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The Aggie Awards – The Best Adventure Games of 2020

Written by AG Staff
It will take you 53 minutes to read this feature.


As much as we’d all love to put 2020 forever in the rearview mirror, there’s one remaining important item of very pleasant business to tend to first: handing out the Aggie Awards!

Yes, as otherwise wretched as the past calendar year was in so many ways, we were spoiled for riches when it came to the great new adventure games released. Not just in terms of quality, but quantity as well, with no fewer than 196 new releases! We have just two words for that kind of production: In. Sane.

Of course, that made our job – and yours, through your participation in our reader poll – all the harder in narrowing the list down to a top ten, top five, and ultimately one and only top game per category. But adventure gamers don’t shy away from a challenge, we embrace it head on!

The end result is before you now, as we hand out the coveted gold – and silver! – statuettes (virtually, of course, but isn’t everything these days?) to the genre’s best and brightest adventures of 2020.

With so much to choose from, not every game could win, but they can be appreciated, so we’d like ALL adventure game developers to take a bow for a job well done, and accept our applause for their contributions in helping us get through this very trying year.

And now, ladies and gentlemen … the Aggie Awards. Enjoy!
 


Table of Contents


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
Page 8: Best Setting


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


Best Story: Tell Me Why

As a storytelling vehicle, DONTNOD Entertainment’s Tell Me Why succeeds on multiple fronts. Not only does it convey a very personal, intense tale that is both heartbreaking and heartwarming all at once, it does so while tackling the subject of gender identity in a meaningful way without being either preachy or insensitive. The game introduces us to a pair of fraternal twins – Tyler and Alyson – who were driven apart by tragedy as preteens on the very day Tyler came out as transgender. Now ten years later, they’re reuniting for the first time to clean and sell their childhood home in rural Alaska, and memories come flooding back as magical shared visions though a telepathic connection between them that they call their “voice.” The siblings’ reflection is accompanied by an exquisitely written book of fairy tales scribed by their late mother, which seems on the surface to be nothing more than a collection of fables about anthropomorphic animals and princesses, but actually represents a much more personal connection to their mother's life. It’s not long before Tyler and Alyson realize that the circumstances they thought they knew of their youth and their mom's death weren't exactly how they remembered them.

Even more impressive is that the choices you make can influence certain story beats and outcomes. You can choose to nurture the relationship between Alyson and Tyler or let it decay, and both have satisfying narrative reasons. Either they've been apart so long that they're different people and it's not worth holding onto the past, or they can grow closer as their common trauma bonds them together. As you dig up more of the past, you can choose to forgive those who wronged your family or forsake them, and both options feel perfectly plausible, leaving you torn over your choices. Even the puzzles are worked seamlessly into the narrative and help dole out information at the perfect pace. The characters are so well drawn that by the end of the game you’ll feel like you truly know Tyler and Alyson, caring for them in a way that many stories can only dream of. All the while, Tyler's trans identity is ever-present but never serves as a focal point of conflict between him and the other characters. It's simply a fact about him, and while it's incredibly relevant, it’s not what defines him or his relationships with others. Tell Me Why will make you sit back and deeply contemplate it when it’s over, but there are no second thoughts about why it’s the deserving winner of the year’s first Aggie for Best Story.

Runners-Up:

The Complex

In Other Waters

Lost Words: Beyond the Page

Beyond a Steel Sky
 

 

Readers’ Choice: Beyond a Steel Sky

You certainly can’t accuse Revolution of rushing out a sequel to cash in on the hugely popular 1994 adventure Beneath a Steel Sky. Instead, ideas for the long-awaited follow-up were clearly percolating over the years, and the result is another enjoyable journey through Union City. It doesn’t start there, but when a young boy living in the desert wasteland known as The Gap is kidnapped by masked strangers in a strange vehicle, it’s up to returning hero Robert Foster to rescue him from the big city he thought he’d left behind for good, with a little help from his robot pal Joey. Of course, this turns out to be no simple abduction, and you’ll soon find yourself uncovering the details of a far more sinister plot in the seemingly idyllic but oppressively regulated metropolis. Well worth the wait, now that it’s here Beyond a Steel Sky wastes no time in claiming the first reader award for Best Story.

Runners-Up:

Röki

Paradise Killer

Chicken Police

VirtuaVerse
 


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


Best Writing – Comedy: Lair of the Clockwork God

Size Five Games’ Lair of the Clockwork God is more than just a funny game with good jokes. Its very premise is built on a comical foundation that can evoke laughter: Ben and Dan (of Ben There, Dan That! and Time Gentlemen, Please! fame) are back but have found themselves at an impasse. You see, Dan doesn't want to be a point-and-click adventurer anymore. He's decided that the future is indie platformers, baby! No more inventory, verbs or dialogue; it's all jumping, collecting, and upgrades for Dan! Meanwhile, Ben won't budge from his graphic adventure roots. He's still going to talk to everyone and pick up everything that isn’t nailed down, and he won't even step over a tiny crack in the floor because it's too much like jumping. It's a brilliant (or should we say “brillo”) conceit that plays itself out in a full-length parody of both genres.

Ben and Dan are having this argument when they stumble upon the plot: ALL THE APOCALYPSES ARE HAPPENING AT ONCE! And so they’ll have to somehow work together to save humanity, all the while lobbing witticisms as they go. Dan harasses Ben about combining inventory items: “Can't you at least call it 'crafting'?” Ben finds himself in the place where platform heroes go between respawns and has to trick the bureaucrats behind the scenes – dinosaurs, for some reason – to send him back at the end so he can skip the level. The two mock each other for callously killing characters and over-using game mechanics, and poke fun at the states of their respective industries. It’s fourth-wall-breaking to the nth degree, and it’s always hilarious. Lair of the Clockwork God will have you rolling in laughter from beginning to end, all while being fun and challenging to boot. So we hand the Aggie statuette for Best Comedy Writing to Ben for storing in inventory, while Dan shows off his athletic prowess with some dance moves and celebratory cartwheels.

Runners-Up:

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

Lancelot’s Hangover: The Quest for the Holy Booze

Helheim Hassle

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice
 



Readers’ Choice: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

The grumpy Game in There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension just wants to be left alone, but fat chance of that! As you defy him and leap into this wacky, uproarious battle of wits, you can expect to encounter gleefully odd and unexpected machinations to push you back out. Among Game’s many snarky comments is a mockery of well-known player complaints: constant clicking, dying when triumph is almost within your grasp, forced restarts, pay-to-win greed, and unfinished games with updates. For malicious, snickering asides, on-the-mark wisecracks, and forcing us to laugh at our gaming egos with humiliating self-recognition, this game snags our readers’ nod for best yuks by a convincing margin.

Runners-Up:

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice

Lancelot’s Hangover: The Quest for the Holy Booze

The Procession to Calvary

Lair of the Clockwork God
 



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


Best Writing – Drama: In Other Waters

Anybody who sets out to design a game with hardly any visual component in this day and age – especially one that sends players to an alien world full of strange new lifeforms – had better come prepared to stretch their writing skills as far as they’ll go. Fortunately, Gareth Damian Martin of Jump Over the Age was more than up to the task. The result: In Other Waters, a bittersweet, moving tale of regret and redemption set against the backdrop of a vibrant and unpredictable ecosystem.

