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The Aggie Awards - The Best Adventure Games of 2015

Written by AG Staff
It will take you about 38 minutes to read this feature.


Article updated Friday, February 26th. Already read about Day One and Day Two? Skip straight ahead to the final day's presentation!
 


Ahh, awards season… That time of year when Ricky Gervais insults Hollywood insiders, when Kanye West storms a podium unbidden, and when uppity film critics choose between lily-white people in movies no one has seen.

But all that is just a precursor to the one award that really matters, Adventure Gamers’ very own Aggies! With a couple weeks to digest our staff nominees, as well as cast your own ballots in the reader poll, it’s time now for our three-day celebration of 2015’s best adventure games to begin.

Even without episodic works-in-progress like Dreamfall Chapters and King’s Quest, plus some high profile omissions like Telltale’s latest story games, there was no shortage of strong contenders for our coveted statuettes. Narrowing the field to five was hard; picking only one was downright painful. Fortunately, whatever doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, and the Aggies are no exception. The end result of all that turmoil is an outstanding group of deserving winners.

And for those that didn’t win… well, there’s a reason we call them runners-up and not losers. Only one can claim the hardware, but every game nominated, whether first place or fifth, is an excellent accomplishment worthy of praise, and does their creators proud. Congratulations to ALL are entirely in order. Well done, developers. Keep them coming, please.

The awards presentation will run daily from Wednesday through Friday, so stick around!
 


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


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

 

Day Three


Page 14: The Silver Aggies
Page 15: Best Non-Traditional Adventure
Page 16: Best Traditional Adventure
Page 17: Best Adventure of 2015
Page 18: Final Notes
 


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


Best Story: Anna’s Quest

You may not guess it from looking at its whimsical cartoon artwork, but Anna’s Quest weaves a poignant saga of heart and heartbreak, with many twists and rich characterization, making it the deserving winner of our Best Story Aggie for 2015. The game begins the day young Anna is forced out of the safety of her farm into the ominous, forbidden woods beyond to find a cure for her ailing grandfather. Waylaid by wicked witch Winfriede and locked up in a haunted high tower, Anna is subjected to tortures that accidentally unleash her telekinetic abilities. She manages to flee the tower using her newfound power, and in doing so, sets about unraveling a decades-old legacy of shattered dreams, magic and mayhem.

Anna’s tale is far more complex than it appears at the outset, linking together many characters and events in a domino effect of actions and reactions set off by one little girl’s determination to fight her destiny. The game’s pretty storybook art is an illusory foil for a grim story that tackles harsh realities like ruined childhoods, ungrateful people, cruel authority figures, and relentless bureaucracy with unflinching directness. It is touching to watch the intelligent yet achingly naïve Anna, brought up in a cocoon of love and trust, shed her innocence and learn to trust her instincts as she navigates the real world of both good folks and evil. There are no leniencies for the weak or the meek in this vast arena of humans, animals, and mythical monsters like dragons and trolls, and Anna is often misled or cheated simply because she is too young to know better. If the Brothers Grimm were alive today, they would surely embrace this modern-day fairy tale, and we believe most adventure gamers will too.

Runners-Up:


Life Is Strange

Broken Age

SOMA

Technobabylon
 


Readers’ Choice: Life Is Strange


While the term “young adult fiction” might carry a stigma for some, written off as teen-pandering melodrama, games like Life Is Strange show just how compelling it can be when done right. Dontnod had to fend off some solid competition, but ultimately won players over with their two-pronged storyline: not merely a tale of supernatural powers and portents of impending doom, this is also a very personal, completely believable story of friendship between two teenaged girls whose fates you’ll be fully invested in by the end, an accomplishment that cops the Best Story reader Aggie this year.

Runners-Up:


Technobabylon

Anna’s Quest

SOMA

Broken Age
 


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


Best Writing – Comedy: Aviary Attorney

To laugh is to relate, so our Aggie choice for best comedic writing really needed to nail its characters, to make them relatable in order to evoke humour. Who would have guessed that a life-and-death courtroom drama set during a fictional version of the French Revolution could also lead to a bellyful of laughs? But that’s exactly what developer Sketchy Logic achieved with its stylish first adventure, Aviary Attorney, borrowing heavily from the acclaimed Phoenix Wright series that clearly served as inspiration, while cleverly managing to find a voice and style all its own.

Aviary Attorney, as its name implies, is a game filled with a cast of anthropomorphic animals, yet it nevertheless manages to tap cleverly into the human condition for yuks in a way no other game on our list could. With lots of witty wordplay, the interactions between defense attorney Jayjay Falcon and his put-upon assistant Sparrowson are not only endearing but downright mirthful, and even the amusingly quirky supporting characters have their moments to shine. But perhaps most impressive is the fact that the writing manages to carry merry comedy alongside heavy drama, and do it consistently from beginning to end of this remarkable adventure. The defense rests.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Supreme League of Patriots

Anna’s Quest
 


Readers’ Choice: Broken Age


Tim Schafer’s still got it. Although not as thigh-slappingly funny as some of his LucasArts classics, Broken Age continually oozes a winning sense of style and charm and grin-inducing whimsy. With neither of its dual protagonists a wise-cracking lead, the game relies less on snappy wordplay and more on situational comedy sprinkled with delightful details just for fun. Selling out for broad laughs would have undermined the deeper coming-of-age tale being told, but the game never takes itself too seriously, even in its darkest moments. For this deft blend of both comedy and drama, Schafer’s writing earns the reader nod by a whisker – and what’s most remarkable: he did it all in the public eye.

Runners-Up:


The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Aviary Attorney

Anna’s Quest

Armikrog.
 


