Adventure Gamers - Forums

*tries to think of a 2021 adventure game* Uh ...
... to be honest, some odd nomination decisions to me; how can LiS not be in the graphics and animations category (yeahyeah, the excuse is that it’s about style, not just technical competence, but still)?

Eh, whatever. It’s pretty much the only game I remember and I didn’t think it was that great; certainly not compared to the first one. So, not a good year for me at all ^^;

From the picks on the list my choices would be

Best Story - Great Ace Attorney

Comedy - No Choice, but GAA should be on this list. It’s got hundreds of hilarious moments and great gags. One of the series primary strengths is a balance of comedy & drama.

Drama - Great Ace Attorney

Best Character - No Sherlock, Van Zieks, or Susato from GAA? I guess I’ll go with Alex Chen but this feels like a genuine oversight. GAA has some of the best characters the AA series has ever seen.

Best Gameplay - Strangeland

Best Concept - Forgotten City

Best Setting - Strangeland

Best Graphic Design - Genesis Noir

Best Animation - Weird not seeing True Colors on this list. The motion captured facial animation in that game was fantastic. I’ll go with Backbone

Best Music - Great Ace Attorney

Best Acting - Life is Strange True Colors

Best Sound Effects - Genesis Noir

Best Non Traditional Adventure - I guess GAA? It doesn’t belong in this category at all, though. The Ace Attorney series belongs to a style of mystery adventure games that go back to the early 80s in Japan. The modern incarnation has been refined and streamlined, in a similar fashion to how old-school styled western indies refine and streamline the Lucas/Sierra/Cyan styles, but it’s no more “non-traditional” than Strangeland.

Best Traditional Adventure - Strangeland. Really weird seeing Lis True Colors on this list since the Life is Strange series is one of the poster children for the modern “post-telltale” style of narrative adventure games. Lacuna is weird too, read the Steam page, it literally sells itself on the idea that it’s not a traditional adventure game. Is it just because of the pixel art?

Best Adventure of 2021 - Great Ace Attorney
Runners up: Strangeland, The Forgotten City

I only played a few new games last year so didn’t think I was in a good position to contribute to all of the categories. So, in view of my limited experience of the majority of games eligible I was very pleased to see my nominations may have contributed to those for Encodya, St Kotar & Not Another Weekend!   

I enjoyed Alien Function as far as I got so Sir Typhil getting a nomination for best character was a nice surprise.

The only game I was disappointed with for a lack of mention was Watch Over Christmas which I thought was a great traditional & fun game as far as I got. 

I played a lot of 2021 adventure games and some of the best weren’t even in the list of eligible games.
A tier ranking of everything I played:

S Tier: Tux and Fanny

A Tier: Pedro’s Adventures in Spanish, Sable

B Tier: The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark, Famicom Detective: The Missing Heir, Inspector Waffles, Kathy Rain: Director’s Cut, The Rewinder, Strangeland

C Tier: Buddy Simulator 1984, Dum-Dum, Echo Beach (Freeware), Famicom Detective: The Girl Who Stands Behind, How We Know We’re Alive (Freeware), If on a Winter’s Night, Four Travelers (Freeware), Impostor Factory, Lake, Overboard!, The Sundew

D Tier: Backbone

F Tier: Maquette

Now in terms of what I will be voting for each category

Best Story: Famicom Detective: The Missing Heir gets my vote here. I was super impressed that even though the original game came out in Japanese back in the 80’s the story held up so well. I was especially not expecting such a mature mystery from a Nintendo game. The twists and turns in the story were really good and I’m just super happy this game exists. Please more games like this Nintendo!

Best Writing – Comedy: Inspector Waffles gets my vote for this category. The strong point of this game is the characters and humor. It’s filled with lots of amusing jokes about the nature of dogs and cats and the relationship between Inspector Waffles the cat and the police dog Sparky is really sweet. Even though it’s about a murder it’s still pretty lighthearted, but it’s not completely cartoony since there is some emotional depth to the characters with real issues. The plot isn’t anything spectacular, but this game gets the nod on the strength of the characters.

