy Whore and the Perfidious Petrol Station
Necrotic Drift Deluxe
The Night of the Rabbit
Nightmare Adventures: The Turning Thorn
Oknytt
Papers, Please
Quantumnauts: Chapter 2 - Black Hole Happens
The Raven: Legacy of a Master Thief
Reversion: Chapter 2 – The Meeting
Richard & Alice
Secret Files: Sam Peters
Tiny Thief
Violett
The Walking Dead: 400 Days

Console/Handheld (exclusives)


BEYOND: Two Souls (PS3)
Blackbar (iOS)
The Curse of Shadow House (iOS)
DEVICE 6 (iOS)
Jacob Jones and the Bigfoot Mystery: Episode 1 – A Bump in the Night (iOS/Vita)
Layton Brothers: Mystery Room (iOS)
Lost Echo (iOS)
Maniac Manors (iOS)
Phoenix Wright: Dual Destinies (3DS)
Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy (3DS)
rain (PS3)
The Starship Damrey (3DS)
Year Walk (iOS)
 


Contributors to the writing of this article include: Jack Allin, Nathaniel Berens, Scott Bruner, Joe Keeley, Emily Morganti, Pascal Tekaia, Johnny Vineaux, Becky Waxman, Manda Whitney.

The Aggie Award was designed by Bill Tiller.