Woodling Gameblogging Award Nominees 2021
Feb. 10th, 2022 05:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kjorteoWe try to do the gameblogging awards in December; they're part of our year-end wrap-up. However, this year, a dead coyote and an even deader mental state (which I haven't gotten around to writing about yet, appropriately enough) led to that slipping. So, uh, here we are with some belated 2021 game nominees.
2021 by the numbers: 24 games completed, 1 game abandoned, and 1 ongoing, for a total of 26 gameblogging entries. This narrowly edges out 2017 (the first year we ever did this, in which we had 29) as the lowest amount of entries in the history of us doing game writeups. You would think that losing my job and getting waylaid with the kind of ADHD and executive function struggles that left me practically bedridden for months on end would have led to playing more video games, because what else was I doing all day? But, uh, apparently not.
Some of these categories are bare enough that we may as well not have them, while others still managed to have a lot of great games in contention for a highly competitive award. Which ones are which? I guess you'll have to keep reading to find out.
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:
Infini
River City Ransom
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: *Open mouth* ... *Close mouth* ... ... Okay, look, this was a bad mental health year. This was the year I fought the backlog and the backlog won. Sorry.
Crying Bulbasaur award for Achievements in Emotional Devastation
Whether it makes us cry, warms our heart, 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:
The Dead Account
Deltarune Chapter 2
Remember Mary
The Repairing Mantis
Weird Grief
Honorable Mentions:
extraordinary_fandoms.exe
Infini
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
This Won't Make You Happy
Celine: This one, on the other hand, is nice and populated. We didn't play as many games this year, but the ones we did sure seemed to go for our usual amount of feelings.
Sara: Feelings, part of a complete breakfast. Omnomnom.
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:
And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One
Finding Light
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Infini
You Are SpamZapper 3.1
Honorable Mentions:
Deltarune Chapter 2
A Kishoutenketsu in the countryside
Celine: "This category's bench is kind of thin for a large part of the year but we can usually make up for it during IFComp," Celine said, repeating what she said last year when that thought backfired spectacularly. But hey, this time it worked!
Ardei: Games old and new alike share this category.
Kurt: Yeah, IFComp did help a lot, but the non-IFComp ones are pretty solid, too.
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:
Familiars.io
The Repairing Mantis
River City Ransom
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: ... Huh. You'd think a year of sinking into being a nonfunctional lump would have involved more retreating into old favorites (River City Ransom) or at least modern offerings that offer a style and general vibe that calls back to old favorites (the other three.) Like, these aren't bad picks at all, just... that's it? Huh.
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:
The Dead Account
Doodle Champion Island Games
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Remember Mary
The Repairing Mantis
Honorable Mentions:
The Basilisk Dialogue
Deepest Sword
Familiars.io
Finding Light
Yu Crossing Animals
Celine: Holy heck, we played Basilisk Dialogue in 2021?? I honestly forgot about that one; it feels like an eternity ago.
Sara: ... Anyway!
Celine: Anyway! Another well-populated category. The moral of the story: Even when you're running low on juice, at least Little Cups are easier to fill.
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 2
extraordinary_fandoms.exe
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
Honorable Mentions:
My Gender Is a Fish
Remember Mary
Weird Grief
Celine: A lot of cute stuff here, but this is the cute category.
Sara: *Gestures downward*
Celine: The fluffy cute category. Yes, we're coming up on the sexy cute category.
Kurt: *Grin*
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:
Deepest Sword
Deltarune Chapter 2
Doodle Champion Island Games
Mythic Ocean
Yu Crossing Animals
Honorable Mentions:
The Dead Account
Familiars.io
Mond Cards
The Repairing Mantis
Weird Grief
Kurt: ... Familiars.io?
Celine: Shh it was the Honorable Mentions okay
Sara: Look, I get that you're really into bugs, and I admit the squirrels in the Repairing Mantis start off pretty cute before they get all mutilated, but....
Celine: HONORABLE MENTIONS
Ardei: ... *silent concern*
Celine: Meanwhile, on the main stage, we have a suggestive game, a downright pornographic game, and then three tame ones that just happen to have hot enough of a cast that I wish they were the pornographic one.
Kurt: Pretty sure there's e6 for that.
Celine: I mean, for some of them.
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:
Deltarune Chapter 2
Infini
Mythic Ocean
The Repairing Mantis
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
The Dead Account
Golf Story
Yu Crossing Animals
Celine: We played a lot of games that look or sounded gorgeous this year, so this feels like another good full category even without the last two Honorable Mentions.
Ardei: ... Beautiful games, all.
