Woodrat Gameblogging Awards 2018
Dec. 15th, 2018 10:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoIt is time once again for our end of the year video gaming awards roundup! We sure did play a lot of great games this year, and I'm excited to honor them. I'm even more excited to have Sara with me as we do it! The two of us have fun discussing games (you should see us playing Steam Queue Bingo in clan chat) and I look forward to this becoming a tradition for us for years to come.
Icon-coded for who's talking! Now, let's give out some awards, shall we?
Rita Repulsa award for Achievements in Backlog Liberation
Some games are long, some are hard, some have just been in the backlog forever. Whatever the reason, this award honors the games whose eventual completion made us say, "Finally! After ten thousand years, I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!"
Nominees:
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Tadpole Treble
Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
After a lot of waffling on this one, I thinkxyzzysqrl was right: Toys is almost my entire backstory in one game. It wasn't as sure and easy a call as she predicted (I very nearly gave it to Unwound Future because of that one's backstory connotations) but a narrow victory is still a victory. Toys haunted my early childhood until I sold it, and the guilt of selling it haunted me until this year. This was the year I finally beat that game, which was a decent accomplishment in its own right. More importantly, though, I forwarded that post-completion writeup to my parents and just... made peace with that whole side of it. Anyone who knows me knows I tend to carry guilt around like some kind of guilt-based... well, packrat, and this one feels good to set down after so long.
Winner: Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
I tried so hard to go with Celine's interpretation that this is a positive reflection and this is not the "oh thank God that's over" category. It's not! I accept that! I'll probably vote accordingly next year and everything!
But... Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is a game that has been reminding Celine of her since being set aside all those years ago. Now that game is dealt with. Please, let me at least have this one. Just this once. Please? Okay? Okay.
Winner: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Crying Bulbasaur award for Achievements in Emotional Devastation
Whether it makes us cry, warms our hearts, makes us think about our lives, or otherwise makes us feel things, this award is to honor the games that took us on a journey through the strongest emotions.
Nominees:
Can You Escape Fate?
Finding Paradise
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Shades of Gray
Monster Mind
Let me put it this way.
Team Hatoful has done voice-acted Let's Play series revolving around many emotionally traumatizing games. That is kind of what we do. I am strongly considering a quipdavidn made about "Birds and Crying" to be our new official slogan, because seemingly every game we've ever played prominently features one or the other (usually both.) We've been through both Hatoful Boyfriend games, Undertale, and To the Moon before this, among others.
Normally, we do not shy away from the emotional content. In fact, that tends to be my favorite part of any given run. I recall going into Hatoful Boyfriend Holiday Star honestly hoping that the ending would choke me up when we got to it, because I felt like the added emotional impact would help the recording turn out better. The best emotional acting for us is when it isn't acting. I got my wish: older Team Hato fans may recall that I barely got through HatoStar's finale, but I consider the tear-filled monologue I delivered to be some of my favorite line reading in the entire series. For another example, look at that part at the end of Undertale whenjesterelijah's character shouted "I'M NOT CRYING! I DON'T CRY!" even though both the character and Elijah very very obviously were. The inflection and delivery on that were perfect.
So, yes, we cry a lot on everything we play, but those tend to be my favorite moments because of how well they turn out. I'm a writer; I'm all about taking very real pain and condensing it into delicious feels for audience consumption.
We have never--and again, we have been through both Hatoful Boyfriend games, Undertale, and To the Fucking Moon--we have never hit a point where the emotional content made us stop recording.
Finding Paradise made us stop recording.
You probably recall the exact point if you watched the series--the moment right after that scene where I was just incoherently wailing, and David (with obvious concern) said "Let's end it here, all right?" and that was the end of that particular episode, even though it was in the middle of that overall cutscene. Then the next episode started mid-cutscene just to get the last part of that, and involved some awkward stitching together in post-production. That was all 100% real.
Earlier this year, I thought Professor Layton and the Unwound Future would be an absolute lock for this category. It was devastating, as all Layton games are. In fact, Unwound Future is the most devastating of the first three Layton games, and that is really saying something. Plus, on top of that, it had the built-in low blow of the personal real-life connotations. It smashed me in the feels and the Too Reals with, again, the force of the hardest-hitting of the original Layton trilogy. Surely nothing could ever top that, right? Then Freebird Games was like, "Hold on, I've got this."
And so they did.
Winner: Finding Paradise
Winner: Finding Paradise
Hint Coin award for Most Puzzling Puzzler
This award celebrates the headaches, confusion, and eventual triumph and/or shame in using a walkthrough that come with the best puzzle games and puzzles in games.
Nominees:
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Monster Mind
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Sixteen Easy Pieces
xyzzysqrl pondered the nature of this category over in her awards post. I struggled with the same dilemma last year, when games that were simply too puzzling (Zen Puzzle Garden which I beat but was clearly unhappy with by the end, Chromatron which I dropped like a hot stone) were not exactly rewarded for being the hardest of the lot. Last year's winner, Hanano Puzzle 2, was something that felt just dastardly enough that eventually solving it felt properly triumphant, but at the same time, it was... you know... able to be solved.
I didn't play any games that crossed the line this year, though. The hardest actual-puzzle in this list, Sixteen Easy Pieces, is about where Hanano Puzzle 2 was last year. From there, it goes down to things like Kitten Adventures and Farnham Fables, which are absurdly easy fluff pieces that are just sweet and enjoyable overall and technically have a minor puzzle or two in them I guess.
In the end, I'm going to stick to what I said last year: this is a non-scientific, heuristic category wherein I pick my favorite game that feels like a puzzle, but also the one that I enjoyed the most.
All that said, Sixteen Easy Pieces is easily the most clever ZZT puzzle game I have ever played, and honestly one of the more clever puzzle games I have ever played in any medium. It might not be accessible to people without a lot of experience in ZZT, because so much of its mechanics revolve around intimate knowledge with its premade assets and their inner workings.
Transporters in ZZT teleport the player in a straight line across the screen to a corresponding opposite-facing transporter on the other side, if the space directly in front of the transporter is blocked. The explosion effect when setting off bombs works by temporarily placing and then clearing multicolored breakable wall tiles all around where the bomb went off. Therefore, you can light a bomb and stand next to a transporter, face-tank the explosion, and rocket-jump through it while the "explosion" is active (because for that one second or so, there is a breakable wall in front of the transporter, thus changing its destination.)
You will likely react to that last paragraph with either "... what?" or "Oh my God, that's brilliant" depending on whether you were ever a ZZTer. If you're not on the same page as this game, then maybe this is not the game for you. But if you are, this is one of best and most unique puzzle experiences you will ever have.
Flimsy Parkins was an indecipherable chaotic mass, as evidenced by my writings about his Town of ZZT edit. However, he was inarguably a genius. If you can get through his puzzle game, you'll feel like one, too.
Winner: Sixteen Easy Pieces
I'm going to be maybe just a touch spiteful here. Celine fell into Sixteen Easy Pieces and Monster Mind to somewhat alarming degrees. Like, they pretty much ruled her life while she was playing them. Getting to bed on time was a challenge. I'm not going to fault her for loving them so much. I am absolutely not surprised that Sixteen Easy Pieces won, and I have no intention of denying her her enjoyment of the game. It really was that fun for her, and absolutely deserves her choice. Just... bear in mind that for me, sitting back and watching her go through these while also looking at the time, the experience and perspective were a little different. So, I'm very sorry, but those are out.
I am not sorry Layton is out because ahahahaha begone thot.
This leaves Kitten Adventures versus Farnham Fables. Both are sweet little nibbly things. This is the puzzle category, though, and I feel like Farnham narrowly beats Kitten on the actual puzzle-solving front. Both are zero-challenge and over in minutes, don't get me wrong, but Kitten Adventures has only one puzzle four times, and that puzzle is "Where is the thing? Find the thing." Farnham at least involves some creative MacVenture inventory-using and such.