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


Best Writing – Drama: Her Story

Everyone loves a mystery, but very few seem quite so mysterious as Sam Barlow’s Her Story. The narrative is presented through video clips from multiple police interviews of a sole character, the titular "Her." The thing is, the many video fragments are out of order, leaving you to piece them together like a puzzle and discover what really happened. The nature of the story automatically makes it feel foreboding: You're on a computer in the basement of a police station, digging through old case file interviews using only keywords, the first of which is "murder," the only clue provided to get you started. The unique gameplay mechanics play a significant part in keeping the narrative interesting, but Her Story wouldn't have been successful without an intriguing story to support it. Fortunately, writer-director Sam Barlow delivers a thoroughly compelling yarn filled with intrigue.  

Some of the video clips are small, a few conveying only a single word. Others contain humorous anecdotes, emotional confessions, and even songs. Certain details offer important glimpses into the lives of other people connected to the case, and as with all mysteries, shocking reveals are exposed along the way. The narrative twists far beyond what you first expect starting out, delving deeply into the psyche of its focal character. To say more would deprive players of the joy of personal discovery, but suffice it to say, this is a rich character study of a complex woman, its larger story opening up to become the proverbial riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Even the ending is left somewhat ambiguous, encouraging you draw your own conclusions. Thanks to its strategic plotting and deft script, it all feels very organic, true to life in both its mundane details and most intimate moments. A good indication that any piece of writing has been worthwhile is when it stays with you for a long time, and Her Story is still foremost on our minds in awarding it our best dramatic writing Aggie for 2015. 

Runners-Up:


Technobabylon

STASIS

Prominence

The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna
 


Readers’ Choice: Life Is Strange


Nothing sinks a good story faster than a weak script, but you readers were clearly impressed by this game’s mature handling of a very believable teen drama at its core. It’s not just the dialogue between a truly eclectic cast of characters, either, but the abundance of extraneous details, from whiteboard notes and posters scattered around the campus to Max’s hand-written journal littered with Polaroids, doodles, magazine clippings, and more. For so authentically representing high school as we remember it (an experience that some of us have probably tried hard to forget), Life Is Strange pairs its Best Story reader award with the best dramatic writing Aggie.

Runners-Up:


Her Story

Technobabylon

STASIS

SOMA
 


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


Best Character: Wilbur Weathervane – The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

The diminutive young gnome Wilbur Weathervane has come a long way since we first met him interning as a busboy in a dwarven pub in The Book of Unwritten Tales. Not only did he secure his Mage Diploma by stoically overcoming a host of challenges, his understated heroics against the dreaded Army of the Shadows won over even the most jaded of hearts. That war is now over and Wilbur has settled down in the village of Seastone, but he is having a tough go as the first gnome professor of the Mage School. Tired of being trolled by his awful students, he tries some fancy magic to awe them, but things go horribly wrong, leading to the hijinks of The Book of Unwritten Tales 2.

It's no surprise that Wilbur is the heart and soul of the sequel too. He plays a pivotal role in resolving the main crisis, and is a nucleus for the rest of the cast, his altruism unifying their individual goals into a greater purpose for common good. An ideal balance of goodness, courage and competence, Wilbur confronts each challenge, no matter how twisted, with sense and sincerity. And though often defeated by shrewder, stronger opponents, he always bounces back good-naturedly and keeps his focus on the big picture. He builds a strong rapport with Ivo, the elven heroine of the saga, and through his charisma, diplomacy and sheer hard work, rallies the loyalties of assorted characters against the forces of darkness (and pinkness) threatening their realm once again. Credit must also be given to the talented Nicholas Aaron, who voices Wilbur as the sensitive, articulate gnome, eliciting his entire gamut of emotions, from exultation to indecision, with the subtlest of intonations. For having the big, brave heart of a true hero, little Wilbur is the winner of 2015’s Best Character Aggie.

Runners-Up:


Interviewee – Her Story

Fran Bow – Fran Bow

Chloe – Life Is Strange

Vella – Broken Age
 


Readers’ Choice: Chloe Price (Life Is Strange)


While some games were guilty of having too many good characters, suffering the curse of vote-splitting as a result, this winner held up even with stiff competition from within. While Life Is Strange’s lead protagonist Max got some consideration as well, as so often happens it’s the spunky sidekick that gets the juiciest role. Chloe Price is fun to be around, always doing the unexpected, and able to draw Max out of her shell. She has a selfish streak and anger that makes her push people away, but she cares deeply about her few friends and is willing to put herself on the line for them. The blue-haired rebel with the turbulent home life grabs the Best Character reader award that Chloe would probably pretend means nothing to her. But we know better: her tough-talking, risk-taking swagger is just a façade for her hidden insecurities. She’d secretly be thrilled.

Runners-Up:


Vella (Broken Age)

Fran Bow (Fran Bow)

Wilbur Weathervane (The Book of Unwritten Tales 2)

Anna (Anna’s Quest)
 


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


Best Gameplay: The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Who says they don’t make ‘em like they used to? The epic saga of the adventuring quartet of Wilbur, Evo, Nate and Critter continued in 2015 with The Book of Unwritten Tales 2. Developed by German studio KING Art Games, the sequel offers an impressive twenty-plus hours of thoughtfully-crafted, traditional point-and-click gameplay. Its cohesive quests involve collecting and using objects to bypass obstacles, repair items and devise contraptions. Tasks range from making potato chips to building golems, and while they are not unduly whacky, most have clever little twists to keep you hooked. Many segments require taking control of one hero or another, but some allow tandem play between two or even three characters. There are also several standalone puzzles to solve, some well-structured while others rely on experimental trial-and-error. Progress is broadly linear, with two or three active mini-quests at a time, and there’s rarely a shortage of things to do.

