Adventure Gamers - Forums

Best Story: Danganronpa 2
Best Writing – Drama: Kara no Shoujo 2
Best Writing – Comedy: Sam & Max Season 3
Best Graphic Design: Tormentum
Best Setting: Yuppie Psycho
Best Concept: Gorogoa
Best Gameplay: Return of the Obra Dinn
Best Character: Nagito Komaeda (Danganronpa 2)
Best Animation: The Little Acre

Best Traditional Adventure: The Blackwell Epiphany
Best Non-Traditional Adventure: Danganronpa 2

This was really difficult as there are so many games on a par with each other & also worthy of being included in more than one category but here goes:

Best Story: Shady Brook (IF remake)
Best Writing – Drama: The Cat Lady
Best Writing – Comedy: Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry

Best Graphic Design: The St Christopher’s School Lockdown
Best Setting: Lamplight city
Best Concept: Neofeud
Best Gameplay: The Blackwell Epiphany
Best Character: Kathy Rain
Best Animation: Broken Sword 5

Best Music: Gray Matter
Best Sound Effects: Chuchel
Best Acting (Voice or Live Action): Unforeseen Incidents

Best Traditional Adventure: Resonance
Best Non-Traditional Adventure: The Wolf Among Us

Advie - 29 January 2020 02:58 AM

Add to that that each list of one’s votes will always be very subjective, mostly favs than objectively chosen upon being the best of whatever..

Yeah, generally speaking people are very bad with that. If they don’t like the story, for instance, they don’t like the music either, they can’t separate one aspect of the game from the rest or even try to evaluate the game outside their own preferences.

Adventure fans are a little bit better in that regard than video gamers in general, but even in the adventure circles it’s not uncommon to hear “it has pixel art/it is first person, so the story must be bad” kind of arguments.

novurdim - 29 January 2020 06:27 AM

Best Animation: The Little Acre

Hey, good call!
I had completely forgotten that game. I probably would have seriously considered that as my choice here.

The funny thing is, this is not even the first time I have forgotten this game. I wrote a review about The Little Acre, but for some reason didn’t push the button that makes it public. Then for like a year that review was just lying on the server, as I had completely forgotten the whole review! 

That also points out the problem with the game. It’s nice, but it’s just so… forgettable.

Anyway, I’m not going to change my choice. Freeware games like The Librarian deserve to get some publicity too, as they are too often overlooked.

GateKeeper - 29 January 2020 09:54 AM

Advie - 29 January 2020 02:58 AM

Add to that that each list of one’s votes will always be very subjective, mostly favs than objectively chosen upon being the best of whatever..

Yeah, generally speaking people are very bad with that. If they don’t like the story, for instance, they don’t like the music either, they can’t separate one aspect of the game from the rest or even try to evaluate the game outside their own preferences.

Adventure fans are a little bit better in that regard than video gamers in general, but even in the adventure circles it’s not uncommon to hear “it has pixel art/it is first person, so the story must be bad” kind of arguments.

Probably an equally big factor with adventure fans is the attitude of “this game I like is way too under-recognized (and a game I don’t like is getting more attention), so I’m going to be a rebel and vote for it even though it probably doesn’t deserve it”.

I can’t say I haven’t been guilty of that in the past

Best story: Cognition an erica reed thriller
Best writing drama: Cognition an erica reed thriller
Best writing comedy: Edna & Harvey: the breakout
Best graphic design: The wolf among us
Best setting: The wolf among us
Best concept: Return of the obra dinn
Best gameplay: Thimbleweed park
Best character: Erica reed
Best animation: Book of unwritten tales
Best music: Gray matter
Best sound effects: Thimbleweed park
Best acting: Cognition an erica reed thriller
Best traditional adventure: Thimbleweed park
Best non-traditional adventure: Return of the obra dinn

Advie - 01 February 2020 06:37 AM

eddyc - 01 February 2020 06:13 AM

Best writing comedy: Edna & Harvey: the breakout

i wish it was that easy, .. i mean if E&H was released this decade i would have it into at least 3-4 categories.

True, but since the english version was released in 2011, i assumed it was eligible for this.

Karlok - 01 February 2020 07:04 AM

But it doesn’t matter that German Edna and her German Harvey were released in 2008, what counts here is the English release date. Edna & Harvey were eligible for the Aggie Awards in 2011.

That’s a very strange way of defining it, if the game was released in 2008, it was released in 2008. Adding a new translation doesn’t make it a different game. But maybe Aggies have a different way of counting things. I can understand the practical reasons for it though, if no one was able to play a German language game in 2008, then it wasn’t played back then. (Sidenote: every adventure fan should learn some basic German, and maybe some Japanese too.)

Anyway, regardless of that, there is a way to have E&H nominated, because Edna & Harvey: The Breakout - Anniversary Edition was released few weeks before the end of the year. I haven’t played the remake so I can’t tell what it’s like, but if it’s anything like the remakes of old LucasArts games, then it can be considered a unique release and it qualifies, just barely, as a game released in 2010-2019 time frame.

Another matter is whether remakes qualify as candidates in any “best of” listings, personally I am very much against that, but technically speaking they probably should be.