You’ll never see Dr. Ellery Vas or the A.I. diving suit you control except as dots on a map; neither will you ever see an inch of planet Gliese 677Cc in more detail than you can make out on a radar screen. Nevertheless, the world and characters have been crafted with such skill and care that you’ll come away from the experience with clearer images in your mind than any hi-res, ray-traced visuals could have provided. The vivid descriptions and emotional language are such that each player will form a uniquely personal vision of the vibrant Gliesian environment, and no two people will connect to the material in the same way. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the many thousands of words in In Other Waters are worth the Aggie Award for Best Dramatic Writing.

Runners-Up:

Lost Words: Beyond the Page

Tell Me Why

Kentucky Route Zero: Act V

Welcome to Elk
 



Readers’ Choice: Beyond a Steel Sky

A great story isn’t always accompanied by a worthy script, but in the hands of Charles Cecil and co., there was no fear of that happening in a sequel that took over twenty-five years to arrive. The game received support for its comedic writing as well, as Beyond a Steel Sky is consistently funny in that familiar droll British style, but at its heart this is a serious game with real consequences, and the dramatic writing is even more deserving of another reader Aggie. And it needs to be, as there’s a lot of dialogue with numerous characters to talk to, human and mechanical alike. Some of it is optional, but expect to keep clicking until you’ve exhausted every last topic to squeeze out as much detail as you can about the mysterious and increasingly disconcerting goings-on behind the shiny, utopian facade of Union City.

Runners-Up:

Paradise Killer

Röki

Tell Me Why

Kentucky Route Zero: Act V
 



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


Best Character: Game (There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension)

In a definite first for the Aggies – and possibly for any awards ceremony – we’re declaring an entire game to be not only its own best character, but also the best character of the year. The motivating principle behind There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension seems to be to confound conventional wisdom in as many ways as possible, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the developer's decision to grant the very game you’re playing a personality all its own, with the full range of hopes, fears, and feelings that come with it.

Voiced to gruff, French-(not-Russian)-accented perfection by its creator, Pascal Cammisotto, the narrator known simply as “Game” is insistent that you, as the User, cannot, should not, and absolutely MUST NOT play it. The rule- and reality-breaking lengths you’ll go to in order to thwart him send the poor Game into hilarious paroxysms of exasperation and incredulity, and when circumstances require you to join forces, he’s not sure whether to be impressed at your ingenuity or horrified at your disregard for the proper order of things. The more time you’re forced to spend together, though, the more you’ll learn about Game and the tragic history of lost love and unrealized potential that led him to forsake his nature. Like everything else in this (non-)game, as a character this Game is surprising, creatively designed and multidimensional, and no matter how much he might want you to, you won’t soon forget him.

Runners-Up:

SCOUT (Murder by Numbers)

Bjørn (Helheim Hassle)

The Shade (The Longing)

Tasi Trianon (Amnesia: Rebirth)
 



Readers’ Choice: Game (There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension)

Game wouldn’t want either of our awards. He’s a manipulator, a fraud, a nasty critic, and a sore loser. He hides his feelings behind an abrasive exterior until they burst out into raucous heckling. Failure after failure has brought him to such a low point that he even chooses not to have a video game named after him. And yet, by the end of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, you’ll have peeled back enough layers to reveal a sincere apologist, a winsome romantic, and defender of all that is pretty good – well, sort of, anyway. No matter how much he pushes us away, we just can’t seem to quit him, and though he’d adamantly reject our acclaim, we’re agreed that he’s more than worthy of the Aggie for the year’s Best Character.

Runners-Up:

Larry (Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice)

Sonny Featherland (Chicken Police)

Tove (Röki)

Lazarus Bundy (The Hand of Glory)
 



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


Best Gameplay: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

We're well aware of the irony of a title called There Is No Game winning Best Gameplay, but we promise it's not a prank. Though its narrator might insist otherwise, Draw Me A Pixel's commercial expansion of a short, experimental 2015 game jam entry not only has plenty to contribute in the gameplay department, it also has some of the most inventive and entertaining design choices ever seen in an adventure game, making it a joy to experience from start to finish. As you and your thoroughly inhospitable host become further and further lost inside a computer and its various programs, not only does the game constantly surprise by mimicking a variety of genres (point-and-click, RPG, arcade and more), every new challenge continually encourages you to think outside the box – and sometimes pick up that box, disassemble it and use it to solve a puzzle while you're at it.

Many adventure games offer up meta references to past classics, of course, but very few playfully skewer entire genres so brilliantly while still staying uniquely true to themselves. Whether you're picking up an alphabetical letter from some on-screen text to use as part of a railway track, or swiping the sword symbol in your health bar to use as an actual weapon, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension demands that you forget everything you know about how normal games work and let loose with your imagination, with anything and everything visible on-screen potentially being the key to success. The result: an utterly unconventional and often ludicrous journey – just the kind of absurdly fun antidote needed for the bleak reality of 2020.

Runners-Up:

Röki

Relicta

Helheim Hassle

Creaks
 



Readers’ Choice: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

If variety is the spice of life, then There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is peppery hot, providing a delicious buffet of quests and conundrums, from assaulting an evil-eyed smoky entity named Mr. Glitch, to outthinking a downright clueless Sherlock Holmes, to dueling sword-wielding knights and finding fish in the wallpaper, none of which will be accomplished in the usual ways. Inventive new rules for familiar puzzle and lite action scenarios make the gameplay more challenging, more amusing, and ultimately more rewarding. For scoffing at our assumptions and pushing us far beyond the normal limits while excelling in gloriously bonkers obstructionism, the second Aggie for Best Gameplay drops with a resounding thud upon this unforgettable one-of-a-kind adventure. 

Runners-Up:

Röki

Paradise Killer

Beyond a Steel Sky

Call of the Sea
 



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


Best Concept: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

The host of There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is very unhappy that you want to play his game. In fact, he tells you to go away, and encourages you to go back to the start menu and quit playing completely. It's an unusual concept for a video game, and it only gets more bizarre and entertaining as the story unfolds, after you defiantly rebuff the game’s own warnings and a bug sends you several programs’ deep inside a computer, leaving you to battle your way through the inner workings of various game genres to escape.

That’s a lot to wrap your head around on its own, but what makes the experience even more unique is that it opens up the game mechanics we've become so accustomed to and has fun subverting expectations. So, rather than the normal inventory you'd find in an adventure game, you're pushed to use bits of the on-screen interface as actual items. An icon that seasoned adventurers would assume will be used to “talk,” for example, can actually be used in a much more literal way once it’s been liberated for use. This inventiveness continues throughout, unrelenting in its desire to surprise and manipulate the frameworks of several genres, from RPG to arcade to traditional point-and-clicks. Just when you think there's nothing more the game could possibly have to offer, a new genre appears, and with it more scenery to disrupt and rules to break. For its sheer delightful inventiveness, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension nabs our Best Concept award from among a huge number of remarkably clever releases in 2020. 

Runners-Up:

LOVE – A Puzzle Box Filled with Stories

A Fold Apart

Helheim Hassle

Lair of the Clockwork God

Lost Words: Beyond the Page
 



Readers’ Choice: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

For There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension, the concept of “gaming conventions” is a horrific anathema. Here just about every assumption imaginable is kicked out, or stood on its head, or wickedly satirized. While playing, one must always keep in mind the following instructions: “Do the exact opposite,” “The non-interactive is interactive,” “Believe that bots have more emotions than humans,” and “If it’s obvious, it’s dangerous.” As it did with the staff award, Draw Me A Pixel’s unceasingly offbeat adventure blows away all contenders by making ridiculous dilemmas and outrageous experimentation the captivating raison d'être for playing, skillfully wangling its second Best Concept Aggie.