This is not a particularly easy game, with some lateral thinking frequently required and no in-game hints or a diary to keep track of the to-dos, but the literal hundreds of objectives flow logically from one to the next in an organic progression that makes them feel intuitive. The joy of TBoUT2’s gameplay is not merely about the puzzles, either, but the overall user-friendly interactive experience. Objects are described in great detail, and many can be dismantled further into useful components. Hotspots are deactivated once exhausted, and used items are discarded from the inventory. This, combined with the intelligent cursor that highlights only likely object matches, all but eliminates random clicking and being browbeaten by tiresome default failure responses. Chapters that involve extensive commuting, sometimes between entire continents, are equipped with maps that allow teleportation, further reducing unwanted filler. For being a true-blue classic adventure with hours of well-engineered quests – a rare treat in this era – The Book of Unwritten Tales 2 is this year’s Aggie winner for Best Gameplay. Take THAT, puzzle-free games!

Runners-Up:


Technobabylon

The Black Watchmen: Season 1

Prominence

Bulb Boy
 


Readers’ Choice: Technobabylon


When it comes to adventure gamers, there’s nothing like old school! The latest sci-fi adventure from Wadjet Eye may be set in a futuristic world of high technology, but the game itself is a retro point-and-click chock full of traditional gameplay elements we all know and love. With plenty of interaction across diverse locations, a wide variety of interesting characters to converse with, and a host of puzzles to solve – some of them only by entering a virtual space known as “The Trance” – Technobabylon hit the sweet spot of adventuring goodness, and now has the reader Aggie to prove it.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

Life Is Strange

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Anna’s Quest
 


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


Best Concept: Her Story

Writer-director Sam Barlow is no stranger to unique concepts, having created the interactive fiction game Aisle back in 1999, which required only a single move to complete. In developing Her Story, he got even more creative, taking an antiquated gaming visual technique and making it relevant once again for modern audiences. While a few full motion video games were successful in the ‘90s, many failed due to poor production values and limitations in both technology and budget, and their brief popularity soon died out. Twenty years later, Barlow has thrown away convention and changed our notions of how FMV can be used. His game harks back to the ‘90s not just in spirit but also in setting, simulating a decades-old PC desktop, the fluorescent glare of ceiling lights on a CRT screen, and a series of unorganized video clips that unravel a mystery. 

What makes Her Story so good, however, is not a comfortable nostalgia for the past but its clever approach to storytelling through gameplay, as you input search words and phrases in order to view tagged video fragments of a young woman interviewed by police on film following the disappearance of her husband. There’s no exploration, no inventory, no worlds to explore, just a captivating narrative experience to be pieced together as you go. Instead of being a passive observer watching events play out in a linear fashion, you're intrinsically connected with the case through your own thoughtful diligence, and are left to your own devices to make sense of what you uncover in non-chronological order. It’s even up to you to decide when you’ve seen enough. Whereas some players may feel they've explored enough to conclude their investigation within a couple of hours, others may want to dig deeper, to keep going until they've fleshed out every last story detail. We suspect most people did the latter, because the process is so addictive and the payoff so worthwhile. For revolutionizing the way an FMV story can be told, Her Story takes home the Aggie for Best Concept of the year.

Runners-Up:


The Black Watchmen: Season 1

Broken Age

else Heart.Break()

PataNoir
 


Readers’ Choice: Her Story


Was there really any doubt? Just when you think you have a grasp on what an adventure game can be, along comes an ambitious new designer to throw those expectations out the window. No exploration, no inventory, no endgame closure… no problem! Like the best ideas, Sam Barlow’s fusion of interactive fiction and live-action presentation seems so obvious in retrospect, it’s a wonder it hasn’t happened before. But it took Barlow to make it reality, and for that he’s the first unanimous winner among both staff and readers for Best Concept of 2015.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

Life Is Strange

Aviary Attorney

else.Heart.Break()
 


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


Best Setting: Armikrog.

In Armikrog, you crash land on a planet where a monster immediately tries to make you into a wrap sandwich. Fortunately, you manage to escape to a sanctuary beyond your wildest dreams… or possibly your freakiest nightmares. It’s a surreal, richly hued fortress where waxen petals deck the walls. Doors are pock-marked or blocked by fuzzy cubes. Creatures with long, gummy limbs hang from the ceilings. Machines with tube-like gewgaws squat below. Statues emit ghostly clues. Flaky red ants hibernate in their presidential cocoons. It’s whimsical, delectable, and seriously insane.

Of course, with this spiritual successor to The Neverhood, it’s not just the “what” and “where” that are important but the “how”, as each of these fantastical scenes have been meticulously hand-modeled in clay and brought to life with rich stop motion animation: players will putter about via bumper cars and buzzy-bee wings. You hop onto slurping tentacles, slithering up and down. Treadmill wheels rotate as you saunter around them. Giant air hoses suck you up and chuck you out. Clay snout birds and wheelie things flap and zoom about. For giving us a place so wonderfully bizarre that any self-respecting hero would want to crash there, Armikrog is entirely deserving of this year’s Best Setting Aggie Award.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

STASIS

Tormentum: Dark Sorrow

Technobabylon
 


Readers’ Choice: Broken Age


There’s a distinct sci-fi theme running through the highly competitive Best Setting category this year, but the one claiming the reader prize takes players on a delightful journey through diverse environments filled with richly imaginative details, from the pastoral baking town of Sugar Bunting where maiden sacrifices dress up like frosted cupcakes, to the floating cloud city of Meriloft, to a spaceship housing a roller coaster through ice cream mountains. And then all hell breaks loose. Well done, Double Fine.

