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Reader’s Choice Aggies 2010-2019 Thread

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Karlok - 01 February 2020 08:08 AM
GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM

That’s a very strange way of defining it,

Yep, the Police having a field day.

Call it whatever you want, but the thread was defined as 2010-2019. Of course we can disregard that rule, but then what’s the point of having that rule in the first place?
Without that definition the discussion comes down to “what adventure game you like the most”, and we have another discussion about whether Grim Fandango is more popular than Broken Sword. Unless all Myst fans gather and massvote it.

Karlok - 01 February 2020 08:08 AM
GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM

if no one was able to play a German language game in 2008,

I played it in German. In 2008. Tongue

Good for you. But obviously you playing it back then didn’t have any affect on this site counting release dates differently, which was the whole point.

Karlok - 01 February 2020 08:08 AM
GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM

(Sidenote: every adventure fan should learn some basic German, and maybe some Japanese too.)

Are you feeling okay?

Ja, es geht mir gut.
はい、大丈夫です。

     
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I’m so glad I removed my Aggies choices. You are a partypooper. Not the only one for sure, but by far the worst.

     

See you around, wolf. Nerissa

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GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM
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.

Yes, but it wasn’t eligible for the Aggies in 2008. This site, despite its origins & the many members’ whose first language is not English, does almost exclusively focus on games released to cater for the English speaking market which is reflected in the list of eligible games for the Aggies each year - 180? this year - imagine how many more there would be if every non-English game was also included?   

GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM

Adding a new translation doesn’t make it a different game.

No, but it does make it a relevant ‘new’ game for the English speaking market in the year it became accessible in English.

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.

My thought on Anniversary Editions is if it was a complete remake such as Gabriel Knight 1 that should be valid but if it’s just a ‘tarting -up’ of the original game then no it shouldn’t be eligible but I truly don’t know what the Anniversary Edition of The Breakout is about so can’t comment. But I think the year for any game first released in English takes precedence over anything other than a complete remake of the same game.

On the subject, I’m curious as to why Mortadelo y Filemon: Una Adventura de Cine - Edicion Especial, a Spanish version with English subtitles released this year, of the German? game Clever & Smart with no English translation released in 2004 was not included in the list of eligible games this year?

     
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chrissie - 01 February 2020 09:04 AM

On the subject, I’m curious as to why Mortadelo y Filemon: Una Adventura de Cine - Edicion Especial, a Spanish version with English subtitles released this year, of the German? game Clever & Smart with no English translation released in 2004 was not included in the list of eligible games this year?

I believe those games are originally Spanish, but I’m not 100% sure.
In any case, there are even fan translations available for other games in the series:

http://shinji-nerd-life.blogspot.com/search?q=Mortadelo

What is even more surprising though is that there are tons of English language adventure games which are not even listed as potential candidates. I mean games like Metaphobia, which is an AGS point-and-click adventure game, available in English, downloadable as freeware, and released in June 2019, so there should be no reason to exclude a game like that. It clearly fits the genre description, it matches the language criteria, being released in June there would be plenty of time to include it, being offered for free means there isn’t the money issue that was brought up by someone in the discussion about Japanese games.

So it isn’t included because… why, exactly?

Anyway, with no disrespect towards that game, it probably wouldn’t end up as a winner anyway, but those 180 games chosen seem to be somewhat randomly chosen.

     
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GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 10:09 AM
chrissie - 01 February 2020 09:04 AM

On the subject, I’m curious as to why Mortadelo y Filemon: Una Adventura de Cine - Edicion Especial, a Spanish version with English subtitles released this year, of the German? game Clever & Smart with no English translation released in 2004 was not included in the list of eligible games this year?

Anyway, with no disrespect towards that game, it probably wouldn’t end up as a winner anyway, but those 180 games chosen seem to be somewhat randomly chosen.

It might not have ended up as a winner (yes, I’m aware that it’s not perceived as a good game) but there are other categories it may have had a chance of being nominated for - after all it was you who said “...........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” - so it has to go the other way around too i.e. there may be aspects of not so good games worthy of note.
I’m curious as to what you mean by “randomly chosen”? Aren’t they all games listed in the 2019 releases? 

GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 10:09 AM

What is even more surprising though is that there are tons of English language adventure games which are not even listed as potential candidates. I mean games like Metaphobia, which is an AGS point-and-click adventure game, available in English, downloadable as freeware, and released in June 2019, so there should be no reason to exclude a game like that. It clearly fits the genre description, it matches the language criteria, being released in June there would be plenty of time to include it, being offered for free means there isn’t the money issue that was brought up by someone in the discussion about Japanese games.