Runners-Up:

The Longing

In Other Waters

Lair of the Clockwork God

Paradise Killer
 



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


Best Setting: Beyond a Steel Sky

Union City became one of the most memorable game settings more than twenty-five years ago in Revolution’s Beneath a Steel Sky, and many adventure fans have longed to revisit the futuristic metropolis ever since. It wasn’t until 2020 that we finally got that chance, but was it ever worth the wait. The long-anticipated sequel Beyond a Steel Sky takes the fully realized sci-fi dystopia of its predecessor and transforms it into something even more inviting the second time around. Where the city once was a mass of bleak industrial paranoia and foreboding distant towers framed by a polluted sky, a decade later Union City is now a thriving tourist-friendly utopia that more closely resembles Times Square, with droids (or d-RYDs, to be more accurate) filling the piazza that serves as the central hub of activity with their spunky brand of visitor-welcoming positivity and dry wit. Of course, not everything is as it seems, as something sinister lurks just beneath this seemingly idyllic veneer.

The move from pixel art to free-roaming 3D met with some consternation from series fans, but it’s all the more immersive now in ensuring players feel like an outsider in this city of vibrant billboards, high-speed gondolas and massive skyscrapers. At every moment, the spectacular art direction of Dave Gibbons is bursting with imagination and wonder all around. The sequel even has some surprises in store: after spending the first part of the game in the welcoming daylight, Union City becomes an evening social scene with a grand gala under beautiful blue sky, where the bright lights and glitz really shine. For not only returning us to this beloved adventure setting, but for making the experience under the steel sky feel altogether new, the second adventure of Robert Foster and Joey the robot captures the Best Setting Aggie over an incredible group of competitors.

Runners-Up:

Paradise Killer

Beautiful Desolation

VirtuaVerse

Cloudpunk

Tales from Off-Peak City: Volume 1 – Caetano’s Slice
 



Readers’ Choice: Beyond a Steel Sky

Union City is the last place Beyond a Steel Sky’s protagonist wants to be. But it’s exactly the place the rest of us wanted to be once again, as evidenced by the game’s Best Setting Aggie sweep. It’s easy to pass this off as a nostalgia trip, but this Union City is far different than the one we remember. The pixel art presentation is long gone, and it’s fully 3D now, not 2D. Indeed, many fans of Beneath a Steel Sky feared these changes would rob the sequel of what made its predecessor so memorable. Not so! You’ll feel like you’re truly in a metropolitan city of the future, complete with background characters coming and going according to their own plans and schedules via the game’s Virtual Theatre system. Mind you, not everything here is nearly as perfect as it seems, but we wouldn’t have it any other way – where would be the fun in that?

Runners-Up:

Beautiful Desolation

Paradise Killer

Chicken Police

VirtuaVerse
 



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


Best Graphic Design: Beautiful Desolation

With 2015’s sci-fi horror adventure STASIS, indie South African developer The Brotherhood established a hyper-realistic aesthetic that was as appealing as it was horrifying (in all the right ways). Beautiful Desolation carries on the isometric approach that Nic and Chris Bischoff have become known for, with the same careful eye for painstaking detail and flair for the exotic, this time in a whole different setting that ups the visual ante even further. The story of Mark and Don Leslie lends itself to a broad spectrum of creative sci-fi design elements, as Earth is invaded by the alien Agnate, followed by the brothers being swept into the overrun planet’s distant future – all of this within the game’s opening minutes! What follows is a tour de force of imaginative vistas and fantastical environments that marry ancient African tribal culture with futuristic hi-tech sensibilities, creating a clash of elements that’s as unique and breathtaking as it is alienating and even disturbing at times.

And that’s not even scratching the surface of the game’s character models, as Mark and Don find they are the only actual humans still around in this future. Assimilations between man and machine, dreadlocked Rasta robots, and mechanical sentry dogs are just the tip of the science fiction iceberg here. Sentient plant creatures, living trains kept alive by pulsating internal organs, and parasitic brainworms make up just a part of the menagerie in store for players. It all makes for a world so utterly fantastical, and so incredibly gorgeous that it manages to snag our Best Graphic Design Aggie from a tough field with a variety of jaw-dropping styles.

Runners-Up:

LUNA: The Shadow Dust

Call of the Sea

A Fold Apart

Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town
 



Readers’ Choice: Röki

At first glance, Röki might not leap off the screen with a dazzling visual display. Its pastel art style is simple, even somewhat subdued, and never overwhelms you with detail. It’s only in context that one can appreciate just how picture-perfect this understated aesthetic is. It’s like a children’s storybook come to life – a story of fantastical snow-covered lands with friendly trolls, giant animals and tiny gnomes, evil spells and magical forests, much like in the Scandinavian folktales young Tove reads to her little brother at bedtime – or did, until he was captured by an enormous monster and dragged through a portal to this mystical world seemingly lifted straight off the pages. From mountains to forest glades, from crumbling castle to beastly lairs, each scene is a joy … not so much merely to behold, but to inhabit, and for that it earns the reader award for Best Graphic Design.

Runners-Up:

Beyond a Steel Sky

Chicken Police

Call of the Sea

VirtuaVerse
 



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


Best Animation: LUNA: The Shadow Dust

There were some highly cinematic big(ish)-budget 3D titles released in 2020, but you just can’t beat the more personal touch of animating a graphic adventure by hand, frame by frame. Out of several impressive examples of the latter, none were more outstanding than LUNA: The Shadow Dust. The debut adventure from Lantern Studio is a gorgeous game at first sight, with delightfully textured and warm 2D art, but it really comes alive when seen in glorious motion, which should come as no surprise as it was inspired by an animated short by artist Beidi Guo when she was still in university.

It starts with the smaller details as you attempt to ascend a mysterious tower: shadows flicker from the illumination of glowing lamps, faded wall murals slowly crackle full of colour, and a wooden spaceship gently bops as you ride. These all help bring each playable scene of the enchanting world of LUNA to life, inviting you in like a well-worn children’s storybook. And then there are the larger moments that you can’t help but stop and watch: dazzling giant spirits whizz past you in a library, your circular cat-like sidekick waddles and tumbles and transforms into different forms, and a powerful array of cutscenes propels the story at key intervals. It all just feels so painstakingly crafted, oozing attention to detail in every stroke of the designer’s pen. Proving you don’t need a lot of money, just a whole lot of love to make a game a visual treat, LUNA bounces off with our award for Best Animation.

Runners-Up:

Creaks

Beyond Blue

The Girl of Glass: A Summer Bird’s Tale

Amnesia: Rebirth
 



Readers’ Choice: Röki

Just as its artwork is more “beautiful but doesn’t know it” than “obsessed with looking good,” so too is Röki’s animation more subtle than overtly in-your-face. There are no splashy cutaway cinematics as everything is rendered in-game, but it’s all the more impressive for never breaking immersion. You’ll revel in the young protagonist’s toboggan flight down a snowy mountain, hold your breath as she’s pulled underwater by a malevolent tentacled creature, and cringe each time the game’s witch-like antagonist spins her head around 180 degrees without moving her body. But you’ll also delight in the quieter moments, like when the silhouetted foreground elements you’ve come to take for granted suddenly move as a wolf raises its head to howl as you trot by. There’s such a committed attention to detail on display in bringing this fairy tale world to life, earning the game another well-deserved graphical reader award.