Runners-Up:


STASIS

Technobabylon

SOMA

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today
 


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


Best Graphic Design: Tormentum: Dark Sorrow

Swiss surrealist H.R. Giger may have made his video game debut with Cyberdreams’ Dark Seed way back in 1992, but the late artist’s macabre designs continue to have influence in the genre. Not content to merely retread past efforts with a straightforward homage, however, in Tormentum: Dark Sorrow Polish developer OhNoo! Studio has combined Giger’s “Biomechanical” themes with the organic, dreamlike works of their nation’s own Zdzislaw Beksinski, lending the game a diverse and wonderfully-macabre aesthetic. Many of the characters and creatures found throughout the game are a sight to behold, especially those that are clearly inspired by the Necromorph of Alien fame, one of Giger’s best-known creations. Along the way, players encounter monstrous caterpillars, demonic guards, and a wide variety of other creatures that populate the decrepit settings, including a family of rat-people harboring a dark secret in their basement.

But the true star of the show here is the environment itself. Outdoor locations showcase the ruined hellscape you find yourself in as brimstone rains down from soot-blackened skies, while indoor locations blend the macabre with a number of art styles, including touches of Art Nouveau. Cathedrals made of bone and other organic materials seem to sprout from the ground itself. Distorted female figures appear within the walls of passageways. Slender, larger-than-life hands steeple up from the ground to form an archway. Even a fire-spewing steam locomotive makes an appearance, along with several other buildings composed of skeletal forms bound up in towering organic structures. The result of all this is a look that’s equal parts gorgeous and nightmarish, inviting you to savor every last hand-painted scene, and the success with which OhNoo! Studio conveys their dark vision is plenty of reason to award Tormentum: Dark Sorrow 2015’s Aggie for Best Graphic Design.

 Runners-Up:


STASIS

Broken Age

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today
 


Readers’ Choice: Broken Age


Contributing significantly to the many creative settings that make up Broken Age are the lovely graphics depicting them. In a year with so many jaw-dropping visuals comprising all kinds of aesthetics, it’s the whimsical, painterly art style of this game that wowed the most readers. While some complain that the design is too cartoony, too childish, Tim Schafer was insistent on following Nathan “Bagel” Stapley’s artistic vision, and that decision has certainly paid off in this stunning world of imagination and wonder.

Runners-Up:


STASIS

Life Is Strange

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today
 


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


Best Animation: Life Is Strange

Ahh, the joys of adolescence. (Um, not.) Across five episodes, Life Is Strange drew us into the melodramatic, fun, painful, confusing, exhilarating world of American teenager Max Caulfield and her blue-haired bestie, Chloe Price – a world that comes alive thanks to the natural animations of its characters. Crossed arms and an impatient glare from the teen queen who’s been slighted, best friends dancing on a bed with the stereo blaring, the awkward body shift of a girl uncomfortable in her own skin – these gestures and more bring a graceful fluidity to a game set during the time of life that, for most of us, was anything but graceful.

In a cinematic game like Life Is Strange, the payoff for good animation goes far deeper than the occasional cutscene. Poses, gestures, facial expressions, camera cuts – all combine to create a world we can believe in (no small feat in a hyper-realistic setting with a cast of human characters). The animation is most impressive in crowds: tune out the story for a minute just to watch how each individual character moves during the End of the World party or the climactic tornado and you’ll realize the vast attention to detail the animators have infused in these massive scenes. But the smaller, quieter moments are just as masterful: two girls treading water in a pool at night, crying in the front seat of a beat-up truck, clinging to each other on the edge of a windy cliff, balancing on a train track holding hands. Each episode is chock full of well animated vignettes like these – so many that even if you turned the sound down and ignored the plot, Life Is Strange would tell a beautiful story, a tremendous achievement that earns the game this year’s Best Animation award.

Runners-Up:


The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Broken Age

STASIS

Armikrog.
 


Readers’ Choice: Armikrog.


Kind of the yin to our Best Setting yang, the reader vote for Best Animation goes to the game that isn’t the most seamlessly fluid or vividly alive, but the one that forsook fancy computer-generated wizardry for good old-fashioned handcraft. That’s not to say the results aren’t worthy: Tommynaut struts with a firm stride, his stringy hair flapping behind him. His companion Beak-Beak trots nimbly, short legs churning as he falls, tail wagging briskly. Sparks shower as Tommynaut drives his cable car, and the whole thing vibrates, zooming and jolting along the wall. Octovator devices blink and smack their lips, tentacles swaying gently. Knobs and levers clack and flutter as a bubbly liquid surges through the power tubes. But when you consider that all this was painstaking filmed, frame by freaking frame, it’s an even more truly remarkable achievement.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

Life Is Strange

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Anna’s Quest
 


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


Best Music: Broken Age

It’s challenging enough to create a varied yet thematically-unified score for any video game, but this issue was multiplied by two for Double Fine’s Broken Age. The Tim Schafer-penned adventure has not just one but two protagonists, each inhabiting vastly different worlds from the other. Shay lives on a high-tech starship where his every need is catered to by a smothering computer system called “Mom,” while Vella resides with her family in the pastoral Sugar Bunting under the malevolent spectre of monster Mog Chothra. Various other settings are explored throughout the game as well, such as the cloud-city of Meriloft and the beachtown of Shellmound, each with its own completely distinctive backdrop. Yet composer Peter McConnell – acclaimed LucasArts alum and frequent Schafer collaborator – rose to the occasion magnificently, creating a soundtrack that not only captures the essence of each locale and the quirky characters who inhabit them, but also succeeding in musically intertwining the dual narrative structure.