Best Writing – Drama: This is a toss up between Strangeland and Impostor Factory. On the one hand Strangeland is the better game and there’s a lot of literary references and it is consistent with its dark theme throughout, but on the other hand Impostor Factory does manage to give meaningful background on other characters in the To the Moon series, but the lack of interactivity and the pointless murder mystery beginning of the game are tilting this one in Strangeland’s favor.

Best Character: It’s here that I wished I played Life is Strange: True Colors, because everyone has said that Alex Chen is a great character. But since I didn’t play it I will give my vote to Inspector Waffles for reasons I outlined above. Looking forward to the next game in the series.

Best Gameplay: Now we get to Tux and Fanny. I first heard of the game on John Walker’s Buried Treasure Best of 2021. If the production values were higher and it had been released on Steam then I think more people might be talking about it with the same reverence as There is No Game: Wrong Dimension from last year. The way it subverts the expectations of the adventure game genre with creative puzzle design and a surreal setting is something special. It’s super impressive just how much is in this game. I think I got end credits and only saw a little over half of it. I need to get back to it. Super fun and varied mini-games, great dichotomy between the wholesomeness of the two characters Tux and Fanny and the existential dread of the animals in the universe. Check it out if you’re interested in something different. However, since it’s not eligible to vote for I will pick The Rewinder, because of how fun the rewinding mechanic was to use.

Best Concept: For this one, my vote goes to Pedro’s Adventures in Spanish. With how many stories I have heard over the years of people using adventure games to learn English, I’m surprised it took so long for a game like this to come out. This is a traditional AGS adventure game about an adventurer Pedro who has to save a princess. The novel feature of the game is that it is completely voiced in beginner Spanish and is designed to be a tool to help you learn Spanish. It’s quite a lengthy game at over 8 hours and I was quite impressed with the implementation. Despite knowing no Spanish before starting the game I have been able to proceed in the game with very few issues. The devs even made an English version for people who want to learn English too, but I would love to have more games like this for languages I want to learn more like Swedish and Russian. It’s so rare to have an educational game turn out so well, that I recommend checking this out even if you’re not that interested in learning Spanish.

Best Setting and Best Graphic Design: These both go to Sable. Sable has some of the best exploration I’ve experienced in a video game. The movement is a bit like Breath of the Wild without the combat, but the exploration is handled way better, where you’re just left to explore desert landscapes on your hoverbike and are usually rewarded by climbing up interesting landscape features with items. A lot has been written about the Moebius inspired graphic design, so I won’t belabor it.

Best Animation: Nothing I played this year really stands out here.

Continued from my post above:

Best Music: Echo Beach would get my vote here if it was eligible. As with Tim Sheinman’s previous music adventure games, the soundtrack is an integral part of the gameplay and includes tracks from the different characters in the game in various styles of indie rock. The soundtrack for this game and Family are both on bandcamp and I recommend checking them out if you have any affinity for 80’s college rock. In terms of eligible games, my vote goes to Lake because the licensed music they chose for the radio really fit the setting well.

Best Acting (Voice or Live Action): Nothing I played this year really stands out here.

Best Sound Effects: Here’s where I want to shout out The Sundew. As a failed kickstarter game made by one person, one would think that sound effects would not be where resources would be allocated, but I pleasantly surprised by the use of background noises in the different scenes that really helped with the immersiveness.

Best Non-Traditional Adventure: Tux and Fanny

Best Traditional Adventure: Pedro’s Adventures in Spanish

Best Adventure of 2021: Tux and Fanny

Longest Journey’s post reminds me I need to play the Famicom Detective Club switch remakes. At least The Missing Heir, since I’ve already played the SNES version of the 2nd game, but I’ve heard a couple times now that the first one is better.