I’m the one that brought up the money issue in regards to the Japanese games as I’m sure you well know. 
But, there are so many freeware AGS point-and-click adventure games released throughout the year which range from a 20 minute experience as an experiment for a developer to lengthier more professional looking games that could easily compete with the commercially released ones - so how can they be differentiated?
The point is that Adventure Game Studios do have their own AGS Awards each year. Maybe that should happen before the Aggies so that the winners of that could be included in the Aggies? - I don’t know?

 

     
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chrissie - 01 February 2020 11:02 AM
GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 10:09 AM

Anyway, with no disrespect towards that game, it probably wouldn’t end up as a winner anyway

It might not have ended up as a winner (yes, I’m aware that it’s not perceived as a good game) but there are other categories it may have had a chance of being nominated for - i.e. there may be aspects of not so good games worthy of note.

Couldn’t agree more with that.

chrissie - 01 February 2020 11:02 AM

I’m curious as to what you mean by “randomly chosen”? Aren’t they all games listed in the 2019 releases?

But, there are so many freeware AGS point-and-click adventure games released throughout the year which range from a 20 minute experience as an experiment for a developer to lengthier more professional looking games that could easily compete with the commercially released ones - so how can they be differentiated?

The problem is that I can’t find any logical pattern in how and why those 180 games were chosen. OK, so English language is one key requirement. But that still leaves many games which were not listed.

I suppose you could leave out AGS. Fine. I suppose you could leave out freeware. Fine. But there are still a good number of games which were released, and not listed.

Metaphobia was an example of a free AGS game. But let’s leave it out. What about the following.

Free, but not AGS.
Session Seven

The following are not free, and not AGS (AFAIK):
Back to 1998

A Story of Us

The Puppet of Tersa

Paper Street

And so on. The point is, there are lots of games which for some reason are not listed, and that reason is unclear. Even if we add in extra conditions like “no freeware”, “no AGS”, there are still games that exist, but are not among those 180 chosen ones. So unless there is some method behind the selection, it is to some extent random.

Having said all that, I personally find it extremely unlikely that any of these would be winners in any category, but still.

chrissie - 01 February 2020 11:02 AM

I’m the one that brought up the money issue in regards to Japanese games as I’m sure you well know.

Actually, I didn’t know that, because I didn’t even participate in that discussion, but I just remember that somebody said something. But, at least now you know that your posts are being read and remembered.  Wink  Thumbs Up

     
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GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 12:27 PM


The problem is that I can’t find any logical pattern in how and why those 180 games were chosen. OK, so English language is one key requirement. But that still leaves many games which were not listed.
I suppose you could leave out AGS. Fine. I suppose you could leave out freeware. Fine. But there are still a good number of games which were released, and not listed. .

No, you can’t leave out AGS as that would exclude many fine (commercial) games including those from Wadjet Eye Games!

The Puppet of Tersa - Episode 1
This game was ‘Unrated’ when reviewed as it was an introductory episode in an unfinished series & therefore won’t be included as an eligible game until the series is concluded.

I don’t know about A Story of Us - Episode 1 - First memories but it seems the same may apply?

Back to 1998 & Paper Street come across as games released on Steam & not mentioned anywhere else so perhaps inadvertently overlooked?
The trouble is that not every game promoted as Adventure on Steam necessarily meets the criteria of an Adventure Game so a little promotion from the developers & fans to a site like this wouldn’t go amiss just to help.

I don’t believe there’s any randomness that comes into the eligible games listed for the Aggies but a game that may qualify can’t be listed unless it’s known about & I think it’s down to the developers &/or the publishers of a game or fans to promote it rather than rely on a representative of this site to recognise the eligibility of a game from hundreds released on Steam or other platforms each year.
   

     
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You are absolutely correct in all respects, chrissie.

The Mortadelo game really should have been eligible this year. I overlooked it because it originally had an earlier (non-English) release date in our database. Sorry, Clever & Smart fans!

Freeware games aren’t eligible because we simply can’t do justice to the hundred-plus extra games that would add to the list every year.

Episodic games aren’t eligible until the game/series is complete. (We used to do it differently, but have done it this way now for several years.)

As for the other games Gatekeeper mentioned, I simply haven’t ever heard of them. It’s always extremely helpful to us when people take a few moments to send us an email or PM or start a thread in the Feedback forum (or Adventure forum) to draw our attention to games we may have missed.