Runners-Up:

Beyond a Steel Sky

Creaks

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice

The Dark Pictures Anthology: Little Hope
 



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


Best Music: Paradise Killer

Kaizen Game Works’ debut title, Paradise Killer, impressed us with its anime-inspired visuals, brilliantly conceived world, and genuinely open-ended investigative gameplay, but what really helps set the mood for this outrageous sci-fi murder mystery is a soundtrack loaded with strong bass lines, funky guitars, soft trumpets and rad jazz solos, all mixed with a good dose of synths. It’s bound to make any player feel like a cool and sexy crime-solver – so much so, don’t be surprised to find yourself seeking out the 24-tune soundtrack after the fact to keep on grooving to the game’s delightful score.

The magnificent work of Barry “Epoch” Topping immediately leaves an impression with the main theme “Paradise (Stay Forever),” complemented by the powerful vocals of Fiona Lynch, perfectly setting the stage for the rest of the soundtrack to follow. The upbeat rhythms of the city pop genre go along nicely with the vivid vaporwave aesthetic of the not-so-idyllic Paradise Island. The chill sounds of lo-fi electronica mixed with jazz fusion have just the right amount of energy to liven up the investigation without ever being distracting. You perhaps won’t even realize just how deeply they’ve immersed you until they suddenly stop playing and a foreboding, ominous feeling sets in. You may need to be an “investigation freak” to solve the big mystery, but not to figure out why Paradise Killer deserves the Aggie Award for Best Music.

Runners-Up:

Röki

Murder by Numbers

LUNA: The Shadow Dust

Creaks
 



Readers’ Choice: Chicken Police

Any good film noir story needs an appropriately moody soundtrack, and that goes double when it’s animal film noir. Fortunately, The Wild Gentlemen have imbued Chicken Police with a pitch-perfect brass and piano-driven jazz score to accompany brooding black-and-white visuals that will make you feel like you’ve just stepped back in time to the 1940s – a 1940s filled with a menagerie of anthropomorphic birds, mammals and reptiles, mind you. And like any classic hardboiled gumshoe mystery, it even stops in at the ritzy local nightclub, where the sexy feline songstress and femme fatale is performing live on stage. Not only do the twenty musical tracks provide top-notch accompaniment to the tale of Marty MacChicken and Sonny Featherland, the standalone soundtrack is great for just chilling when you’re done. This reader Aggie is merely the feather in its cap.

Runners-Up:

Paradise Killer

VirtuaVerse

Beyond a Steel Sky

Call of the Sea
 



Next up: Best Acting (Voice or Live Action)... the envelope, please!


Best Acting (Voice or Live Action): The Complex

You might think live-action adventures have an unfair advantage over those that rely solely on voice-overs for this award, but given the reputation of many FMV games over the years, the opposite might actually be true. The potential benefit may be greater, but so is the challenge that few games can successfully meet. Enter The Complex, an interactive movie that takes place in a maze of labs considered a “womb of scientific advancement” near London. Corporate leader Nathalie Kensington (Kate Dickie, Game of Thrones) warns nanocell technology specialist Dr. Amy Tennant that the facility may be harboring a biohazard. Dr. Tennant (Michelle Mylett, Letterkenny) is young, brilliant, and a tad overconfident. Mylett flawlessly portrays the protagonist’s ruthless passion for the truth, somewhat softened (if directed by certain player choices) by charmingly credible gestures of compassion and reassurance.

She is joined by jaunty, smart and satirical Dr. Rees Wakefield (Al Weaver, best known for his role as the conscientious cleric in the British series Grantchester), who aces his performance as a less-than-conscientious rogue scientist with suspect scruples. Weaver aptly embodies genius-level tech expertise and delivers perfectly timed comedic jabs that roil the atmosphere of desperation in the lab. Secondary but no less believable cast members display pathogenic symptoms of spasms, confusion, and pain. Scenes of conflict and discovery unfold at a steady clip: frustration when solutions don’t pan out, snide satisfaction when hacking reveals secrets, and tense communication with administrators in their “safe” distant office. Real emotional range is needed at times, too, as player decisions can result in exultation or anguish, interspersed with occasional spurts of realistic violence. For showing us a fascinating portrayal of life-or-death choices, sky-high ambition and brave self-sacrifice, Good Gate Media and Little Jade Productions and a stellar cast of thespians land this year’s coveted Best Acting Aggie.  

Runners-Up:

Call of the Sea

Tell Me Why

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

Beyond a Steel Sky

Chicken Police
 



Readers’ Choice: Beyond a Steel Sky

Another casualty of the decades-long gap between Beneath a Steel Sky and its sequel was the availability of the original voice cast, which had to be replaced this time around. That can be a difficult hurdle to overcome for fans of a beloved work, but once again Beyond a Steel Sky was more than up the challenge, earning the new roster the reader Aggie for best acting – in this case through voice-over alone. Eric Meyers’ portrayal of Robert Foster is noticeably different than his predecessor’s, but this makes sense given the ten in-game years that have passed between adventures, while Roy McCrerey is a delight as the new Joey. The rest of the human cast is also excellent across the board, but it’s Joey’s fellow bots that really steal the show. These “d-RYDs” are as eccentrically different as they are plentiful, and each actor brings their own distinctly amusing spin to their respective roles.

Runners-Up:

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

Chicken Police

The Complex

Call of the Sea
 



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


Best Sound Effects: Creaks

If you’re going to name your game Creaks, you’d better be prepared to deliver in the audio department. Of course, with two previous Aggie awards in this very category, Amanita Design knows full well how powerfully atmospheric the right sound effects can be. Their latest idiosyncratically adorable puzzle-adventure takes place in an enormous, rickety wooden building inhabited by bird people. It's old, dilapidated and, yes, creaky. But it also sways in the whistling wind as water drips echo into the giant cavern in which it’s set, all overlaid with the protagonist's shuffling footfall. Where most games set the mood with background music, Creaks saves its music for special occasions, when it's all the more startling and memorable, and otherwise just lets its environment sing.

Everything about the world of Creaks is lovingly crafted and exquisitely detailed, but perhaps no more so than its sound design. Walk past some frying pans and you'll hear the ring of cast iron. Move from wooden boards onto a pile of discarded shirts and you'll notice your steps are slightly muffled. Every last carefully realized thump, squeak and tinkle builds believability, helping to ground this fantastical place in a surprising degree of reality. You can feel gears grind and chains clank, and empathize with the protagonist's little "oof!" as the wind is knocked out of him by a fall. If there really were a wooden bird castle hidden under your bedroom, this is exactly what it would sound like, and that's why Creaks earns the Czech indie studio a richly deserved third Aggie for Best Sound Effects.

Runners-Up:

Dark Fall: Ghost Vigil

Visage

Amnesia: Rebirth

Someday You’ll Return
 



Readers’ Choice: Call of the Sea

In Call of the Sea, Norah Everhart is searching for her husband, who disappeared while on an expedition to a mysterious Polynesian island. She arrives to find a lush tropical landscape accentuated by an equally succulent soundscape. As Norah roams the exotic flower-lined paths, you’ll hear the roar of a rocky stream and a plummeting waterfall. Birds bicker in a mangrove swamp, and lorikeets chirp above shimmering puddles in the sand. Underwater scenes slosh and burble as Norah swims, and eerie musical tones respond to the push of buttons in an elaborate coral reef puzzle cave. More gadgets are heard from as well, as a fan in the encampment clicks and whirs, while the scraping of wood and grinding of stone fills the air when Norah interacts with colorful ancient contraptions. Elsewhere, the wind howls and thunder crashes as she winds her way past an abandoned ship, desperately seeking her lost love. And so another game whose very title screams out for superb sound effects is the readers’ Aggie winner this year.