With the occasional shift to jazzy numbers for mysterious moments, Shay’s sequences typically feature a child-like yet technologically-oriented feel: sounds reminiscent of a toy xylophone can be heard while perusing his bedroom, while a trip outside to the vastness of space is accompanied by distorted, electronic-sounding notes. Gameplay with Vella, however, tends toward mature-sounding tracks with an organic texture, mirroring the young heroine’s circumstances and mindset. Ethereal tunes accompany the action in rural Sugar Bunting, but marimbas play during scenes set in picturesque Shellmound. For both characters, the most cinematic or grandiose scenes are punctuated by sweeping orchestral scores. While the wonderfully varied music is a noteworthy accomplishment in its own right, performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and a group of San Francisco musicians, what elevates McConnell’s score to greatness is the way, especially later in the game, the tracks share instruments, moods, and themes, so that each tune is distinct yet retains a certain continuity when switching from one character to another. Such masterful attention to detail results in a soundtrack that perfectly complements one of the best adventures of the year, thus earning its place as 2015 Aggie Award winner for Best Music.

Runners-Up:


The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Life Is Strange

Aviary Attorney

The Rivers of Alice: Extended Edition
 


Readers’ Choice: Life Is Strange


Where most games (at least, the better ones) rely on scores that play in the background, what makes Life Is Strange really stand out musically is the way in which it cleverly integrates an alternative rock soundtrack that sounds exactly like what Portland-area high schoolers would listen to. Max will pop in her earbuds for a cinematic bus ride through town set to song, while the massive Vortex Club party has its own DJ spinning for crowds of dancing kids. In helping to fully immerse us in the world of Arcadia Bay, the readers’ Best Music Aggie goes to an increasingly familiar recipient.

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

Aviary Attorney

STASIS

Technobabylon
 


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


Best Acting (Voice or Live Action): Broken Age

You might be tempted to think that simply throwing Hollywood talent at a game is a guarantee of success, but we’ve all heard flat, phoned-in performances or odd choices made for name recognition over ability. In fact, casting your game and bringing your creations to life can be a tricky process, but Tim Schafer and Voice Director Khris Brown (whose partnership dates back to Day of the Tentacle) are no newbies to the process. And that’s a good thing, because when you’ve got a quirky and imaginative script penned by one of the genre greats, it’s even more paramount that the creative spark on the page is successfully transferred into speech. Broken Age achieves that with flying colours, mixing professional voice actors together with performers renowned for their silver screen roles to produce a wonderfully varied cast.

Although there isn’t a single weak link in the bunch, of course Elijah Wood and Masasa Moyo as Shay and Vella, the two leads, undoubtedly deserve the highest praise for captivating and carrying us through two very different coming-of-age stories. Wood brings both an innocence and cheekiness to his role, while Moyo sounds endearingly determined as the young woman defying all expectations in deciding her own fate in the face of relentless societal foolishness. Both actors are able to effectively convey a range of emotion, drawing the audience in and making their respective personas genuinely sympathetic. But the quality doesn’t stop there, as the supporting band of players continually brings fresh energy to the story. David Kaufman is deliciously creepy as the mysterious Marek, Jennifer Hale is sweet and protective as the smothering Mom, and Jack Black oozes his typically awesome chill as Harm’ny Lightbeard. Let’s face it: when you’re laughing at a talking spoon, you know Broken Age is a deserving winner of our Best Acting award for 2015.

Runners-Up:


Her Story

Technobabylon

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Life Is Strange
 


Readers’ Choice: Broken Age


With Her Story and Contradiction helping to make FMV a thing again, this year we had to broaden this category from voice acting alone. Even so, the talented actors in Double Fine’s sound booth were able to claim the Best Acting award from staff and readers alike. We’ve detailed the reasons why already, but here’s the punctuation: Curtis the Lumberjack was originally just a throwaway character never intended for the final game, but was so beloved by Kickstarter backers that not only was he kept in the game, Wil Wheaton was cast as the paranoid slacker. Talk about an embarrassment of riches. C’mon.

Runners-Up:


Her Story

Life Is Strange

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Contradiction
 


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


Best Sound Effects: SOMA

It’s hard to believe that in most video games, there are NO inherent sounds involved. Each game begins in absolute silence, its world brought to life only through the dedicated efforts of sound designers. Some games can get away with minimal effects (and often try), but some practically beg for a richly atmospheric soundscape. For the latter, there may be no environment riper for wonderfully immersive sound design than creepy, remote research outposts stricken by horrific, mysterious tragedy. Whether in space, Antarctica, or the bottom of the ocean, the foreboding, creaky confines of dark corridors ravaged by the elements always seem to be rotten with grinding metal, distant alarms, whistling steam, and cracking glass. SOMA does this as well (and arguably better) than any game of its ilk.

The sound engineers at Frictional are masters at creating authentic aural backdrops, and SOMA represents them at the height of their craft. They give the game’s sound an incredible heft – something as mundane as opening a door is greeted with an array of sharp hisses, deep thuds, and shrieking steel. The moments you step outdoors in a diving suit are remarkable as well, as your perception of the world takes on a muted, echoing, distant profile. And when the monsters show up? Forget about it. Try keeping your cool when all you can hear are human screams mixed with garbled static as steam blasts your face while running through halls covered in vaguely fleshlike organic overgrowth that slaps wetly against your footsteps. It’s gross, it’s intense, and it’s ultimately Aggie-worthy as the best sound in any adventure game this year.