Sara: And, as always, there's always an element of apples-to-oranges subjectivity. One game's graphics or another's music? Stunning pixel art or a great execution of an unorthodox visual style? Everything here did a great job being exactly what it wanted to be, looking and sounding exactly how it wanted to look and sound for the image it wanted to convey. But whose image prevails?
Kurt: Next time, on Woodling Awards Z.
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:
Mythic Ocean
Remember Mary
River City Ransom
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: Mythic Ocean, being a hybrid of a VN and Endless Ocean, has a lot of that "I completed a couple characters' routes before moving on but I really want to see the others some day" factor you see in VNs. Remember Mary's more morally reprehensible routes have different dialogue depending on the order in which you commit the three main atrocities, which I admit to being curious about. River City Ransom... well, we're friends with Seirea who speedruns the dang thing; we're used to the thought of going back and trying to do better, and the Retro Brawler Collection has both American RCR and a translation of the Japanese Downtown Special, and the differences in plot/dialogue/setting between them are another thing about which I am curious. For Timespinner, we went through several New Game Plus runs and achieved 100% completion, and that was relying on and dramatically raising the levels of our Orbs of choice. Each of Timespinner's Orbs have a whole different feel to them, akin to the entire weapon types in your given Castlevania (small lightning-quick dagger, giant slow overhand axe, whip, etc.; Timespinner may even elevate it to something comparing to the Bullet Soul system in Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow) and I mentioned that I really wanted to try some of the other combinations we didn't use. I can't see myself ever giving up the beloved "Blood Scythe" combination as at least one of the sets in rotation because that's basically the only effective way to deal with those knights with the big invincible shields, but something like a Wind/Ice quick setup, the Eye buzzsaws, etc. would be really fun to try for all the other rooms in the game. But wanting to replay all of these is one thing; will we actually do so? And if so, which one?
Sara: I mean. We can still present the award to the one most likely to be revisited even if it's still not a 100% chance.
Celine: Yeah.
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:
Familiars.io
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: ...
Sara: ...
Kurt: ...
Ardei: ...
Celine: ... I did say some categories got hit by the void year harder than others.
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:
The Dead Account
Journey of the Broken Circle
Infini
Mythic Ocean
Remember Mary
Honorable Mentions:
My Gender Is a Fish
Orna
Timespinner
Weird Grief
You Are SpamZapper 3.1
Celine: The main contenders here seem to be... if not vying for the same lane, at least more similar than the Extra Life field was. With the possible exception of Infini (and even that one still did too, a little,) the other four are here because they resonate with us emotionally and because we want people to experience that emotion and come join us in squeeing and screaming about the scenes that affected us. Infini, meanwhile, is a break-breaking puzzle game with a cool and unique visual style and story, giving it "you should see this becuase it's neat" cred.
Kurt: We had some other ones, too, but, you know, you don't need us to tell you to play Deltarune. :v
Clanmates' Choice award for Clanmates' Choice
Another silly for-fun category. We pick five games, and the members of Clan Sugardoom each pick one!
Nominees:
Doodle Champion Island Games
Deltarune Chapter 2
Golf Story
The Repairing Mantis
Yu Crossing Animals
Honorable Mentions:
Deepest Sword
Familiars.io
Infini
Mond Cards
River City Ransom
Celine: Which games will the non-woodling members of Clan Sugardoom choose from this list, and why? Who knows, ask them!
Woodlings' 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, the woodlings, found to be our personal overall favorites.
Nominees:
The Dead Account
Deltarune Chapter 2
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
Golf Story
Infini
Orna
The Repairing Mantis
Remember Mary
Celine: ... Okay, so, my last year's summation was: "You know, say what you will about the year and my ability to do... like... anything; we did manage to get some pretty great games in the finals this year. I mean, we usually do, but like... it's good that even 2020 wasn't an exception. There are some fantastic games out there." Well, it turns out that if you scratch out 2020 and write 2021, all of that still applies!
Sara: It's... hmm.
Ardei: Our system's conditions reached the point of discovery and diagnosis in this year, but it is not unfathomable that we had been suffering from them before we knew their names.
Celine: Mmm.
Kurt: Well... still. It's a smaller list but the ones that are here are still great, you know? Quality over quantity and all that?
Ardei: Indeed.
Celine: ... Yeah. Anyway, these are all fantastic games, and any one of them would be a fine winner. Which one did each of us love the most? Answers to come in the eventual award post!
= Copy/pasted boilerplate outro because mnnrrhhh =
And there you have it! As always, you can keep track of all of this stuff along with past years' info, all in neat sorted spreadsheet form, right here. Feel free to weigh in with your guesses as well as your personal picks--we love talking about games! (I mean, like, as long as you're not a toxic Gamer of course, but I assume anyone bothering to look us up on Dreamwidth is cool.)