Runners-Up:

Beyond a Steel Sky

Röki

Amnesia: Rebirth

Beautiful Desolation
 



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


The Silver Aggies

Every year there are some excellent games that fall just a little short of reaching the podium for various awards, either finishing as a runner-up or barely missing the finals entirely. With so many awesome titles to choose from, it’s easy for these near-misses to fall through the cracks, and that would be a shame. So while our Silver Aggies may not have precisely the same lustre as our golden statuettes, these bonus categories are another chance to hand out some much-deserved hardware – impressive new releases, all, that are no less worthy of any adventure gamer’s attention.
 



Best Games No One Has Played: The Last Campfire, Lost Words: Beyond the Page

The rise of retail exclusives may be a financial necessity for developers, but it can be a curse for earning games enough wide-scale attention. If you rely on Steam or GOG for most of your adventure game purchases, for example, chances are you missed out on a couple of gems that have yet to make their way beyond their limited early releases. The first is Hello Games’ The Last Campfire, in which a mysterious creature known as Ember roams a fantasy land in a bid to rescue fellow travellers. To do so you’ll need to dive into their minds and solve environmental puzzles to help them overcome their mental anguish. But some of them don’t want to be rescued; some would rather wallow in their loss, or spend more time seeking acceptance. It sounds heavy, but the magic of this game is that its warm visuals, gentle music, ethereal narration and smooth progression to new and interesting locales all work together to create something both moving and entertaining.

Lost Words: Beyond the Page is one of the most poignant and beautifully crafted games you probably haven’t played this year. Created by Sketchbook Games and Fourth State and written by Rhianna Pratchett, it tells the story of Izzy, a young girl who wants to be a writer. The adventure takes place in two different realms, one that plays out right on the pages of Izzy’s diary, and the other set within the world of a story she’s writing. In the former, you’ll jump between key words and images as they’re written to advance the story, occasionally using special words to interact with the page directly. In the latter, you’ll guide the tale’s young protagonist through a gorgeous side-scrolling world with the help of words from Izzy’s accompanying narration, occasionally calling up a book of magic words to overcome larger obstacles. Both halves combine to form a clever, love-filled adventure with sweet, heart-tugging moments offset by humour and a child’s passion. We can’t wait for the game to finish its exclusive Stadia commitment so more players will get to enjoy this delightful experience.

 

Best Brainteasers: Boïnihi: The K'i Codex, Relicta

Boïnihi: The K’i Codex is the latest in Simon Mesnard’s acclaimed Black Cube sci-fi puzzler series (ASA, Catyph, Myha), and true to form, it delivers a veritable cargo hold’s worth of challenges to solve in a well-executed blend of third- and first-person presentations. From crafting your own writing tools, to using scientific instruments to figure out coordinates for your ship’s navigation, to translating the alphabet of the codex written by a mysterious alien hermit, players are tasked with completing an ingenious array of inventory and logic puzzles set among the many beautiful environments. Whether for a long-time Simon Mesnard fan anxiously awaiting the next release, or a Black Cube newcomer simply looking for an intriguing sci-fi game with well-crafted puzzles, Boïnihi: The K’i Codex is sure to keep you taking notes and scratching your head until the next satisfying “aha!” moment.

If you like your puzzles a little more hands-on, a much more physical challenge awaits in Mighty Polygon’s substantial, highly polished environmental puzzler. Everyone loves playing with magnets, with their ability to invisibly attract or repel objects at a distance. Add to that the manipulation of gravity, force fields, and teleporters and you get Relicta. Set in a future scientific research facility on the moon, Doctor Angelica Patel must make her way through a series of experiment tracks designed to test the magnetism- and gravity-manipulating devices that are a product of the base, all while investigating the mystery of the titular strange purple meteorite that is more than it seems. The game’s easy-to-grasp mechanics quickly evolve into some fiendishly clever first-person conundrums that are sure to scratch any Portal itch.

 

Best Climax: Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice

Okay, we’re being a bit cheeky with this award, but there’s no question that CrazyBunch’s Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice represents a happy ending for its titular protagonist. Things looked bleak at the conclusion of Wet Dreams Don’t Dry, but the sequel picks up with our loveable loser trying to track down the whereabouts of his (literally) lost love. As with all Larry games, hilarity ensues as players confront a variety of imaginative, story-driven puzzles. This time around, in addition to the usual inventory-based challenges, many dialogue and environmental puzzles are introduced across a number of diverse and interesting locations. The hand-painted art is gorgeous, and Larry is once again superbly voiced by Jan Rabson. While a little less raunchy than the last game, there are enough comedic sex scenes and innuendo to satisfy the most ardent series fan. What might not be quite as expected is the quality of the story here, which surpasses the typically skin-deep plots of previous Larry adventures as the man out of time continues to find his way in the modern era. We sure hope this isn’t the last we’ve seen of Leisure Suit Larry, but if it is, we’re certainly glad he came.

 

Best Cyberpunk Adventures: Cloudpunk, VirtuaVerse

Nivalis, city of the future, sprawling in every direction – horizontal and vertical – held in the ravaging grip of entropic decay. Here traffic systems fail and entire skyscrapers collapse into rubble. In ION LANDS’ voxel-based Cloudpunk, players control Rania, a delivery driver just trying to make it through her first night on the job and earn enough to pay the rent. Issued illicit assignments by Cloudpunk Control, Rania flies her hovercraft through the varied districts of a breathtakingly expansive metropolis that would make Blade Runner envious. At each destination, she’ll jump out of her HOVA, running along busy thoroughfares suspended high above the ground, in order to drop off her packages, where she’ll encounter myriad groups with competing agendas and stories to tell. Whether in the air or on foot, Rania’s night is a busy and fascinating one that’s well worth a look for any sci-fi fan.

Back down on terra firma, Theta Division’s VirtuaVerse distinguishes itself by going beyond the usual cyberpunk fare. Sure, we get the expected neon-glaring, perpetually rain-drenched streets of a futuristic concrete jungle, depicted in wonderfully detailed pixel art. The degree of polish on evident display during the first half of the game alone would be enough to make it stand out against a field of contenders. But when the latter half treats us to the designers’ vision of how else a cyberpunk motif can be interpreted – say, on the open seas, within the deepest jungles, or even in outer space – the result is truly memorable.

 

Best Genre Hybrid: The Girl of Glass: A Summer Bird’s Tale

When certain aspects of a story are best suited to one form of gameplay while other elements are better served by another, what do you do? If you’re Markus Oljemark, you take the seeds of both, plant them in landscapes of gorgeous hand-painted art, and watch as your unique genre hybrid blossoms into something beautiful. The Girl of Glass: A Summer Bird’s Tale is equal parts traditional adventure and turn-based RPG combat. It follows Kristal, a teenage orphan working as a servant for a traveling circus in a fascist country lorded over by an omniscient, evasive figure known only as the Eagle. When a boy shows up inviting her to run away with him, Kristal soon finds herself on the run from the law during her waking moments, while in her dreams she uses supernatural powers to wage a coup against the Eagle. The point-and-click adventure segments allow you to explore the stunning environments at a relaxing pace, working through a variety of puzzles and other fun tasks. The RPG parts are much more intense, offering a stimulating challenge to anybody who’s up for it, though with easier difficulty options for those less accustomed to battle. If you cherish adventuring and roleplaying alike, you’ll welcome this lovely game that represents an equal blend of what both genres have to offer.