Runners-Up:


STASIS

Prominence

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Bulb Boy
 


Readers’ Choice: STASIS


You say to-may-to, we say to-mah-to. This award HAD to go to a game based on a derelict station; the only question was which one. While AG staff slightly favoured SOMA, you readers even more slightly gave STASIS the nod for Best Sound Effects. And for very good reason. With music played sparingly, usually all you’ll hear are the ambient mechanical sounds of the Groomlake, with fans whooshing, steam hissing, and deck plates creaking. In the quieter moments, all you’ll hear is your own breathing, escalating as your stress levels climb. Occasionally the ship’s PA will interject with an inappropriately cheery automated announcement as a painful reminder of how wrong everything has gone. Play with headphones on, and enjoy. [Insert sounds of thunderous applause.]

Runners-Up:


SOMA

Broken Age

Anna’s Quest

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2
 


Next up: The Silver Aggies... the envelope, please!


The Silver Aggies


It’s time now for the bittersweet awards. On the one hand, no game wants a Silver Aggie, because that means (spoiler alert!) it wasn’t able to claim one of our coveted golden statuettes, either from staff or readers. On the other hand, this distinction acknowledges those games that represented themselves extremely well throughout, if never quite on top, and there are so many adventures that would love to be in this position. These awards may just be honourable mentions, but their recipients are all very deserving of special recognition for a job well done. The common denominator? Each of these games (with one notable exception) is from a first-time developer! Is this genre stacked with promising young talent or what? That sure bodes well for the future. And as for the present, if you’ve passed by these games the first time around, we’ve got you covered. Everyone deserves a second chance.
 


The Black Watchmen: Season 1


Very few titles thrust the player into the action quite the way Alice & Smith’s The Black Watchmen manages to do. As agents of the titular organization, players are tasked with investigating leads into an underworld of occult experiments and dark secrets that threaten the globe. The huge variety of brain- and reality-bending puzzles are the core of the experience, with real-world websites, social media accounts, and collaboration with other players making even basic gameplay anything but ordinary. But it’s the features borrowed from the Alternate Reality Game genre that make this title really stand out from the crowd. Optional “live events” bring the gameworld directly to willing players with the potential for phone calls, package deliveries, and even in-person meetings with the game’s characters throughout the course of a season. Added all up together, The Black Watchmen delivers a level of immersion and realism unlike any other video game in recent memory.

 

Bulb Boy


Sometimes big things come in small packages. Incandescent little Bulb Boy’s idyllic life is rudely interrupted when a battalion of ugly and vicious monsters invades. The eponymously-titled Bulb Boy, by Polish indie studio Bulbware, is a wordless, inventive 2D point-and-click adventure with some mouse-based action sequences, following the physically fragile but heroic lead as he races to rescue his grandpa, a crotchety old oil lamp, from the clutches of his adversaries. The intuitive mechanics, smart puzzle design and occasionally tense action keep you hurtling from screen to screen as Bulb Boy explores the now-alien landscape of his home. Some sequences require strategy and practice (or extensive trial and error), to get the timing just right, but squeaking through such life-threatening situations is always perversely exhilarating. The stylistic choice of monochromatic screens and fluidly animated cartoony art works fabulously, combining with equally effective music and sound effects to deliver an immersive sensory experience. It’s a short game, likely taking no more than two hours no matter how often you die (and there are many bloodcurdling ways to bite it), but this rollercoaster ride of alternating horror and hope is a thoroughly enjoyable testament to what a small team can do with a limited budget and clever design.

 

Dead Synchronicity: Tomorrow Comes Today


The end of the world is supposed to be a living nightmare, and Dead Synchronicity pulls no punches in presenting a bleak, post-apocalyptic world clinging to its last, desperate moments of survival. The debut adventure from Spanish developer Fictiorama Studios tells a dark dystopian tale that can be violently gory and disturbingly unethical at times, but in an appropriately mature way. And that’s exactly what you’d want from a game in which the vast majority of mankind has been wiped out and the remnants of society locked up in concentration camps in the hopes of isolating a disease that literally dissolves its victims. You can’t help but feel thoroughly immersed in this unapologetically gritty setting that is brilliantly depicted with a mix of painterly background art and Spanish expressionistic characters, and further rounded out with an impressive soundscape to boot. Both the puzzles and narrative are sure to make you think, and with the sci-fi story finishing on a cliffhanger that teases of more to come, we can’t wait to see the sequel from this talented team.

 

Fran Bow


Its titular star may be child with a naïve, innocent outlook on life, but Fran Bow is anything but a children’s game. In fact, just beneath its lovely hand-painted surface lies a deeply disturbing tale. Fran Bow is taken to the Oswald Asylum after the brutal murder of her parents. But she just wants to return to life with her aunt, so she escapes with her cat companion Mr. Midnight. However, the pills given to her at the hospital alter reality around her, eliciting visions of macabre, often nightmarish scenes. Yet the fantasy world Fran finds herself traversing on the treacherous journey back home is beautifully detailed with vivid backstory and a memorable cast of bizarre characters. Fran’s medication, and another mechanic that allows her to change the seasons, not only doubles the amount of distinctive artwork to admire, but also adds an extra dimension to puzzle-solving that is both fun to use and greatly increases the gameplay complexity. Fran Bow’s beautiful graphics and childlike point of view in the face of horrific realities skillfully balance the story’s dark undertones, and help make this impressive debut from the two-person indie team Killmonday a joy to play.

 

Prominence


Space is more than the final frontier in this tightly-written science fiction drama. The first adventure from Digital Media Workshop, Prominence was years in the making, but all the time and effort put into it paid off handsomely. As part of a planetary expedition to colonize a new world, you find yourself alone and abandoned in a mysterious transit complex. Gradually you unveil the dire events that overtook your colleagues as you access emails and skillfully voiced recordings that reveal clashing personalities, amusing anecdotes, cunning betrayal and self-sacrificial heroism. Polished soundscapes and sleek interiors add to the game’s futuristic aura. Puzzles are cleverly woven into the narrative, bringing you step-by-step to a series of truths about yourself and the crew, exposing the chance (through two different endings) to salvage the mission upon which an entire civilization now depends.