Winner: Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Wing of Wyvern award for Most Retro Nostalgia Trip
Whether it is an actual classic game or a modern pixel-fest reminiscent of one, this award honors the games that really take you back to Tantagel Castle.
Nominees:
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Remastered
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Shades of Gray
Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
This one looks on paper like a seriously tough, hard-to-decide category full of heavy hitters this year. Even if you disqualify MQR for stolen valor (it reminded me how much I love Mystic Quest after all, sure, but only by ruining it badly enough to make me miss the original) we still have two actual ZZT games and a QBasic game, and one of the ZZT games itself is a nostalgic callback to another ZZT game. And Toys, which, see above for that one. Good heavens, what a lineup.
On the other hand, this really isn't as close as it appears. One game stood out as a clear lock on this category ever since I beat it earlier in the year. That's by no means a guarantee it will stay in the lead (nothing could out-Crying Bulbasaur Unwound Future until Finding Paradise did, for example) but in this case, nothing really ever posed a serious threat to dethroning it.
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes is not only an authentic old game from my youth. It's an authentic old game from my youth made by a friend of mine at the time, complete with cameos of our whole squad. He's in there. I'm in there.xaq_the_aereon is in there. A bunch of people I don't even remember now anymore but was apparently friends with at at the time are in there.
They're all even playable! I would continue to explore all these old feelings by doing a run as me, if it weren't for the fact that ChocoboKick's moves in this game are about as bad as his personality. Still, at least give our teen selves credit for the names. CK's all-or-nothing dash attack special move is Wark Speed. His limit break is Limit Beak. Come on, that is fantastic.
This is the game that got me to revisit an entire era of my youth and idly wonder how people like Atomos are doing these days. If that's not nostalgia, then what is?
Winner: Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
When Celine replayed Toys, she did so on her modified SNES Classic console. There's just something about the feeling of sitting down on a couch with an SNES controller in hand, playing it on the TV... I don't know. Celine's logic for QF5R is pretty hard to argue with, but the console gaming style just gave me a warm fuzzy. I'm going with my gut here because I'm allowed.
Winner: Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
Little Cup award for Achievements in Fluff
Not every game needs to be a long and serious epic. This award honors the light and/or little palate cleansers, because games are fun.
Nominees:
Don't Make Love
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Hiiro
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Hiiro and Princess Remedy are such a fantastic games that they're also in contention for overall Game of the Year. They're not just among the best short little fluffy games I played this year; they're among the best games I played this year, period.
Of the two, Hiiro really spoke to me, especially for this category. Yes, there was that one easter egg that can kind of throw the overall impression off if you let it, but let's look at everything else before that. Hiiro's main game is two hours of peaceful, relaxing exploration. No danger, just a sense of wonder as you go through caves, oceans, forests, mountains, grand floating sky castles... and every single screen is somewhere where you just want to stop and just drink it in, enjoy a nice scenic picnic or something, especially while the near-ASMR-level relaxing ambient music is encouraging you to do so.
This game is just... nice. In a year full of stress and busyness, this game is a calm, deep breath and a gentle hug. I honestly feel more at peace now than I did two minutes ago, mostly because I started listening to that song when I went to get the link for it. This was just all-around good, and I feel all-around good about giving it the award.
Winner: Hiiro
It... I... look. Hiiro was another couch game (Celine has a Steam Link) and there's just something about those. There is especially something about them when it's something as peaceful as that. I may have gotten a bit grouchy about games she fell into too hard earlier, but this is one that I wholeheartedly loved being a part of, too.
Winner: Hiiro
Piece of Heart award for Warmest Fuzzy
Whether it's a short indie romp or a long epic, and whether heartwarming moments are in the plot directly or just as a project that feels like it was made with love, this award honors games that make players feel good inside.
Nominees:
Deltarune chapter 1
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Monster Mind
Tadpole Treble
I might have overlooked Kitten Adventures in City Park entirely if it weren't for the bonus pack. Sure, it's cute and sweet in-game, too, but everything on this list has cute and sweet in-game moments or they wouldn't be here. Huge honorable mention to Farnham Fables, which goes after the same "easy fluffy point and click" niche and (if you're talking about strictly in-game content) does a slightly better job showing off just how much obvious effort and love and devotion the developer put into it.
That bonus pack from Kitten Adventures, though. Among concept art, wallpaper, soundtrack, etc., it had that video. The game's author went around with a camera, proudly showing the viewer the actual city park from her childhood in which the game takes place. She showed the big cat plush that became that advice-dispensing cat up in the tree in-game. She went on about all the park's attractions that had changed since then and all the ones you could still see. And throughout the entire tour, she had the warmest and most visibly delighted expression I've seen in ages. This game means something to her, yes, but this park it's based on means something to her, and she's happy to share it with you, and I'm just as happy (and honored!) to have experienced that. Also, her online name is AnnTenna and she does the whole tour wearing deely-boppers, and if that isn't the most adorable thing you've heard today then I'm not sure what to tell you.
Winner: Kitten Adventures in City Park
Okay, but have you seen Monster Mind's ending? There's a reasonswordianmaster turned that shot of Abra hugging Grovyle into a clan sticker.
Monster Mind is like dating in reverse: first you introduce yourselves with hardcore sex, but between all the pillow talk, you eventually get to know each other and become friends. Every character in the household is full of personality, with a unique voice that is almost always either friendly or... if they're prickly, it's because something is bothering them and maybe you'll reach an understanding as you get to know each other better. The slice-of-life conversations were what kept Celine going throughout the endgame after the puzzles and the sex scenes had kind of worn out their welcome. It's just... I like all these people. And spending time with them feels nice.
Winner: Monster Mind
Furry Little Body award for Achievements in Anthropomorphic Appeal
Because sometimes you just need a silly little award to acknowledge that one character you want to bang.
Nominees:
Deltarune chapter 1
Embers of Magic
Five Nights of Love
Parasite Infection
Monster Mind
This was another one with an early lead that held throughout the year. The competition was briefly interesting for a moment, there, because I will admit Parasite Infection was really hot. But in the end? We kind of always knew this category was Monster Mind's home turf.
It's furrier, for one thing. As Sara mentioned above, it also gets some tertiary bonus points for all the enjoyable aspects of the game besides the sex scenes. But man, especially in the earlier game where most of those scenes are new to the player... whewf. There are some hot Pokemon in that household, let me tell you.
Winner: Monster Mind
This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
Winner: Monster Mind
Golden Pheasant award for Artistic Achievement
Regardless of what the game actually does with them and whether it works overall, this award celebrates the truly outstanding and impressive feats in a game's assets, be the graphics, music, voice acting, game engine, or anything else.
Nominees:
Embers of Magic
Finding Paradise
Hiiro
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Tadpole Treble
This was by far the hardest choice I had to make this year. Not only are we comparing ultimately impossible to measure heuristics like "are Embers of Magic's graphics better than Hiiro's music," but even the games that excel in both do so in different ways. Are Embers of Magic's lush and beautiful hand-drawn portraits better than Sword & Sworcery's equally lush and beautiful pixel art? Are Sword & Sworcery's catchy indie jams comparable to the music of Tadpole Treble?
I waffled on this for ages. I'm still not 100% sure about my pick. This was really close, you guys. But in the end....
Tadpole Treble has everything. The art is... well, it's Brawl in the Family art, perhaps a bit simplistic compared to some of the other nominees but expressive and full of personality and charm. The music will literally never leave your head. Ever. I think that I'll be singing this until the end of time. I can't escape another refrain. No, ma'am.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Yeah, this one was hard. I almost went with Celine's pick, and she almost went with mine. In the end, though, I went with the other game that visually and musically has it all: Sword & Sworcery. Please don't ask me why; "why is this song better than that one" is pretty much impossible to explain beyond gut feelings. Maybe part of it is that Tadpole Treble is a little too catchy and Celine playing it in her head all day every day gets tiring. Not a large part, though; I know when I'm spite-voting (see above) and this doesn't feel like that. Tadpole Treble's music is great, don't get me wrong. It's that catchy for a reason. I just... Sword & Sworcery's music is nice. I don't know. I'm not super confident in this part of the pick.