     

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GateKeeper - 01 February 2020 07:35 AM

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.

Eh, with the speed japanese games are often translated, you would doom most of them into obscurity in the west with a rule like that. For example, a lot of people who actually played it, consider Baldr Sky to be one of the best japanese action games of the 00-09 decade but it has only been TLed like a month ago. Should it really be excluded from the western best of the year or decade list because of that even though the mass customer had no way of experiencing it before?

Jackal - 01 February 2020 11:23 PM

As for the other games Gatekeeper mentioned, I simply haven’t ever heard of them. It’s always extremely helpful to us when people take a few moments to send us an email or PM or start a thread in the Feedback forum (or Adventure forum) to draw our attention to games we may have missed.

Ah, while you guys are on this topic, I have always wanted to ask what’s your stance on 18+ games. Are they excluded from the database on principle or is there a “case by case” basis to sift through the huge 18+ trash segment? One of the games from my decade list, Kara no Shoujo 2, has a sizable point&click; detective section and is considered a japanese ADV but it has no “all-ages” version because the rather extreme guro and occasional sex are too deeply ingrained into the narrative. Still, it’s a great quality game, largely celebrated in its niche. Should games like this be included in the database?

     
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No policy against 18+ content. A game’s a game.

To be clear, we only deal in “official” English language releases, so games with only fan-patch language updates don’t qualify, unless they’re officially sanctioned by the developer/publisher. Also, there really needs to be a substantial adventure element to distinguish the gameplay from a visual novel.

(This applies to more than just Japanese games, obviously.)

     

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Jackal - 02 February 2020 12:46 PM

No policy against 18+ content. A game’s a game.

To be clear, we only deal in “official” English language releases, so games with only fan-patch language updates don’t qualify, unless they’re officially sanctioned by the developer/publisher. Also, there really needs to be a substantial adventure element to distinguish the gameplay from a visual novel.

(This applies to more than just Japanese games, obviously.)

Yeah, it’s an official release from Mangagamer and I believe it has a more substantial adventure element than, say, aforementioned YU-NO despite both obviously having an ungodly amount of reading. Gamefaq sections describe this soon-to-be-a-trilogy like this.
“Kara no Shoujo (The Girl in the Shell) is an adults only point-and-click detective visual novel, developed by Innocent Grey and published by MangaGamer. It’s setting is Japan in the 1950s, and it is a purely realistic story. Keep in mind that while this review is appropriate for all ages, this game contains erotic content, as well as extremely graphic images, and is not intended for minors at all.”

Though I do understand that even if you include the somewhat old-ish 18+ releases like KnS in the DB, it will be just be a formal gesture but eh, the bigger the database the better.

     
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This took me much longer than I thought. I know I’m probably (somewhat) cheating with all these “honourable mentions” but it was hard enough to reach that result Grin
Also, same goes for official Readers’ Aggies, I have a hard time separating concept and gameplay, story and writing, graphic design and animation (I fully understand the difference between them, it’s just that they are, to an extent, somewhat interdependent in most cases). Worse, I’m not someone who pays a lot of attention to sound, so the “sound effect” category always draws a blank. I have to watch “let’s play” videos of the games that vaguely made an impression in that department before I can come up with a viable candidate.
In any case, this past decade was rich in quality adventure titles, innovative concepts and memorable gaming experiences, mostly thanks to a thriving indie scene. Let’s hope it will keep flourishing in the 20s’ Smile

Best Story: The Cat Lady
Best Writing – Drama: The Dream Machine
Best Writing – Comedy: The Darkside Detective
Best Graphic Design: Dark Train
Best Setting: Lamplight City
Best Concept: Toby’s Nose (IF)
Best Gameplay: Gorogoa
Best Character: Nelly Cootalot
Best Animation: Gibbous: A Cthulhu Adventure

Best Music: The Journey Down
Best Sound Effects: Oxenfree
Best Acting (Voice or Live Action): The Infamous Madness of Dr Dekker

Best Traditional Adventure: The Dream Machine
Best Non-Traditional Adventure: Return of the Obra Dinn

[edited to remove honourable mentions]

     
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That’s an excellent list NickyLarson. Nice choices all round.

     
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I’m not sure that honourable mentions are appropriate in this thread as they’re essentially 2nd choices. Smile

     
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Best adventure
Detroit: Become Human (Finished it 2 days ago. Probably the 2010-2019 game that impressed me the most and I will remember it forever! Gameplay, art, graphics, choices, personal feelings regard to the story…)

     

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