2021 by the numbers: 24 games completed, 1 game abandoned, and 1 ongoing, for a total of 26 gameblogging entries. This narrowly edges out 2017 (the first year we ever did this, in which we had 29) as the lowest amount of entries in the history of us doing game writeups. You would think that losing my job and getting waylaid with the kind of ADHD and executive function struggles that left me practically bedridden for months on end would have led to playing more video games, because what else was I doing all day? But, uh, apparently not.
Some of these categories are bare enough that we may as well not have them, while others still managed to have a lot of great games in contention for a highly competitive award. Which ones are which? I guess you'll have to keep reading to find out.
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:
Infini
River City Ransom
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: *Open mouth* ... *Close mouth* ... ... Okay, look, this was a bad mental health year. This was the year I fought the backlog and the backlog won. Sorry.
Crying Bulbasaur award for Achievements in Emotional Devastation
Whether it makes us cry, warms our heart, 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:
The Dead Account
Deltarune Chapter 2
Remember Mary
The Repairing Mantis
Weird Grief
Honorable Mentions:
extraordinary_fandoms.exe
Infini
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
This Won't Make You Happy
Celine: This one, on the other hand, is nice and populated. We didn't play as many games this year, but the ones we did sure seemed to go for our usual amount of feelings.
Sara: Feelings, part of a complete breakfast. Omnomnom.
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:
And Then You Come to a House Not Unlike the Previous One
Finding Light
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Infini
You Are SpamZapper 3.1
Honorable Mentions:
Deltarune Chapter 2
A Kishoutenketsu in the countryside
Celine: "This category's bench is kind of thin for a large part of the year but we can usually make up for it during IFComp," Celine said, repeating what she said last year when that thought backfired spectacularly. But hey, this time it worked!
Ardei: Games old and new alike share this category.
Kurt: Yeah, IFComp did help a lot, but the non-IFComp ones are pretty solid, too.
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:
Familiars.io
The Repairing Mantis
River City Ransom
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: ... Huh. You'd think a year of sinking into being a nonfunctional lump would have involved more retreating into old favorites (River City Ransom) or at least modern offerings that offer a style and general vibe that calls back to old favorites (the other three.) Like, these aren't bad picks at all, just... that's it? Huh.
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:
The Dead Account
Doodle Champion Island Games
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Remember Mary
The Repairing Mantis
Honorable Mentions:
The Basilisk Dialogue
Deepest Sword
Familiars.io
Finding Light
Yu Crossing Animals
Celine: Holy heck, we played Basilisk Dialogue in 2021?? I honestly forgot about that one; it feels like an eternity ago.
Sara: ... Anyway!
Celine: Anyway! Another well-populated category. The moral of the story: Even when you're running low on juice, at least Little Cups are easier to fill.
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 2
extraordinary_fandoms.exe
Heather's Easter Egg Hunt
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
Honorable Mentions:
My Gender Is a Fish
Remember Mary
Weird Grief
Celine: A lot of cute stuff here, but this is the cute category.
Sara: *Gestures downward*
Celine: The fluffy cute category. Yes, we're coming up on the sexy cute category.
Kurt: *Grin*
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:
Deepest Sword
Deltarune Chapter 2
Doodle Champion Island Games
Mythic Ocean
Yu Crossing Animals
Honorable Mentions:
The Dead Account
Familiars.io
Mond Cards
The Repairing Mantis
Weird Grief
Kurt: ... Familiars.io?
Celine: Shh it was the Honorable Mentions okay
Sara: Look, I get that you're really into bugs, and I admit the squirrels in the Repairing Mantis start off pretty cute before they get all mutilated, but....
Celine: HONORABLE MENTIONS
Ardei: ... *silent concern*
Celine: Meanwhile, on the main stage, we have a suggestive game, a downright pornographic game, and then three tame ones that just happen to have hot enough of a cast that I wish they were the pornographic one.
Kurt: Pretty sure there's e6 for that.
Celine: I mean, for some of them.
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:
Deltarune Chapter 2
Infini
Mythic Ocean
The Repairing Mantis
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
The Dead Account
Golf Story
Yu Crossing Animals
Celine: We played a lot of games that look or sounded gorgeous this year, so this feels like another good full category even without the last two Honorable Mentions.
Ardei: ... Beautiful games, all.
Sara: And, as always, there's always an element of apples-to-oranges subjectivity. One game's graphics or another's music? Stunning pixel art or a great execution of an unorthodox visual style? Everything here did a great job being exactly what it wanted to be, looking and sounding exactly how it wanted to look and sound for the image it wanted to convey. But whose image prevails?