On the other hand, I do have more confidence in my pick on the art side. As cute as BitF art is, this is gorgeous. (So is Embers of Magic, but Sword & Sworcery has that and the music, so.)
The thing about art games is the art is good, it turns out.
Winner: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Trap Devised by Satan award for Game Most Likely Not Done Yet
Backlogs are immense, time is finite, and most games can be crossed off the list and moved on from once completed. However, some games deserve a special mention for their lasting appeal and replay value. This award honors the ones that don't want to be over.
Nominees:
Animalia
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Parasite Infection
Tadpole Treble
This is another tough one, because four of the five games here absolutely will be revisited at some point. Animalia's one bad ending is not enough, I have too much stuff I missed in Farnham Fables, Xyzzy is 100% correct that Flimsytown feels unfinished even after the one route I explored and wrote about, and of course, as soon as the developers make more Parasite Infection I'll probably rush back in to check out the next leg of content.
The one outlier, Tadpole Treble, is on the list because I wanted to replay it so bad that I already did, and posed the question of whether the small matter of timing should be rewarded or penalized. After all, if I'd only beaten Tadpole Treble later in the year, its victory would have been almost automatic.
In the end, two things swayed my decision. First, I decided that having already hundred-percented Tadpole Treble should not be held against it. It's a game that's so replayable that I couldn't wait until the new year to tear into it. Isn't that a good thing? If that's not what this category is all about, then maybe it should be?
Second, it's not like Tadpole Treble has zero replay value now. I can always get bored and come by for a high score. I already filmed some really awesome runs of Barracuda Caverns and Piranha Jungle, and there's nothing saying I couldn't someday feel inspired to revisit some of the other levels. I've always liked Chiptune Lagoon.
Will I? Who knows. Probably not. Still, I feel like there's just enough "theoretically could" to go with the "already did" and put this one over the top.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Please send help; the last thing we need is her getting back into that game again. :P
Honestly, if I had more of a hand in picking the nominees as well as the winners, I'd have gone for Hiiro. It was a nice, pleasant experience for me, and one I'd love to revisit. However, the idea of me picking winners too came fairly late in the year, and by then Celine had already picked all the nominees. Alas. Please consider Hiiro my actual choice of all the games this year, in an AU where I'm allowed to pick that.
However, for the sake of pretending since these are "officially" my five choices, I'm going to go with the one that's light, breezy, and not likely to make Celine fall in. The one that's cute and fluffy and harmless when it comes to a certain young lady's bedtime. :P
Winner:Hiiro Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Extra Life award for Most Deserving of a Second Chance
Not every played game is completed. Most of the abandoned ones were abandoned for a reason, and quickly forgotten. Could some of them find redemption and a path back onto the active to-do list, though? Maybe these ones could....
Nominees:
Escape the Game
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Remastered
My master, the Parasite
Reflection of a Fallen Feather
Varenje
Reflection of a Fallen Feather is the only game on this list that I actually liked, but just found a bit too much to wrap my head around at the time. That lends a certain amount of motivation toward revisiting it. Xyzzy and Sword played it after me and Sword even finished it, and from him I can learn how to, you know, make progress. I feel like I have a better sense of what I did wrong now after talking to him, and I do want to try again someday. Not that I don't have other RPGs at this point, mind, but... you know. This one seemed nice. It deserves another chance.
Winner: Reflection of a Fallen Feather
Let me tell you what's going to happen, since I live in Celine's head. 2019 gameblogging award spoilers incoming, yo.
Escape the Game was a bad game with a good premise. It was free and about ten minutes long, and the idea behind it instantly grabbed her attention. She tried it, and found that it actually wasn't very good, and moved on.
But it's still a good idea/aesthetic, and the sequel is in development and maybe, just maybe, things might have might have improved?
Probably not. Deep down, she knows this. But she wants it to be good. If this game were actually as good as its trailer makes it look, it would be fantastic. Look, see? She's already wishlisting it while I'm talking. :P
My prediction: Be sure to look out for the eventual "Oops, this one isn't good either, but at least I tried" ABANDONED post and for Break the Game to be up for Extra Life in... whatever year it finally drops.
Winner: Escape the Game
Stan S. Stanman award for If You Only Buy One Game from This List....
Whether it's an overlooked indie gem or a well known game that deserves its reputation, this award honors the one game each year that everyone reading this really owes it to themselves to check out.
Nominees:
Embers of Magic
Finding Paradise
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Tadpole Treble
There are generally two types of entries in this category. There are the selfless picks, which are here because they have low barriers to entry--they're light and breezy, they're of a genre most people should enjoy, etc. The ones I recommend because I think you'll like them. Being free is a huge part of the selfless picks, because that means you have nothing to lose by trying them.
Then there are the selfish ones, the ones that mean something to me, and I want you to play them because of what they mean to me. These are the ones I put here because of the "oh my God you need to play this so we can talk about it" factor, even though I'm asking more of you by asking you to do so. These are the ones that involve purchases, series prerequisites, and/or the games themselves might not be a genre that is accessible to everyone, but just... I really want to talk about it that badly.
The best picks for this category, including last year's winner (Star Billions) are both. Star Billions was free for the first season, was an easy-to-play visual novel type game, and I will talk about it with anyone who's played it for hours because eeeeeee.
This year, the nominees are more of a one-or-the-other choice.
The most serious contenders, after thinking about it and narrowing it down, came down to Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt versus Tadpole Treble versus Finding Paradise.
Princess Remedy is the selfless pick. It's free, it's short, it's fun, and there's something for just about everyone with the various difficulty modes and optional challenges.
Finding Paradise is easily and by far the most selfish pick I have ever put in the so-far-young history of this category. It's not only one purchase, but several, as it comes in a series after To the Moon and a Bird Story. It's an RPGMaker walking sim. And as you may have gathered from the Crying Bulbasaur discussion, every entry in this series but especially this one will destroy you. Maybe not everyone is into crying! But oh my God, Finding Paradise is important. If there's even a possibility that you can handle all that, it's worth it.
Tadpole Treble is the Mario (fitting, given the Brawl in the Family influence.) It's the jack of all trades. It has more meaning to me and opens up more fan-squeeing conversations than Princess Remedy, but far less and fewer than Finding Paradise. It has more of a barrier to entry than Princess Remedy (mostly because it's not free,) but far less than Finding Paradise (because it isn't an entire series, and it has more actual gameplay.)
In the end, Finding Paradise is the one I wanted to pick, but I had to think long and hard about the nature of selfish picks, and this one in particular. Can I really ask that much of you, my faithful readers?
...
...
Yes. Yes I fucking can, because holy shit every day I have to keep a Finding Paradise reference to myself is physically murdering me. AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Winner: Finding Paradise
What she screamed.
Winner: Finding Paradise
Sqrl's Choice award for XyzzySqrl's Favorite Game This Year
Another silly for-fun category. We pick the nominees for "what would XyzzySqrl's favorite game probably be" (excluding the obvious ones,) and then she picks a winner!
Nominees:
Animalia
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
Don't Make Love
Monster Mind
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Hello. I am that weirdo squirrel-moogle that keeps hanging around. You may remember me from such places as "the comments", "my own journal", or "last year's awards show". Well guess what: I'm back and I'm here to give my favorite game that Celine played this year, and it's gonna be...
Animalia.
No tricks, no weird backhanded goofing on Celine. Animalia is one of the most creative and also tricky and difficult Twine-based text adventure games I've played in a while. There are dozens and dozens of possible scenes to see, a great number of which can fail hilariously and get your team of animal-based experts exposed, tricked, trapped or doomed. There's a FEW routes that lead to, uh, interesting endings.