 

Best "Almost" Adventure – Tales from the Borderlands


In deciding to be a little more insistent on puzzle integration for this year’s eligible adventures, we were forced to leave out a great number of “not quites” with the increased industry-wide trend towards story-focused but gameplay-lite experience. Given their head start in leading such a paradigm shift, it should come as no surprise that Telltale Games managed to snag our Silver Aggie for best “almost” adventure. While clearly more of an interactive story than true adventure game, Tales from the Borderlands is an incredibly rewarding narrative experience that is bursting with character. Set in a world of murky morals, you take control of two devious but charming misfits as they set out to unlock a sought-after vault on the desert world of Pandora. Of course, nothing is going to come easy with so many others after the same prize, and guiding your course through this epic ride can be thrilling, hilarious, and even somewhat poignant, often within a short space of time. Brought to life through incredible voice acting and appealing visuals, the five-part series is a virtual page-turner that continually leaves you hungry for the next twist and turn. If you don’t mind a distinct lack of puzzles or even much free exploration, and the occasional Quick Time Event doesn’t make you break out in hives, Tales from the Borderlands is a journey well worth diving into headfirst.
 


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


Best Non-Traditional Adventure: SOMA

Amnesia: The Dark Descent was one of the scariest games of all time, and when Frictional announced that their next game would be another first-person horror adventure, anticipation was high to see how they would top the frights of its predecessor. Well, as it turns out, SOMA isn’t as scary as Amnesia, but deliberately so, and far from being disappointing, SOMA raises the bar in so many ways that it is not only a better game, it’s one of the best games of the year in any genre.

Why? Perhaps it’s the incredible atmosphere, the indelible sense of place, the terrifying feeling of being miles underwater, all alone amidst crumbling wreckage that could collapse at any moment. Or maybe it’s the peerless storytelling, which effortlessly sidesteps any number of sci-fi clichés and raises fresh questions about the nature of humanity. Or is it the wonderful physicality of the environment, packed with an astonishing variety of detailed objects to pick up, examine, and fling around with satisfying physics. Possibly it’s the deeply disturbing, yet surprisingly subtle moral quandaries the game forces on you.

Of course, really it’s all of the above. SOMA is a harrowing science-fiction parable full of smart ideas, foreboding atmosphere, and moments of sheer suspense that holds its own against the very best narratives in science fiction, exploring new avenues of the human experience, raising difficult questions, refusing to give easy answers, and scaring the poop out of the player as it does so. It looks great, with varied but coherently designed environments that are wonderfully detailed and dramatically lit, and its sound design can now add “award-winning” to its list of superlatives.

A free-roaming 3D adventure, SOMA is not entirely traditional by genre standards, but it deftly balances moments of suspenseful stealth and frantic, terror-inducing escapes with a welcome amount of downtime for leisurely exploration and puzzle-solving. It sure ain’t point-and-click, but for those concerned about braving such perilous waters, we can’t think of a higher recommendation for delving the depths of SOMA (both literally and figuratively) than our Aggie Award for Best Non-Traditional Adventure of 2015.

 Runners-Up:


Her Story

Life Is Strange

Aviary Attorney

The Black Watchmen: Season 1
 


Readers’ Choice: Life Is Strange


The best part of the adventure genre has always been its tremendous diversity. We all love us some point-and-click, but what a boring world if that’s all we got. Fortunately, every year we’re treated to a selection of new games looking to experiment, push boundaries, defy expectations. This year was no exception, whether an exploration of a fragmented video database, a legal lark starring anthropomorphic animals during the French Revolution, a brain-busting physics puzzler, or a sci-fi survival horror aboard a submerged outpost, to name just a few of the top contenders. But above all, you readers have chosen Dontnod’s cinematic teen drama Life Is Strange, for reasons which should be abundantly obvious by now.

Runners-Up:


Her Story

Aviary Attorney

The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna

SOMA
 


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


Best Traditional Adventure: STASIS

It's been a long road for STASIS, the product of five years' hard work by "one-man army" Chris Bischoff, but the wait was worth it. A game that doesn't pull its punches, this is a spectacularly unnerving slice of sci-fi horror. The setup may be fairly traditional – flamboyantly unethical research gone tragically wrong and an amnesiac protagonist – but the execution is anything but. The detailed worldbuilding, gorgeous graphics and sound, and the sheer passion that shines through at every turn make it something special.

First of all, there's the intricately realised setting. STASIS establishes a detailed future history, chronicling the slippery slope that led from noble ambition to the scenes of otherworldly horror that populate the game, and all the many ways the ship's crewmembers tried to come to terms with what they were doing and how it all went so wrong. By the time the credits roll, you feel you know them all, and sympathise with many of them. There's practically a whole novel of backstory here for those who want to delve into it to its fullest, though doing so is entirely optional.

An expertly-blended mix of retro and modern, the isometric graphics are photorealistic yet grungy and filled with a flickering, automatic energy, giving the dead spaceship a grim afterlife that's far more unsettling than mere emptiness would have been. Then there's the soundscape, filled with the creaking and whirring of the ancient ship and recorded announcements still playing for the long-dead crew, all overlaid with the hero's anxious breathing – breathing that ranges from relatively calm and relaxed to frantic as events unfold.