Kurt: Next time, on Woodling Awards Z.
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:
Mythic Ocean
Remember Mary
River City Ransom
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: Mythic Ocean, being a hybrid of a VN and Endless Ocean, has a lot of that "I completed a couple characters' routes before moving on but I really want to see the others some day" factor you see in VNs. Remember Mary's more morally reprehensible routes have different dialogue depending on the order in which you commit the three main atrocities, which I admit to being curious about. River City Ransom... well, we're friends with Seirea who speedruns the dang thing; we're used to the thought of going back and trying to do better, and the Retro Brawler Collection has both American RCR and a translation of the Japanese Downtown Special, and the differences in plot/dialogue/setting between them are another thing about which I am curious. For Timespinner, we went through several New Game Plus runs and achieved 100% completion, and that was relying on and dramatically raising the levels of our Orbs of choice. Each of Timespinner's Orbs have a whole different feel to them, akin to the entire weapon types in your given Castlevania (small lightning-quick dagger, giant slow overhand axe, whip, etc.; Timespinner may even elevate it to something comparing to the Bullet Soul system in Castlevania: Aria/Dawn of Sorrow) and I mentioned that I really wanted to try some of the other combinations we didn't use. I can't see myself ever giving up the beloved "Blood Scythe" combination as at least one of the sets in rotation because that's basically the only effective way to deal with those knights with the big invincible shields, but something like a Wind/Ice quick setup, the Eye buzzsaws, etc. would be really fun to try for all the other rooms in the game. But wanting to replay all of these is one thing; will we actually do so? And if so, which one?
Sara: I mean. We can still present the award to the one most likely to be revisited even if it's still not a 100% chance.
Celine: Yeah.
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:
Familiars.io
Honorable Mentions:
None
Celine: ...
Sara: ...
Kurt: ...
Ardei: ...
Celine: ... I did say some categories got hit by the void year harder than others.
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:
The Dead Account
Journey of the Broken Circle
Infini
Mythic Ocean
Remember Mary
Honorable Mentions:
My Gender Is a Fish
Orna
Timespinner
Weird Grief
You Are SpamZapper 3.1
Celine: The main contenders here seem to be... if not vying for the same lane, at least more similar than the Extra Life field was. With the possible exception of Infini (and even that one still did too, a little,) the other four are here because they resonate with us emotionally and because we want people to experience that emotion and come join us in squeeing and screaming about the scenes that affected us. Infini, meanwhile, is a break-breaking puzzle game with a cool and unique visual style and story, giving it "you should see this becuase it's neat" cred.
Kurt: We had some other ones, too, but, you know, you don't need us to tell you to play Deltarune. :v
Clanmates' Choice award for Clanmates' Choice
Another silly for-fun category. We pick five games, and the members of Clan Sugardoom each pick one!
Nominees:
Doodle Champion Island Games
Deltarune Chapter 2
Golf Story
The Repairing Mantis
Yu Crossing Animals
Honorable Mentions:
Deepest Sword
Familiars.io
Infini
Mond Cards
River City Ransom
Celine: Which games will the non-woodling members of Clan Sugardoom choose from this list, and why? Who knows, ask them!
Woodlings' 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, the woodlings, found to be our personal overall favorites.
Nominees:
The Dead Account
Deltarune Chapter 2
Journey of the Broken Circle
Mythic Ocean
Timespinner
Honorable Mentions:
Golf Story
Infini
Orna
The Repairing Mantis
Remember Mary
Celine: ... Okay, so, my last year's summation was: "You know, say what you will about the year and my ability to do... like... anything; we did manage to get some pretty great games in the finals this year. I mean, we usually do, but like... it's good that even 2020 wasn't an exception. There are some fantastic games out there." Well, it turns out that if you scratch out 2020 and write 2021, all of that still applies!
Sara: It's... hmm.
Ardei: Our system's conditions reached the point of discovery and diagnosis in this year, but it is not unfathomable that we had been suffering from them before we knew their names.
Celine: Mmm.
Kurt: Well... still. It's a smaller list but the ones that are here are still great, you know? Quality over quantity and all that?
Ardei: Indeed.
Celine: ... Yeah. Anyway, these are all fantastic games, and any one of them would be a fine winner. Which one did each of us love the most? Answers to come in the eventual award post!
= Copy/pasted boilerplate outro because mnnrrhhh =
And there you have it! As always, you can keep track of all of this stuff along with past years' info, all in neat sorted spreadsheet form, right here. Feel free to weigh in with your guesses as well as your personal picks--we love talking about games! (I mean, like, as long as you're not a toxic Gamer of course, but I assume anyone bothering to look us up on Dreamwidth is cool.)