I haven't gotten a completely unambiguously 'good' end yet. I'm working on that. I think I have ideas.
I just keep thinking, though. What if I had a different team in place? What if I reacted like THIS instead of like THAT? What if I fail this scene but succeed here? And then something unravels that leaves me blinking and going "What, really?" and I have to re-evaluate other threads and try the game -again- and...
Anyway! It's good. Have a try! Uh, I predict Celine might end up doin' some of that when she replays it! Or not, I don't know!
... Yay video games!
Winner: Animalia
Woodrats' Choice award for Best Game Overall
The grand prize as well as the most personal one. After all the other categories, after honoring every game for whatever it does best and whatever other demographics that might appeal to, this is the one that we, Celine and Sara Kalante, found to be our personal favorites.
Nominees:
Finding Paradise
Hiiro
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Sixteen Easy Pieces
Tadpole Treble
This was another tough one. Look, let's be honest; these are all fantastic games. I loved every single one of them. Every one of them except Princess Remedy has already taken home at least one award before we even distribute this one, and if Princess Remedy ends up being shut out, then it will be this year's Mega Man Unlimited.
I want to give it to Finding Paradise. I want to give it to Hiiro. Either of those would be fantastic choices, absolutely deserving of the honor.
But in the end, I feel like I have to give it to Tadpole Treble. It just has everything. It has the kind of layers of depth that makes it easy to approach and breeze through, yet hooks me into going back and doing all those impossible challenges for 100% completion. It has, while not as much story as Finding Paradise, at least a story that is cute and charming with occasional feelsy moments. It manages to convey bleak isolation and loneliness and end-of-your-rope weary heartbreak without a word of spoken dialogue, through nothing more than a stage with sad music, facial expressions, and a poison-damage-over-time gameplay mechanic. And even that starts out in despair but builds to triumphant "Baton has had enough of your bullshit" determination (again, with nothing more than music and gameplay cues) that turns her into a certified badass just in time for the final battle.
I hesitated with this pick, because a part of me feels like I'm defeating my own award categories with it. You see, the original intent behind having Golden Pheasant--that is, a separate category for beautiful assets--was to honor games like Labyrinthine Dreams. That game was visually and musically gorgeous and had phenomenal voice acting, but it was also an un-fun mopey indie game about death. I wanted to honor the assets without the "okay but what did this game actually do with them" dragging them down in cases where they fumbled in execution.
And then this is the second year in a row that the winner of Golden Pheasant also won the overall game of the year from me. Tadpole Treble now joins Ori and the Blind Forest in that distinction.
It turns out that cases like Labyrinthine Dreams are kind of rare, and that games that have really good assets also tend to be really good games overall, too. Oops. Sigh.
Still, I can't snub it for one category or the other just to enforce the distinction. Tadpole Treble, like Ori before it, deserves both. It's just a lovely game all around. It's fun. It's addicting. It's beautiful. It oozes every bit as much charm as you would expect from the Brawl in the Family author and then some. And it was, overall, the greatest game I played this year.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Oh, sure, now picking Hiiro is an option again, but I have to put it against Finding Paradise. >.>
I want to say this was a hard choice, but... no. It always had to be this one. It's just... *gestures wildly* nnmmmmmMMM. There's a reason this is also both of our Stan picks aaaa.
In addition to that, Finding Paradise has gorgeous music, amazing sprite work, and even equally amazing cinematography. It destroys the bar for what you expect RPGMaker games to be just as it destroys your feelings. It has such an important message, and just... everything. It has everything. Please play it.
Winner: Finding Paradise
All in all, this has been one hell of a year for games, hasn't it? I love doing these posts, because it feels so good to look back on everything we played and bask in... man, we sure played some great things. Games are great, actually.
Even better to have Sara with me. I'm sorry about that nominee issue, but we'll have that sorted out by next year for sure. You're still doing this with me next year, right?
Oh heck yeah. Maybe some of the writeups, too?
Ooh, maybe.
So yeah. There you have it. As always, the results are compiled here, and will continue to be as more games are added. Updated every time I play something. In fact, I already inserted Qvabllock into a few categories for 2019. Will it stay in those categories as they fill up? Who knows. Guess we'll just have to play more games and see.
Huge thanks to Sara, to everyone who made these lovely games, and to you all for watching us banter for like fifty pages. Please check out Xyzzy's award post, too, if you somehow haven't had enough reading. Otherwise, here's to another great year of gaming, and many more to come.
Icon-coded for who's talking! Now, let's give out some awards, shall we?
Rita Repulsa award for Achievements in Backlog Liberation
Some games are long, some are hard, some have just been in the backlog forever. Whatever the reason, this award honors the games whose eventual completion made us say, "Finally! After ten thousand years, I'm free! It's time to conquer Earth!"
Nominees:
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Tadpole Treble
Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
After a lot of waffling on this one, I think
xyzzysqrl was right: Toys is almost my entire backstory in one game. It wasn't as sure and easy a call as she predicted (I very nearly gave it to Unwound Future because of that one's backstory connotations) but a narrow victory is still a victory. Toys haunted my early childhood until I sold it, and the guilt of selling it haunted me until this year. This was the year I finally beat that game, which was a decent accomplishment in its own right. More importantly, though, I forwarded that post-completion writeup to my parents and just... made peace with that whole side of it. Anyone who knows me knows I tend to carry guilt around like some kind of guilt-based... well, packrat, and this one feels good to set down after so long.Winner: Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
I tried so hard to go with Celine's interpretation that this is a positive reflection and this is not the "oh thank God that's over" category. It's not! I accept that! I'll probably vote accordingly next year and everything!
But... Professor Layton and the Unwound Future is a game that has been reminding Celine of her since being set aside all those years ago. Now that game is dealt with. Please, let me at least have this one. Just this once. Please? Okay? Okay.
Winner: Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Crying Bulbasaur award for Achievements in Emotional Devastation
Whether it makes us cry, warms our hearts, makes us think about our lives, or otherwise makes us feel things, this award is to honor the games that took us on a journey through the strongest emotions.
Nominees:
Can You Escape Fate?
Finding Paradise
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Shades of Gray
Monster Mind
Let me put it this way.
Team Hatoful has done voice-acted Let's Play series revolving around many emotionally traumatizing games. That is kind of what we do. I am strongly considering a quip
davidn made about "Birds and Crying" to be our new official slogan, because seemingly every game we've ever played prominently features one or the other (usually both.) We've been through both Hatoful Boyfriend games, Undertale, and To the Moon before this, among others.Normally, we do not shy away from the emotional content. In fact, that tends to be my favorite part of any given run. I recall going into Hatoful Boyfriend Holiday Star honestly hoping that the ending would choke me up when we got to it, because I felt like the added emotional impact would help the recording turn out better. The best emotional acting for us is when it isn't acting. I got my wish: older Team Hato fans may recall that I barely got through HatoStar's finale, but I consider the tear-filled monologue I delivered to be some of my favorite line reading in the entire series. For another example, look at that part at the end of Undertale when
jesterelijah's character shouted "I'M NOT CRYING! I DON'T CRY!" even though both the character and Elijah very very obviously were. The inflection and delivery on that were perfect.So, yes, we cry a lot on everything we play, but those tend to be my favorite moments because of how well they turn out. I'm a writer; I'm all about taking very real pain and condensing it into delicious feels for audience consumption.
We have never--and again, we have been through both Hatoful Boyfriend games, Undertale, and To the Fucking Moon--we have never hit a point where the emotional content made us stop recording.
Finding Paradise made us stop recording.
You probably recall the exact point if you watched the series--the moment right after that scene where I was just incoherently wailing, and David (with obvious concern) said "Let's end it here, all right?" and that was the end of that particular episode, even though it was in the middle of that overall cutscene. Then the next episode started mid-cutscene just to get the last part of that, and involved some awkward stitching together in post-production. That was all 100% real.