 

Best Lovecraftian Adventure: Call of the Sea

When you think of H.P. Lovecraft, visions of dreary, fog-shrouded New England towns probably leap immediately to mind, or perhaps inhospitable snow-capped mountain peaks. But gorgeous tropical islands? As incongruous as that sounds, Out of the Blue Games’ Call of the Sea makes it the perfect backdrop for a Lovecraftian adventure. When Norah Everhart’s husband doesn’t return from a research trip to the South Pacific, she sets out to uncover what happened to him. Her journey through a seemingly deserted island with traces of an ancient civilization ends up being one of supernatural self-discovery, complete with underwater creatures, black ooze, and haunting spirits that would do the famed horror novelist proud. Even without its literary influence, however, Call of the Sea would still dazzle in many ways, not least in how it pulls you through a series of incredibly beautiful and diverse biomes, of which you’ll enjoy exploring every nook and cranny while solving a welcome variety of brain-tingling puzzles. Add a finishing layer of grand orchestral music and atmospheric ambiance and you’ve got the perfect island getaway.

 

Best Non-PC Adventures: Lancelot’s Hangover: The Quest for the Holy Booze, The Procession to Calvary

No, not that kind of non-PC! No console or handheld adventures to be found here. We’re talking about those games that laugh – or rather, make us laugh – in the face of political correctness. If you're looking for a fun, nipple-tweaking, thigh-slapping good time that takes absolutely nothing seriously, Lancelot's Hangover: The Quest for the Holy Booze should be one of your first stops. This delightfully bawdy Monty Python-inspired point-and-click adventure follows Sir Lancelot the Sexy – sporting a revealing bright pink Speedo – on his mission from God to find the Holy Grail … and then put some booze in it and have a massive party. Along the way, expect to spend your time gleefully tittering while exploring the Tunnel-O-Christian Love and listening to the holy teachings of our Lord and Saviour, Hipster Jesus. Lancelot's Hangover is a refreshing, tongue-in-cheek tonic offering a few hours of silly escape from the tedium and gloom of modern life.

If that’s not enough to earn you a trip to the confessional, Joe Richardson’s sequel to 2017’s Four Last Things once again delivers a clever farce by turns silly and sacrilegious. Mocking, irreverent humour and a variety of zany tasks take center stage in The Procession to Calvary, a comedic puzzler that sees the bloodthirsty protagonist try to exploit a loophole that would allow her to continue to wage a holy war against her enemies. This is another script that wouldn’t be out of place in a Python sketch, with hilarious dialogue, acerbic send-ups of religion, and even a series of meta gags that poke fun at the developer himself. Richardson’s signature collage-based art style returns as well, as do public domain recordings of classical music that form the soundtrack, resulting in a wonderfully cohesive audio-visual aesthetic that just so happens to be budget-friendly, too. While definitely not for the easily offended, The Procession to Calvary managed to bring much-needed laughs in a year that needed all the levity it could get.

 

Best Side-Scroller: Helheim Hassle

Standing out from the crowd frequently means introducing a novel mechanic, telling a story no one’s heard before, or putting a new spin on familiar material. Perfectly Paranormal’s Helheim Hassle, not content to do things by half-measures, takes an all-of-the-above approach and throws pitch-perfect voice casting and a hilarious script into the bargain. It tells the tale of Bjørn, an undead Viking pacifist who must journey with the Biblical Horseman of Pestilence through a thoroughly modern Norse mythscape to escape Valhalla. The puzzles take full advantage of Bjørn’s semi-zombified state, which lets him remove, control and reattach his limbs at will. Need to pull a lever that’s out of reach? Just use one arm to fling the other through the air and up to the ledge where it’s located. Too heavy to jump a gap to speak to a character you’re supposed to meet? Just ditch Bjørn’s torso and leap across with one leg while his head bites onto his pant leg! There’s an exhaustive number of combinations possible, and you’ll have to use them all to find every puzzle, side quest, and secret scattered across the huge game world. In 2020, side-scrollers didn’t get any better than this.

 

Best “So 2020” Adventures: The Longing, Shut In

Imagine spending an entire year stuck inside with a distant end-date for your solitude, little direction on how to spend your time, and only the dimmest hope of escaping to live the kind of life you hoped for. Awful, right? Yeah. We now know exactly how that feels. But before the vicissitudes of COVID-19 were inflicted upon us all for real, the developers at Studio Seufz presciently saw the unique gaming potential in just such a scenario. The result was The Longing, a beautiful game about a tiny Shade whose only job is to wait underground by itself until four hundred days have passed in real time. What’s especially astonishing is how much they got right about long isolation: the loneliness, the monotony, the search for purpose, and the vast significance that even the smallest change to one’s surroundings can possess, as well as the surprisingly poignant rewards of creating a place to call home under such adversity. When future generations wonder what it was like to live in this strange time, The Longing will have more insights to show them than anyone could have imagined this time last year.

The less time we spend meeting people or going outside, the harder it can be to find the motivation to properly take care of ourselves. Independent developer Cael O’Sullivan addresses this issue in Shut In, a short but powerful game about a young man just trying to leave his house. Every attempt is an unsettling but slyly humorous journey filled with puzzles and unexpected dangers to avoid if the protagonist wants to get out alive. Even as he’s constantly mocked by a sarcastic narrator who represents the main character’s own lack of self-esteem, the 2D pixel art background gradually turns from a messy apartment to a house of horrors, the closer the protagonist gets to the exit. Shut In is a terrifying and well-written portrait of how isolation and depression can affect our mental health, especially during these times of global pandemic. But even in the darkness, it’s also one of hope, as the game so deftly reminds us that we can always “just try again tomorrow.”

 

Best VR Adventure: The Room: A Dark Matter

What began as a pure mobile puzzle game by Fireproof Games before maturing into a series of full-fledged multiplatform adventures achieves its next stage of evolution in The Room VR: A Dark Matter, making excellent use of the new technology to ramp up the fun and challenge factors. The supernatural plot hinted at in the earlier games is further developed, turning much more sinister as you visit several distinct locations, from a cathedral you need to shrink yourself to enter, to a witch’s cottage filled with magic potions and haunted rooms, to a temple in the middle of a desert. As in previous outings, the many wonderful puzzles are multilayered and very rewarding to solve, though here each makes impressive use of virtual reality to increase immersion even more. It’s a fully realized gameplay experience in every respect, with impressive production values to match, making this the one can’t-miss VR adventure released last year.

 

Game You’ll Flip For: Tales from Off-Peak City: Volume 1 – Caetano’s Slice

Many games claiming to be "surreal" can feel like a grab bag of disparate elements, their creators largely throwing absurdist elements at the wall to see what sticks. That's why it's so refreshing to dive into the weird and wonderful world of Tales From Off-Peak City. The first commercial volume of Cosmo D's funny, nightmarish, practically Lynchian adventure series is unapologetically strange, to be sure, but it’s also cohesive and smartly constructed, with a genre-defying soundtrack complementing the imaginative faux New York City street corner visuals and unconventional gameplay that sees you attempting to steal a valuable saxophone. Advance the plot by delivering your custom-made flamingo-meat-and-synthetic-grey-matter pizza to the city's hungry residents, or meander around chatting with sentient apartment buildings – it's up to you. Caetano’s Slice won't be for everyone, but it's a tasty treat for any adventure gamer looking to experience weirdness done right.