The ship where events unfold is carefully thought out too. Built on an epic scale and complete with its own train system, it's not just a series of areas set up to drive the plot forward: each part serves a function and fits together to form a coherent whole. And while there are sparse elements of exotic technology here, they're built on a base of simple and robust devices that make sense in the context of a working research station that values reliability over flash.

With STASIS, Chris Bischoff has created a monster, taking what could have been just another horror game and elevating it to greatness with attention to detail, lashings of polish and an obvious love for the genre. With promises of more in an upcoming DLC release, we can't wait to see what he and his studio, The Brotherhood, have in store for us next. Let’s just hope it doesn't take another five years!

Runners-Up:


Broken Age

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Technobabylon

Anna’s Quest
 


Readers’ Choice: Technobabylon


There may be no sure bets in life, but a quality sci-fi game with the expertise of Wadjet Eye behind it is probably the next closest thing. The latest is Technobabylon, originally conceived as a trio of freeware games from indie developer James Dearden. Its gritty cyberpunk setting depicts a dark future for mankind, where advances in genetic engineering can turn people into living bombs and virtual reality has become almost a prison to its addicted users. A story of two disparate characters whose fates become bound by a serial killer called the Mindjacker and a conspiracy to control the city provides the intriguing narrative framework, with plenty of old-school adventuring goodness along the way. And, of course, the revamped commercial release features all the usual Wadjet Eye trademarks: gorgeous pixel art, impressive voice acting, and a high degree of polish. Not to be outdone by its esteemed predecessors like Gemini Rue and Resonance, now Technobabylon can follow in their footsteps all the way to the Aggie Awards podium as our readers’ choice of Best Traditional Adventure for 2015.

Runners-Up:


Anna’s Quest

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Broken Age

STASIS
 


Next up: The moment you’ve all been waiting for – Best Adventure of 2015... the envelope, please!


Best Adventure of 2015: STASIS

It’s not uncommon in other media for an artist to burst onto the scene with an impressive debut – often failing to reach those heights ever again. But there’s so much involved in video game creation and design that the odds are heavily stacked against any developer to start out with a bang, generally taking at least a few tries to refine the process and gradually build towards something deserving of being called a masterpiece. Well, this year’s crop of first-time developers clearly didn’t get the memo dictating that one needs to lose before learning how to win, earning five individual Aggie Awards right off the bat, along with the full roster of Silver Aggies. Chief among these upstarts is Chris Bischoff, who simply blew us away with his very first title, STASIS. 

Equally unusual is for the year’s top Aggie Award winner to claim none of the standalone categories along the way. It certainly wasn’t for lack of trying, and coming pretty darn close on many different occasions. But where other games shone brightly in one area or another and fell short in others, STASIS excelled in virtually all, the final whole representing the brilliant sum of its many impressive parts. The unethical-genetic-dabbling-gone-wrong premise is a borderline sci-fi cliché, but Bischoff took the concept and ran with it all the way to the podium.

The highlights of this 22nd century tale are almost too numerous to detail: There’s a rich backstory of human corruption to unearth, but also a surprising number of individual stories to delve, each with its own personal perspective. The sprawling levels of the near-derelict research ship the Groomlake are gorgeously presented using the criminally-underused isometric viewpoint, the soundscape is thoroughly authentic, the music sparse but atmospheric, the interface stylish and cleverly implemented (including the why-don’t-more-games-do-this conceit of displaying full text commentary when simply hovering over hotspots – why waste mouse clicks?), and the puzzles slickly integrated into a very intuitive gameplay experience.

We could go on, but you get the idea. A whopping five years in the making by largely one man, STASIS may not be without flaws, but it’s a thoroughly compelling adventure that everyone should play. Chris Bischoff has given himself a ridiculously hard act to follow, taking home our much-deserved Game of the Year Aggie Award for 2015, but here’s hoping that we see plenty more from this talented developer in future.

Runners-Up:


SOMA

Broken Age

The Book of Unwritten Tales 2

Her Story
 


Readers’ Choice: Life Is Strange


With the most standalone Aggies already to its credit, there should be nothing strange about seeing Life Is Strange voted as the Best Adventure of 2015, as decided by our readers. It’s a highly polished production of both sight and sound, with an intriguing multi-layered story, realistically complex characters, and an excellent sense of time and place. It’s not very challenging, but while Telltale may have popularized the modern choice-and-consequence style of storytelling, Dontnod showed you can have your cake and eat it too, icing its tasty paranormal teen tale with some actual gameplay to make it all the sweeter. Take note, developers: your audience has spoken!

Runners-Up:


Technobabylon

Anna’s Quest

Broken Age

STASIS
 


With that, we draw the curtain on another year of the Aggie Awards. Whew! With only 15 awards and a staggering 73 games to choose from, that was no small task, for staff and readers alike. Once again, we extend our sincere thanks and admiration to ALL the developers who contributed so much to our gaming enjoyment throughout 2015, award recognition or not. It was another great year, and here’s hoping we’re all back to do it again next February.

Still to come, a few final notes and complete game list.


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 2015.

Any series designed to be episodic in nature that was not completed in 2015 is not eligible. Any individual episode (including The Talos Principle: Road to Gehenna) that is eligible cannot compete for any award in which the same series has won previously.

Although not an original 2015 release, The Rivers of Alice: Extended Version is eligible because it was our first exposure to the game.
 


Complete list of eligible games


Contributors to the writing of this article include: Jack Allin, Nathaniel Berens, Stephen Brown, Alyssa Hatmaker, Joe Keeley, Peter Mattsson, Emily Morganti, K R Parkinson, Shuva Raha, Katie Smith, Pascal Tekaia, Becky Waxman.

The Aggie Award was designed by Bill Tiller.