Earlier this year, I thought Professor Layton and the Unwound Future would be an absolute lock for this category. It was devastating, as all Layton games are. In fact, Unwound Future is the most devastating of the first three Layton games, and that is really saying something. Plus, on top of that, it had the built-in low blow of the personal real-life connotations. It smashed me in the feels and the Too Reals with, again, the force of the hardest-hitting of the original Layton trilogy. Surely nothing could ever top that, right? Then Freebird Games was like, "Hold on, I've got this."
And so they did.
Winner: Finding Paradise
Winner: Finding Paradise
Hint Coin award for Most Puzzling Puzzler
This award celebrates the headaches, confusion, and eventual triumph and/or shame in using a walkthrough that come with the best puzzle games and puzzles in games.
Nominees:
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Monster Mind
Professor Layton and the Unwound Future
Sixteen Easy Pieces
xyzzysqrl pondered the nature of this category over in her awards post. I struggled with the same dilemma last year, when games that were simply too puzzling (Zen Puzzle Garden which I beat but was clearly unhappy with by the end, Chromatron which I dropped like a hot stone) were not exactly rewarded for being the hardest of the lot. Last year's winner, Hanano Puzzle 2, was something that felt just dastardly enough that eventually solving it felt properly triumphant, but at the same time, it was... you know... able to be solved.I didn't play any games that crossed the line this year, though. The hardest actual-puzzle in this list, Sixteen Easy Pieces, is about where Hanano Puzzle 2 was last year. From there, it goes down to things like Kitten Adventures and Farnham Fables, which are absurdly easy fluff pieces that are just sweet and enjoyable overall and technically have a minor puzzle or two in them I guess.
In the end, I'm going to stick to what I said last year: this is a non-scientific, heuristic category wherein I pick my favorite game that feels like a puzzle, but also the one that I enjoyed the most.
All that said, Sixteen Easy Pieces is easily the most clever ZZT puzzle game I have ever played, and honestly one of the more clever puzzle games I have ever played in any medium. It might not be accessible to people without a lot of experience in ZZT, because so much of its mechanics revolve around intimate knowledge with its premade assets and their inner workings.
Transporters in ZZT teleport the player in a straight line across the screen to a corresponding opposite-facing transporter on the other side, if the space directly in front of the transporter is blocked. The explosion effect when setting off bombs works by temporarily placing and then clearing multicolored breakable wall tiles all around where the bomb went off. Therefore, you can light a bomb and stand next to a transporter, face-tank the explosion, and rocket-jump through it while the "explosion" is active (because for that one second or so, there is a breakable wall in front of the transporter, thus changing its destination.)
You will likely react to that last paragraph with either "... what?" or "Oh my God, that's brilliant" depending on whether you were ever a ZZTer. If you're not on the same page as this game, then maybe this is not the game for you. But if you are, this is one of best and most unique puzzle experiences you will ever have.
Flimsy Parkins was an indecipherable chaotic mass, as evidenced by my writings about his Town of ZZT edit. However, he was inarguably a genius. If you can get through his puzzle game, you'll feel like one, too.
Winner: Sixteen Easy Pieces
I'm going to be maybe just a touch spiteful here. Celine fell into Sixteen Easy Pieces and Monster Mind to somewhat alarming degrees. Like, they pretty much ruled her life while she was playing them. Getting to bed on time was a challenge. I'm not going to fault her for loving them so much. I am absolutely not surprised that Sixteen Easy Pieces won, and I have no intention of denying her her enjoyment of the game. It really was that fun for her, and absolutely deserves her choice. Just... bear in mind that for me, sitting back and watching her go through these while also looking at the time, the experience and perspective were a little different. So, I'm very sorry, but those are out.
I am not sorry Layton is out because ahahahaha begone thot.
This leaves Kitten Adventures versus Farnham Fables. Both are sweet little nibbly things. This is the puzzle category, though, and I feel like Farnham narrowly beats Kitten on the actual puzzle-solving front. Both are zero-challenge and over in minutes, don't get me wrong, but Kitten Adventures has only one puzzle four times, and that puzzle is "Where is the thing? Find the thing." Farnham at least involves some creative MacVenture inventory-using and such.
Winner: Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Wing of Wyvern award for Most Retro Nostalgia Trip
Whether it is an actual classic game or a modern pixel-fest reminiscent of one, this award honors the games that really take you back to Tantagel Castle.
Nominees:
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Remastered
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Shades of Gray
Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
This one looks on paper like a seriously tough, hard-to-decide category full of heavy hitters this year. Even if you disqualify MQR for stolen valor (it reminded me how much I love Mystic Quest after all, sure, but only by ruining it badly enough to make me miss the original) we still have two actual ZZT games and a QBasic game, and one of the ZZT games itself is a nostalgic callback to another ZZT game. And Toys, which, see above for that one. Good heavens, what a lineup.
On the other hand, this really isn't as close as it appears. One game stood out as a clear lock on this category ever since I beat it earlier in the year. That's by no means a guarantee it will stay in the lead (nothing could out-Crying Bulbasaur Unwound Future until Finding Paradise did, for example) but in this case, nothing really ever posed a serious threat to dethroning it.
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes is not only an authentic old game from my youth. It's an authentic old game from my youth made by a friend of mine at the time, complete with cameos of our whole squad. He's in there. I'm in there.
xaq_the_aereon is in there. A bunch of people I don't even remember now anymore but was apparently friends with at at the time are in there.They're all even playable! I would continue to explore all these old feelings by doing a run as me, if it weren't for the fact that ChocoboKick's moves in this game are about as bad as his personality. Still, at least give our teen selves credit for the names. CK's all-or-nothing dash attack special move is Wark Speed. His limit break is Limit Beak. Come on, that is fantastic.
This is the game that got me to revisit an entire era of my youth and idly wonder how people like Atomos are doing these days. If that's not nostalgia, then what is?
Winner: Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
When Celine replayed Toys, she did so on her modified SNES Classic console. There's just something about the feeling of sitting down on a couch with an SNES controller in hand, playing it on the TV... I don't know. Celine's logic for QF5R is pretty hard to argue with, but the console gaming style just gave me a warm fuzzy. I'm going with my gut here because I'm allowed.
Winner: Toys: Let the Toy Wars Begin!
Little Cup award for Achievements in Fluff
Not every game needs to be a long and serious epic. This award honors the light and/or little palate cleansers, because games are fun.
Nominees:
Don't Make Love
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Hiiro
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Hiiro and Princess Remedy are such a fantastic games that they're also in contention for overall Game of the Year. They're not just among the best short little fluffy games I played this year; they're among the best games I played this year, period.
Of the two, Hiiro really spoke to me, especially for this category. Yes, there was that one easter egg that can kind of throw the overall impression off if you let it, but let's look at everything else before that. Hiiro's main game is two hours of peaceful, relaxing exploration. No danger, just a sense of wonder as you go through caves, oceans, forests, mountains, grand floating sky castles... and every single screen is somewhere where you just want to stop and just drink it in, enjoy a nice scenic picnic or something, especially while the near-ASMR-level relaxing ambient music is encouraging you to do so.
This game is just... nice. In a year full of stress and busyness, this game is a calm, deep breath and a gentle hug. I honestly feel more at peace now than I did two minutes ago, mostly because I started listening to that song when I went to get the link for it. This was just all-around good, and I feel all-around good about giving it the award.
Winner: Hiiro
It... I... look. Hiiro was another couch game (Celine has a Steam Link) and there's just something about those. There is especially something about them when it's something as peaceful as that. I may have gotten a bit grouchy about games she fell into too hard earlier, but this is one that I wholeheartedly loved being a part of, too.
Winner: Hiiro
Piece of Heart award for Warmest Fuzzy
Whether it's a short indie romp or a long epic, and whether heartwarming moments are in the plot directly or just as a project that feels like it was made with love, this award honors games that make players feel good inside.