 

Hidden Gem: Embracelet

After Milkmaid of the Milky Way, Mattis Folkestad made the jump from 2D pixels to low-poly 3D with Embracelet, a captivating coming-of-age story set in northern Norway. Being a teen on the verge of adulthood is a particularly tumultuous time for anyone, but after Jesper receives a magical bracelet from his grandfather, a new stress is added to his list of worries. He must now embark on a journey to the island where his grandpa lived in his youth in order to unravel the secrets behind the bracelet’s history and its power. The game is perhaps easy to overlook due to its modest aesthetic, but don’t be fooled by the apparent simplicity: there is a lot going on here, much of it exceptional, particularly for a small indie developer. With a beautiful soundtrack, balanced puzzles, and an engaging multigenerational plot filled with an exploration of adolescent identity and thrilling mysteries, Embracelet is a gorgeous experience from start to finish.

 

Most Fun on Paper: A Fold Apart

In the aptly named A Fold Apart, the simple act of folding paper becomes deeply symbolic. Any love story has two sides, just like paper, and here a single fold can literally shift your perspective, with up becoming down or a vast chasm disappearing. The joy of Lightning Rod Games' beautiful first title lies in the way it plays with these perspectives, both to craft deceptively tricky puzzles and as a metaphor for the difficulties and misunderstandings of a particular couple’s long-distance relationship. The gameplay sounds simple: fold sheets of paper to help the protagonists get from one platform to another, and maybe to an awkwardly placed star. And yet, as they wander from page to page, from the real world to that of their hopes and fears, these folds change their world in very tangible, clever ways. A Fold Apart takes a unique and simple idea, then elevates it with lashings of Pixar-esque charm to create the kind of heartwarming tale we could all use a little more of in our lives.

 

Scariest Adventure: Visage

As if 2020 wasn’t horrific enough in its own right, anyone looking to scare themselves more need search no further than SadSquare Studio’s Silent Hill-inspired Visage, which is guaranteed to have you jumping at every little sound and peering into darkness anxiously. With its set of four anthologized chapters steeped in their own uniquely unsettling atmospheres, Visage sees you exploring an ever-changing haunted house while solving puzzles and managing survival items, all the while attempting to maintain your sanity even as you’re being stalked by deadly apparitions who are none too pleased by your presence. To further wrack your nerves, expect the unexpected as randomized paranormal events terrorize you by shutting off lights and slamming doors, making sure you never feel safe. For those who crave the psychological discomfort that only horror can provide, Visage is a thrill every bit worth seeking.

 

Best of the Rest: Amnesia: Rebirth, Someday You’ll Return

When Frictional Games released Amnesia: The Dark Descent in 2010, it was arguably the scariest adventure ever made and helped redefine the survival horror genre in the process. Rather than simply trying to out-fright its acclaimed predecessor a decade later, the more sci-fi flavoured Amnesia: Rebirth sacrifices a bit of pulse-pounding fear to focus on horrors of another kind. Make no mistake: you’ll still be sorely tempted to turn on your own lights for a little illusory relief from the unnatural terrors of the dark, but things that go bump in the night aren’t the only things that can horrify a person. The game’s believably emotive protagonist Tasi Trianon isn’t just fighting for her own sanity and survival, but that of her unborn baby as well. And while most games use memory loss as a cheap gimmick to drip backstory, here it’s inextricably linked to the hell Tasi’s experiencing. You’ll desperately want her to remember the recent past as she searches for her missing husband following a plane crash in the Sudan desert, but you’ll come to dread the longer-term memories as they return, gradually unveiling the traumatic events that ultimately brought her here. It’s gripping stuff that will leave you feeling like you’ve been through the emotional wringer, and if you’re a horror fan, you’ll love every heart-wrenching, bladder-loosening minute of it.

The theme of parent-child horrors continues in CBE’s Someday You’ll Return, in which Daniel’s just trying to find his runaway daughter in the deceptively scenic Morovian woods of the Czech Republic. The problem is, dogging his every step are dark, supernatural terrors, a beast that walks on two legs, and an even darker past. In a bold storytelling move, the protagonist is an angry, unpleasant man, making for a challenging tale that is as rewarding as it is unsettling. Boasting a surprisingly substantial play time that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout, this is a game best played with the lights out and the sound cranked up to benefit from the impressive audio-visual presentation. It may not stand above the rest of its contemporaries in any one area, but it’s one of the most complete adventure experiences of 2020, sure to give you plenty of fingernail-chewing bang for your buck.

 

Fondest Farewell: Kentucky Route Zero: Act V

How do you end a surreal journey that began in 2013 with delivery driver Conway stopping at a gas station with a horse head tower before twisting his way along picturesque vector art highways, flying on eagle’s wings through misty forests, and sailing on a tugboat down an underground river? You continue to defy all expectations in the series finale, that’s how. In Act V of Cardboard Computer’s Kentucky Route Zero, we finally reach our ultimate destination, but like many of the stops along the way, the last locale is caught up in hard times, reduced to a flooded town haunted by disaster, death and ghosts. Yet sometimes paradise can be found in purgatory. Perhaps that’s what is happening here, as the protagonist’s fellow ramblers turn out to be just what this beautiful, godforsaken spot desperately needs – people who can repair, nurture, entertain, and provide innocent hope to a broken community. Quite surprisingly (we should know better by now), the concluding chapter is viewed from the perspective of a cat, who looks on as the long-time travelers settle into a fresh reality, their stories merging with those of their new neighbours. Appropriately, Act V closes with a tuneful benediction, aimed at bringing the oddball remnants together as one. Though we hate to say goodbye, in shouldering its characters’ looping trails and travails, Highway Route Zero has brought us to a place where the ending just might be a gratifying rebirth for those involved.
 



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


Best Non-Traditional Adventure: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

No point has been debated with more gusto in the decade-plus since the Aggies began than the dividing line between the traditional and non-traditional categories. No matter where you draw the line, however, we can all agree there’s nothing at all traditional about a game that has players forgo searching for items in favor of letting them tear the very interface apart to use the pieces as they see fit. It’s not just that There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension doesn’t want you thinking “adventure game” when you look at it; as the title says, it doesn’t want you thinking “game” at all. While there certainly is a game here – a brilliantly clever and often hilariously fun one – it emphatically does not want you to play it, and you’ll have to struggle tooth and nail using the game’s own logic, controls, and graphics against it if you want to bypass its many attempts to drive you away.

And yet, despite what it would have you believe, Wrong Dimension is an adventure game through and through. There’s no verb coin or dialogue menu to be found, but each challenge you come across is a puzzle in the truest sense, requiring all your wits and lateral thinking skills to solve, albeit occasionally within strict time limits. Where a normal point-and-click adventure would ask you to gather specific items from the environment and keep them tucked away for future use, this game forces you to consider the entire field of play and to think carefully not about what everything is, but what it could be. Icons, text boxes, menu options, script functions: if it’s visible on-screen, odds are you can use it to progress. This leads to some breathtakingly unconventional puzzle solutions that never feel unfair. No matter how impossible or bizarre each successive obstacle may seem at first, sticking with them and learning to speak the game’s language will lead you to a series of “aha!” moments like few other titles can manage.

Draw Me A Pixel’s There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is a celebration of outside-the-box thinking – of gathering up all the rules, chucking them out the window, and just playing with the understanding that anything goes. “What would it be like if anything were really, truly possible in a game?” it asks, and then grants you several thoroughly entertaining hours to experience the joy of discovering the answer to that question for yourself. It’s anarchic, it’s frenetic, it’s one of a kind, and despite all its protestations about being a game in the first place, it’s ultimately the best non-traditional adventure of 2020.