Nominees:
Deltarune chapter 1
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Monster Mind
Tadpole Treble
I might have overlooked Kitten Adventures in City Park entirely if it weren't for the bonus pack. Sure, it's cute and sweet in-game, too, but everything on this list has cute and sweet in-game moments or they wouldn't be here. Huge honorable mention to Farnham Fables, which goes after the same "easy fluffy point and click" niche and (if you're talking about strictly in-game content) does a slightly better job showing off just how much obvious effort and love and devotion the developer put into it.
That bonus pack from Kitten Adventures, though. Among concept art, wallpaper, soundtrack, etc., it had that video. The game's author went around with a camera, proudly showing the viewer the actual city park from her childhood in which the game takes place. She showed the big cat plush that became that advice-dispensing cat up in the tree in-game. She went on about all the park's attractions that had changed since then and all the ones you could still see. And throughout the entire tour, she had the warmest and most visibly delighted expression I've seen in ages. This game means something to her, yes, but this park it's based on means something to her, and she's happy to share it with you, and I'm just as happy (and honored!) to have experienced that. Also, her online name is AnnTenna and she does the whole tour wearing deely-boppers, and if that isn't the most adorable thing you've heard today then I'm not sure what to tell you.
Winner: Kitten Adventures in City Park
Okay, but have you seen Monster Mind's ending? There's a reason
swordianmaster turned that shot of Abra hugging Grovyle into a clan sticker.Monster Mind is like dating in reverse: first you introduce yourselves with hardcore sex, but between all the pillow talk, you eventually get to know each other and become friends. Every character in the household is full of personality, with a unique voice that is almost always either friendly or... if they're prickly, it's because something is bothering them and maybe you'll reach an understanding as you get to know each other better. The slice-of-life conversations were what kept Celine going throughout the endgame after the puzzles and the sex scenes had kind of worn out their welcome. It's just... I like all these people. And spending time with them feels nice.
Winner: Monster Mind
Furry Little Body award for Achievements in Anthropomorphic Appeal
Because sometimes you just need a silly little award to acknowledge that one character you want to bang.
Nominees:
Deltarune chapter 1
Embers of Magic
Five Nights of Love
Parasite Infection
Monster Mind
This was another one with an early lead that held throughout the year. The competition was briefly interesting for a moment, there, because I will admit Parasite Infection was really hot. But in the end? We kind of always knew this category was Monster Mind's home turf.
It's furrier, for one thing. As Sara mentioned above, it also gets some tertiary bonus points for all the enjoyable aspects of the game besides the sex scenes. But man, especially in the earlier game where most of those scenes are new to the player... whewf. There are some hot Pokemon in that household, let me tell you.
Winner: Monster Mind
This is the ideal male body. You may not like it, but this is what peak performance looks like.
Winner: Monster Mind
Golden Pheasant award for Artistic Achievement
Regardless of what the game actually does with them and whether it works overall, this award celebrates the truly outstanding and impressive feats in a game's assets, be the graphics, music, voice acting, game engine, or anything else.
Nominees:
Embers of Magic
Finding Paradise
Hiiro
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Tadpole Treble
This was by far the hardest choice I had to make this year. Not only are we comparing ultimately impossible to measure heuristics like "are Embers of Magic's graphics better than Hiiro's music," but even the games that excel in both do so in different ways. Are Embers of Magic's lush and beautiful hand-drawn portraits better than Sword & Sworcery's equally lush and beautiful pixel art? Are Sword & Sworcery's catchy indie jams comparable to the music of Tadpole Treble?
I waffled on this for ages. I'm still not 100% sure about my pick. This was really close, you guys. But in the end....
Tadpole Treble has everything. The art is... well, it's Brawl in the Family art, perhaps a bit simplistic compared to some of the other nominees but expressive and full of personality and charm. The music will literally never leave your head. Ever. I think that I'll be singing this until the end of time. I can't escape another refrain. No, ma'am.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Yeah, this one was hard. I almost went with Celine's pick, and she almost went with mine. In the end, though, I went with the other game that visually and musically has it all: Sword & Sworcery. Please don't ask me why; "why is this song better than that one" is pretty much impossible to explain beyond gut feelings. Maybe part of it is that Tadpole Treble is a little too catchy and Celine playing it in her head all day every day gets tiring. Not a large part, though; I know when I'm spite-voting (see above) and this doesn't feel like that. Tadpole Treble's music is great, don't get me wrong. It's that catchy for a reason. I just... Sword & Sworcery's music is nice. I don't know. I'm not super confident in this part of the pick.
On the other hand, I do have more confidence in my pick on the art side. As cute as BitF art is, this is gorgeous. (So is Embers of Magic, but Sword & Sworcery has that and the music, so.)
The thing about art games is the art is good, it turns out.
Winner: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
Trap Devised by Satan award for Game Most Likely Not Done Yet
Backlogs are immense, time is finite, and most games can be crossed off the list and moved on from once completed. However, some games deserve a special mention for their lasting appeal and replay value. This award honors the ones that don't want to be over.
Nominees:
Animalia
Farnham Fables episode 3: Animals at School
Flimsy's Town of ZZT
Parasite Infection
Tadpole Treble
This is another tough one, because four of the five games here absolutely will be revisited at some point. Animalia's one bad ending is not enough, I have too much stuff I missed in Farnham Fables, Xyzzy is 100% correct that Flimsytown feels unfinished even after the one route I explored and wrote about, and of course, as soon as the developers make more Parasite Infection I'll probably rush back in to check out the next leg of content.
The one outlier, Tadpole Treble, is on the list because I wanted to replay it so bad that I already did, and posed the question of whether the small matter of timing should be rewarded or penalized. After all, if I'd only beaten Tadpole Treble later in the year, its victory would have been almost automatic.
In the end, two things swayed my decision. First, I decided that having already hundred-percented Tadpole Treble should not be held against it. It's a game that's so replayable that I couldn't wait until the new year to tear into it. Isn't that a good thing? If that's not what this category is all about, then maybe it should be?
Second, it's not like Tadpole Treble has zero replay value now. I can always get bored and come by for a high score. I already filmed some really awesome runs of Barracuda Caverns and Piranha Jungle, and there's nothing saying I couldn't someday feel inspired to revisit some of the other levels. I've always liked Chiptune Lagoon.
Will I? Who knows. Probably not. Still, I feel like there's just enough "theoretically could" to go with the "already did" and put this one over the top.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Please send help; the last thing we need is her getting back into that game again. :P
Honestly, if I had more of a hand in picking the nominees as well as the winners, I'd have gone for Hiiro. It was a nice, pleasant experience for me, and one I'd love to revisit. However, the idea of me picking winners too came fairly late in the year, and by then Celine had already picked all the nominees. Alas. Please consider Hiiro my actual choice of all the games this year, in an AU where I'm allowed to pick that.
However, for the sake of pretending since these are "officially" my five choices, I'm going to go with the one that's light, breezy, and not likely to make Celine fall in. The one that's cute and fluffy and harmless when it comes to a certain young lady's bedtime. :P
Winner:
Extra Life award for Most Deserving of a Second Chance
Not every played game is completed. Most of the abandoned ones were abandoned for a reason, and quickly forgotten. Could some of them find redemption and a path back onto the active to-do list, though? Maybe these ones could....
Nominees:
Escape the Game
Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest Remastered
My master, the Parasite
Reflection of a Fallen Feather
Varenje
Reflection of a Fallen Feather is the only game on this list that I actually liked, but just found a bit too much to wrap my head around at the time. That lends a certain amount of motivation toward revisiting it. Xyzzy and Sword played it after me and Sword even finished it, and from him I can learn how to, you know, make progress. I feel like I have a better sense of what I did wrong now after talking to him, and I do want to try again someday. Not that I don't have other RPGs at this point, mind, but... you know. This one seemed nice. It deserves another chance.
Winner: Reflection of a Fallen Feather
Let me tell you what's going to happen, since I live in Celine's head. 2019 gameblogging award spoilers incoming, yo.
Escape the Game was a bad game with a good premise. It was free and about ten minutes long, and the idea behind it instantly grabbed her attention. She tried it, and found that it actually wasn't very good, and moved on.
But it's still a good idea/aesthetic, and the sequel is in development and maybe, just maybe, things might have might have improved?
Probably not. Deep down, she knows this. But she wants it to be good. If this game were actually as good as its trailer makes it look, it would be fantastic. Look, see? She's already wishlisting it while I'm talking. :P
My prediction: Be sure to look out for the eventual "Oops, this one isn't good either, but at least I tried" ABANDONED post and for Break the Game to be up for Extra Life in... whatever year it finally drops.
Winner: Escape the Game
Stan S. Stanman award for If You Only Buy One Game from This List....
Whether it's an overlooked indie gem or a well known game that deserves its reputation, this award honors the one game each year that everyone reading this really owes it to themselves to check out.
Nominees:
Embers of Magic
Finding Paradise
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Tadpole Treble
There are generally two types of entries in this category. There are the selfless picks, which are here because they have low barriers to entry--they're light and breezy, they're of a genre most people should enjoy, etc. The ones I recommend because I think you'll like them. Being free is a huge part of the selfless picks, because that means you have nothing to lose by trying them.
Then there are the selfish ones, the ones that mean something to me, and I want you to play them because of what they mean to me. These are the ones I put here because of the "oh my God you need to play this so we can talk about it" factor, even though I'm asking more of you by asking you to do so. These are the ones that involve purchases, series prerequisites, and/or the games themselves might not be a genre that is accessible to everyone, but just... I really want to talk about it that badly.
The best picks for this category, including last year's winner (Star Billions) are both. Star Billions was free for the first season, was an easy-to-play visual novel type game, and I will talk about it with anyone who's played it for hours because eeeeeee.
This year, the nominees are more of a one-or-the-other choice.
The most serious contenders, after thinking about it and narrowing it down, came down to Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt versus Tadpole Treble versus Finding Paradise.
Princess Remedy is the selfless pick. It's free, it's short, it's fun, and there's something for just about everyone with the various difficulty modes and optional challenges.
Finding Paradise is easily and by far the most selfish pick I have ever put in the so-far-young history of this category. It's not only one purchase, but several, as it comes in a series after To the Moon and a Bird Story. It's an RPGMaker walking sim. And as you may have gathered from the Crying Bulbasaur discussion, every entry in this series but especially this one will destroy you. Maybe not everyone is into crying! But oh my God, Finding Paradise is important. If there's even a possibility that you can handle all that, it's worth it.
Tadpole Treble is the Mario (fitting, given the Brawl in the Family influence.) It's the jack of all trades. It has more meaning to me and opens up more fan-squeeing conversations than Princess Remedy, but far less and fewer than Finding Paradise. It has more of a barrier to entry than Princess Remedy (mostly because it's not free,) but far less than Finding Paradise (because it isn't an entire series, and it has more actual gameplay.)
In the end, Finding Paradise is the one I wanted to pick, but I had to think long and hard about the nature of selfish picks, and this one in particular. Can I really ask that much of you, my faithful readers?
...
...
Yes. Yes I fucking can, because holy shit every day I have to keep a Finding Paradise reference to myself is physically murdering me. AaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
Winner: Finding Paradise
What she screamed.
Winner: Finding Paradise
Sqrl's Choice award for XyzzySqrl's Favorite Game This Year
Another silly for-fun category. We pick the nominees for "what would XyzzySqrl's favorite game probably be" (excluding the obvious ones,) and then she picks a winner!
Nominees:
Animalia
Colosseum: Quest for the 5 Runes
Don't Make Love
Monster Mind
Kitten Adventures in City Park
Hello. I am that weirdo squirrel-moogle that keeps hanging around. You may remember me from such places as "the comments", "my own journal", or "last year's awards show". Well guess what: I'm back and I'm here to give my favorite game that Celine played this year, and it's gonna be...
Animalia.
No tricks, no weird backhanded goofing on Celine. Animalia is one of the most creative and also tricky and difficult Twine-based text adventure games I've played in a while. There are dozens and dozens of possible scenes to see, a great number of which can fail hilariously and get your team of animal-based experts exposed, tricked, trapped or doomed. There's a FEW routes that lead to, uh, interesting endings.
I haven't gotten a completely unambiguously 'good' end yet. I'm working on that. I think I have ideas.
I just keep thinking, though. What if I had a different team in place? What if I reacted like THIS instead of like THAT? What if I fail this scene but succeed here? And then something unravels that leaves me blinking and going "What, really?" and I have to re-evaluate other threads and try the game -again- and...
Anyway! It's good. Have a try! Uh, I predict Celine might end up doin' some of that when she replays it! Or not, I don't know!
... Yay video games!
Winner: Animalia
Woodrats' Choice award for Best Game Overall
The grand prize as well as the most personal one. After all the other categories, after honoring every game for whatever it does best and whatever other demographics that might appeal to, this is the one that we, Celine and Sara Kalante, found to be our personal favorites.
Nominees:
Finding Paradise
Hiiro
Princess Remedy in a World of Hurt
Sixteen Easy Pieces
Tadpole Treble
This was another tough one. Look, let's be honest; these are all fantastic games. I loved every single one of them. Every one of them except Princess Remedy has already taken home at least one award before we even distribute this one, and if Princess Remedy ends up being shut out, then it will be this year's Mega Man Unlimited.
I want to give it to Finding Paradise. I want to give it to Hiiro. Either of those would be fantastic choices, absolutely deserving of the honor.
But in the end, I feel like I have to give it to Tadpole Treble. It just has everything. It has the kind of layers of depth that makes it easy to approach and breeze through, yet hooks me into going back and doing all those impossible challenges for 100% completion. It has, while not as much story as Finding Paradise, at least a story that is cute and charming with occasional feelsy moments. It manages to convey bleak isolation and loneliness and end-of-your-rope weary heartbreak without a word of spoken dialogue, through nothing more than a stage with sad music, facial expressions, and a poison-damage-over-time gameplay mechanic. And even that starts out in despair but builds to triumphant "Baton has had enough of your bullshit" determination (again, with nothing more than music and gameplay cues) that turns her into a certified badass just in time for the final battle.
I hesitated with this pick, because a part of me feels like I'm defeating my own award categories with it. You see, the original intent behind having Golden Pheasant--that is, a separate category for beautiful assets--was to honor games like Labyrinthine Dreams. That game was visually and musically gorgeous and had phenomenal voice acting, but it was also an un-fun mopey indie game about death. I wanted to honor the assets without the "okay but what did this game actually do with them" dragging them down in cases where they fumbled in execution.
And then this is the second year in a row that the winner of Golden Pheasant also won the overall game of the year from me. Tadpole Treble now joins Ori and the Blind Forest in that distinction.
It turns out that cases like Labyrinthine Dreams are kind of rare, and that games that have really good assets also tend to be really good games overall, too. Oops. Sigh.
Still, I can't snub it for one category or the other just to enforce the distinction. Tadpole Treble, like Ori before it, deserves both. It's just a lovely game all around. It's fun. It's addicting. It's beautiful. It oozes every bit as much charm as you would expect from the Brawl in the Family author and then some. And it was, overall, the greatest game I played this year.
Winner: Tadpole Treble
Oh, sure, now picking Hiiro is an option again, but I have to put it against Finding Paradise. >.>
I want to say this was a hard choice, but... no. It always had to be this one. It's just... *gestures wildly* nnmmmmmMMM. There's a reason this is also both of our Stan picks aaaa.