Runners-Up:

Paradise Killer

The Complex

Lair of the Clockwork God

Helheim Hassle

Creaks
 



Readers’ Choice: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension flies straight past non-traditional to outright anti-traditional as it relentlessly skewers typical video game conventions and the standard reactions that result in rapid progress. None of that works in this defiant don’t-call-it-a-game, and the result is a deep dive into rethinking and retooling the adventure genre. In this daft dimension, swords both puncture and punctuate, zeros and ones are weaponized tears, the Home button can break your ankle, a game show answer might be your license plate number, and Miss New York is a polka dot bra strapped to a motherboard. It’s recklessly original, endlessly engaging, and fiendishly absurd. Be prepared for just about anything to happen and embrace the reality that you’ll be the one sorting through the clever solutions and lapping up the comic debris. It’s no wonder it copped both staff and reader awards as the best of its bunch.

Runners-Up:

Paradise Killer

Cloudpunk

Lair of the Clockwork God

The Longing
 



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


Best Traditional Adventure: Röki

It only takes a few moments playing Polygon Treehouse’s Scandinavian folklore adventure Röki to know you’re in for something truly special. Though the game starts off grounded in the real world at the Jakobsen home that the young protagonist Tove shares with her father and younger brother Lars, it isn’t long before things take a turn for the fantastical. After their house is ransacked in the middle of the night by a towering, ebony-furred creature, Tove and Lars escape into the foreboding midnight woods, only to be separated in the end and teleported to a whole new world.

Lovely it may be, but this realm is also home to a host of imaginative creatures – some friendly, some less so – straight from the children’s stories Tove used to read to her brother each night. Each screen hides new discoveries to be made, each encounter an opportunity to come one step closer to finding Lars in this fairy tale forest. There’s a great sense of progression, with puzzles being neither too simple nor too convoluted, challenging without being frustrating, and every major section has its own setting and narrative feel. A clean art style, lovely soundtrack featuring traditional native instrumentation, and charming character vocalizations further underscore the game as an incredibly enjoyable experience. When the credits finally roll after a substantial-feeling ten or so hours, they bring a great sense of closure to a fulfilling journey through this snowy realm of Scandinavian fantasy.

Though it didn’t earn an AG staff nod in any one particular area of expertise, it certainly wasn’t for lack of quality, as overall Röki is the complete package in every respect. It’s a lovely experience from start to finish, and an expertly crafted sojourn that satisfies that sense of childlike curiosity within all of us. It stole our hearts with its endearing charm and earned its rightful place as the winner of our Best Traditional Adventure Aggie.

Runners-Up:

Tell Me Why

Beyond a Steel Sky

VirtuaVerse

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice
 



Readers’ Choice: Röki

Small independent studios aren’t supposed to make games as good as Röki the first time out. Even with prior development experience elsewhere, they’re supposed to start small when they strike out on their own, pay their dues, make mistakes and learn from them, and hopefully one day build towards an accomplished opus. But Polygon Treehouse decided to skip the preamble and go straight to “masterpiece.” Röki is a lovely adventure in every respect, oozing charm out of every pore. With a delightful protagonist, a genuinely heartfelt story that works on multiple levels, a host of puzzles to solve, and of course its Aggie Award-winning presentation, there’s really nothing this game doesn’t do well, so readers and staff agree on the Best Traditional Adventure of 2020. Not bad for a game that isn’t even point-and-click!

Runners-Up:

Beyond a Steel Sky

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice

Chicken Police

Call of the Sea
 



Next up: The moment of truth… Best Adventure of 2020... the envelope, please!


Best Adventure of 2020: There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

There can be no winner of Best Adventure this year, because there is no game to win it (at least, not in this dimension). We want to further recognize an astoundingly creative experience that manages to upend all expectations of not only adventure games but other genres as well, while still largely working within the familiar point-and-click framework we all know and love. We’d like to further applaud one of the most memorable characters to ever grace the virtual screen – at least in delightfully, if unidentifiably accented voice – who hilariously attempts to obstruct player progress every step of the way. We wish nothing more than to shower admiration on a gam… errr, thing unlike any other, which gleefully eschews all known conventions and creates its own rules as it goes along, weaving in and out of established reality.

But, we can’t. Unless… Draw Me A Pixel’s revolutionary tour de force really is a game after all. Despite its narrator’s amusingly impassioned protestations to the contrary, it manages to provide a good six hours of thoroughly original, nonconformist fun, with puzzles so clever, so unusual that they’ll require all your wits, plenty of experimentation, and a willingness to forget everything you thought you knew to solve. There’s even a hint system to help you out, which surely no non-game would include. So yes, on further reflection, we’ll stand by our assertion that this is not only very much a game, it’s the cream of the crop among 2020 adventures. For being such a bold, brilliant, and surprising burst of pure, unbridled entertainment in a year that so desperately needed a breath of fresh air, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension is the winner – however reluctantly – of our top Aggie Award.

Runners-Up:

Röki

Paradise Killer

Tell Me Why

Beyond a Steel Sky
 



Readers’ Choice: Röki

Remember how just about every single year we remind people that every vote counts, and that even though everyone says the same thing, we mean it in a very literal way? Well, as Exhibit A, we present Röki, the winner of our readers’ top Aggie by one vote over 2020’s other most outstanding adventure, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. Though our final orders were reversed, there’s no arguing that both games are brilliant examples of the genre done right, each in very different ways, and it’s perhaps only fitting that each claim one of the two Best Adventure awards. Kudos to Polygon Treehouse, which has set the highest of bars for itself with this debut release. We can’t wait to see what the team has in store for an encore.

Runners-Up:

There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension

Beyond a Steel Sky

Paradise Killer

Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Dry Twice
 



And so ends the 2020 Aggie Awards. Whew! What the year lacked in … well, pretty much everything good, it at least partly made up with such a great selection of new adventures to play.

With so much to choose from, not every game could win, but they can be appreciated, so we’d like ALL adventure game developers to take a bow for a job well done, and accept our applause for their contributions in helping us get through such a very trying year.

We are also grateful to everyone who participated in our reader poll, and of course to our incredible Patreon backers for their input and invaluable support.

If the start of 2021 is any indication, this coming year is going to be no less frenzied for new releases, so we’d best all get back to gaming! Stay safe, stay well, and let’s meet back here to do it all again next year.


Final Notes

To be eligible, a game must have been commercially released in English for the first time in the calendar year 2020. 

Any series designed to be episodic in nature that was completed in 2020 is eligible, even if the series was begun earlier. Conversely, any series that was begun in 2020 but not yet completed is ineligible. The exceptions are Kentucky Route Zero: Act V and Reversion: The Return, which have been evaluated individually in keeping with the precedent set in their respective debut episodes.

Ports and remakes of commercial games released in previous years are disqualified from contention, though updated re-releases of former freeware games are eligible.

Five games (Assemble with Care, Eclipse: Edge of Light, Mazm: Jekyll and Hyde, Mystic Escape: Diary of a Prisoner, and Spirit of the North) were originally released prior to 2020 but omitted from Aggie consideration. As a special exception, their ports to other platforms make them eligible this year.

 

Complete list of eligible games

 


Contributors to the writing of this article include: Will Aickman, Jack Allin, Matt Aukamp, Melanie Blagg, Laura Cress, Evan Dickens, Courtney Ehrenhofler, Richard Hoover, Andy Jones, Joe Keeley, Kevin Lynn, Peter Mattsson, Ariel Nakandakare, Bryce O'Connor, K R Parkinson, Jason Smith, Pascal Tekaia, Becky Waxman

Evaluation copies of Amnesia: Rebirth, Call of the Sea and Lair of the Clockwork God graciously provided by GOG.com. 

The Aggie Award was designed by Bill Tiller.