In addition to that, Finding Paradise has gorgeous music, amazing sprite work, and even equally amazing cinematography. It destroys the bar for what you expect RPGMaker games to be just as it destroys your feelings. It has such an important message, and just... everything. It has everything. Please play it.
Winner: Finding Paradise
All in all, this has been one hell of a year for games, hasn't it? I love doing these posts, because it feels so good to look back on everything we played and bask in... man, we sure played some great things. Games are great, actually.
Even better to have Sara with me. I'm sorry about that nominee issue, but we'll have that sorted out by next year for sure. You're still doing this with me next year, right?
Oh heck yeah. Maybe some of the writeups, too?
Ooh, maybe.
So yeah. There you have it. As always, the results are compiled here, and will continue to be as more games are added. Updated every time I play something. In fact, I already inserted Qvabllock into a few categories for 2019. Will it stay in those categories as they fill up? Who knows. Guess we'll just have to play more games and see.
Huge thanks to Sara, to everyone who made these lovely games, and to you all for watching us banter for like fifty pages. Please check out Xyzzy's award post, too, if you somehow haven't had enough reading. Otherwise, here's to another great year of gaming, and many more to come.
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Date: 2018-12-15 10:57 pm (UTC)The Rita: Correct! and I'm actually slightly surprised to be correct. Also an influencer. Still, anything that gets a woodrat to actually -let go- of guilt is, y'know. A monument by itself. To something. The past I guess? Uh... Yep! That sure is me being right!
The Crying Bulbasaur: Wrong and I'm sorry I have to stop and laugh for like 15 minutes at Sara's meme. A++ repurposing you're doing fantastic honey. *ahem* Anyway... geez. "Birds And Crying" it is. Wow. Yeah this overwhelms Shades of Grey huh. Maybe if I had watched those videos ... I would be super spoiled. Mmh.
The Hint Coin: Wrong because somehow Monster Mind did not plant a flag in this one. Huh. I really should have thought about the "brilliant ZZT guy" angle though and remembered how much you admire that.
The Wing of Wyvern: Correct! and I was kind of half-sure Toys had it after reading the Rita. Huh. Beak those limits to bits, yonder beaky rodent. (oh hey look I second-guessed myself into Sara's answer.)
The Little Cup: Wrong and uh. Man I ... just wishlisted Hiiro. Okay sure.
The Piece of Heart: Wrong and I ... oh hey Sara has me covered here.
The Furry Little Body: Correct! and ... oh hey Sara has me covered here. Yeah next year I'm gonna try to guess hers too.
The Golden Pheasant: Correct! and maybe I won't try to guess Sara's because I too will pretty much always go with cute over actual beauty it feels like. Still, it was too close to call on both fronts huh.
The Trap Devised By Satan: Wrong and good lord, Celine, you 100%'d that game. How can you stand to even LOOK at it anymore? I'm kind of in a mix of awe and bafflement here.
The Extra Life: Correct and is going to physically kill me at some point. WELP.
The Stan S. Stanman: Wrong and I look forward to tormenting Celine by playing through the series in a random order I derive via the ancient principles of gyromancy some time in 2026.
The Sqrl's Choice: Wrong on purpose to preserve the mystery. I took a dive and I'm not sorry. ... Can we look at Rhydon some more?
The Woodrats' Choice: Wrong and... I'm... stunned a bit. Wow this game won a lot of frickin' awards huh. What a game that was.
What a year that was.
*clap clap clap*
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Date: 2018-12-16 12:48 am (UTC)Tadpole Treble is also a great game, which is why it won a zillion awards and I 100%'d it but still can't escape another refrain.
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Date: 2018-12-16 12:54 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2018-12-16 02:01 am (UTC)β My original predictions, per before. As mentioned before, I was only attempting to predict Celine's responses, because I don't know Sara well enough to make the same kinds of guesses. No disrespect intended, and I'm still going to read the latter after I post this (I skimmed through first to score myself, I'll come back for the details). ^..^
I'm using the scoring system I mentioned before, with +4 for first guess correct, +2 for second guess correct, and +1 for neither correct but either one of them given prominence over the non-winners.
Total: 30/52 = 58% of perfect.
Impression of the discrepancies, so far: I clearly underestimated how much Celine liked Tadpole Treble in general, though I feel like the Trap Devised by Satan category may itself have been a bit of a trap devised by Satan in this context. :-P I'm also surprised at the Extra Life; I should up my guesses of Celine's desire to go back for complexity, I suppose. (This… may have positive relevance to me in some minor future sidequest matters.)
I really don't know what I was thinking in the Piece of Heart category in retrospect.
Anyway, yay!
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Date: 2018-12-16 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-16 02:46 am (UTC)Caz: :P
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Date: 2018-12-16 04:19 am (UTC)Finding Paradise was seriously heart-stab-tastic and I felt so bad for you at the conclusion of that scene! I'm glad that you were able to pick up and continue after that, even though you were so hesitant to even act Rosaline's "imaginary friend" lines. The closest I recall coming before that was my "Can we stop for a minute? My hands have just gone numb" just after finding out the true identity of the King in Holidaystar - that was a physical reaction I haven't had in any other game since!
I have a Steam Link as well, from when the local Gamestop was selling them for $5 possibly by accident, but I haven't used it because the picture I got was nowhere near fast or sharp enough to be practical for playing games. We've since upgraded our wireless network with a better router, though... is yours wired into ethernet? I'm wondering if it's worth it to drill into the floor and put a cable there (and I've done it before, so I'll know how not to drill through the cable for internet to the entire house this time).
And the bomb-teleport in ZZT sounds, indeed, brilliant :)
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Date: 2018-12-16 04:38 am (UTC)Really, if you're my friend, you're on Dreamwidth, and you play games sometimes, then you're a part of my Dreamwidth game friends. :D That Robo Recall post was great, and I greatly enjoyed your Command and Conquer series as well. If you feel like you want to join us, please, by all means! Our Dreamwidth Reading page being too active is definitely not the worst problem we can have. :)
Finding Paradise was... difficult to get through when the gameplay was leaning toward having us fight against Faye, and Eva's more dismissive lines about her were definitely troublesome. I did do them, and I even acted them out properly with a good level of strength behind her defiance and everything, but I just had to... brace myself a little first, and remind Sara that it was all acting and I didn't actually mean what I was about to say. It was the sort of pre-line thing I could have cut from the final videos and probably been fine, but I felt like it added character. :) I wanted the people watching to see that dynamic between us.
I'd forgotten about that reaction in Holiday Star, actually! I suppose my whole point about "Team Hatoful has never had that happen before" is incorrect, then. :) Well... still.
My Steam Link has a wired connection to the router, yes. It helps that everything in the TV/computer setup in this apartment is kind of next to each other anyway.
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Date: 2018-12-19 01:04 am (UTC)Finding Paradise is definitely the only time I can recall where something caused us to end our run! The King's backstory definitely shook us into silence for a bit - I went back to look at it and the escalating revelation is beautifully written, and I'm so glad that our reactions are all preserved. I can tell exactly when I realized who the other bird was and adapted my voice for him.
I will try to both write and read more :)
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Date: 2018-12-16 07:27 pm (UTC)Also:
"What she screamed." -Not sure why, but I was genuinely laughing at that for a good 5 minutes.
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Date: 2018-12-17 01:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-12-17 02:21 am (UTC)BTW, just had to share a mental image (more like a comic) I had while reading this earlier:
Panel 1: Sara standing on a cliff, looking at something in her hands
Panel 2: Close-up of her hands. It's a copy of the Layton game
Panel 3: Sara's face, looking up from it
Panel 4: Zoomed back out, Sara hurling the game off towards the horizon with an assertive "YEET!!".
Final corner panel: *Kerplunk*
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Date: 2018-12-17 02:40 am (UTC)I'm sorry, Celine. I know the game itself is good.
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Date: 2018-12-17 05:30 am (UTC)