2004 Game Tunnel Indie Game of the Year Awards

[cyrus_zuo]

Hey all!

Through impossibility, insanity, lack of sleep and hopelessness Game Tunnel is soon to begin publishing its Game of the Year awards. This process is far from an exact science and no matter who we pick as winners there will always be plenty of people who disagree. Understanding the impossibility of the task, I also know that GOTY awards do mean something to the people who win and bring some more press to Indie games.

Anyway, I've posted the 'finalists' for each of the categories and the dates that the awards will go live through links on the main page of the site: www.gametunnel.com. (Except for graphics, which so far has been an absolute toss-up for me, I have a twenty game list, and I don't feel passionate about any of them...help!!!???)

If anyone would like to check out the list and let me know if I am making any real big bonehead omissions I would appreciate it. (I realize everyone thinks their game should be on the list...that is probably a good thing to believe, but Game Tunnel has its own wacky staff for choosing these things :)) Last year I somehow missed Rocknor's Donut Factory, which probably would have been the Puzzle game of the year winner if I had not forgotten it...hopefully no such misses this year, but you never know.

So graphics and bonehead moves...anyone? Wanting to get a pre-award jab in?

I appreciate it :)

[cyrus_zuo]

For those who may be interested, here is my graphics list in whole without any of the rating marks I've put together:
Aerial Antics
Airstrike II
Alien Hominid
Anino
Astrobatics
Dark Archon:Invasion
Dynamite Car Plane
Gates of Troy
Global Defense Network
Guardian
Hamsterball
Jets 'N Guns
Juno Nemesis Remix
OMF Battlegrounds
Outpost Kaloki
Ricochet Lost Worlds
Sector 13
Spartan
Storm Angel
Starshatter
Wik

Those are the games I'm considering at the moment...though obviously some more than others...but none of them have struck me as must-have finalists...

[Anthony Flack]

Hm, I haven't played all of them, but the ones on that list I found most visually appealing were

Alien Hominid
Hamsterball
Outpost Kaloki

But I can see what you're saying there. Many of the listed games have highly polished, well-executed visuals, but not in a way that I could honestly say I really liked. And in the case of Wik I found the visuals to be extremely technically impressive, yet totally repellant, so how to you rate that? The above games are ones I most liked the look of, not the ones that exhibited the most skill.

But for all I know, one of the ones I haven't played could be amazing. I'm not familiar with

Anino
Astrobatics
Dynamite Car Plane
OMF Battlegrounds
Sector 13
Spartan
Storm Angel

[Gmicek]

I'll get panned for saying this, but personally we're not going to have Alien Hominid up for contention. I sure everyone can understand why, even if they don't agree with it.

Anyway, back to the point. Based on the titles you posted I would be leaning towards the following (in no particular order):

Jets 'N Guns
Outpost Kaloki
Ricochet Lost Worlds
Starshatter
Wik

I would also consider adding World Fables in there. A Tale In The Desert: Second Telling may also be worth taking a closer look at, if only from a technical standpoint.

[PoV]

I'll get panned for saying this, but personally we're not going to have Alien Hominid up for contention. I sure everyone can understand why, even if they don't agree with it.
Awww, but it is a neato game. :D. A shame I see it nowhere, and had to pre-order it.

[princec]

Where's the Dudester? :D Late entry ;)

Cas :)

[Dan MacDonald]

Action GOTY up today, can't wait

[Dom]

Dagnammit - Puzzle Stax is slightly too late, and I bet it won't get considered next year :(

PS: Gregory, I tried to mail you some news but it just bounces from diygames :confused:

[tolik]

Everybody missed Dino And Aliens:
http://www.nevosoft.com/dino/dino.html

[Chris Evans]

Anatoly that game looks great. I'm going to check it out tonight.

[cyrus_zuo]

Everybody missed Dino And Aliens:
http://www.nevosoft.com/dino/dino.html

You are right I did miss that one...did you submit it to the site? When was the release date?

[cyrus_zuo]

Too late for me to consider at this point. Interesting game and I've had more than one person ask me why it wasn't a finalist. Reality is deadlines, oh and that 50 hour a week full time job that I do in addition to all this :)

Where's the Dudester? :D Late entry ;)

Cas :)

[tolik]

You are right I did miss that one...did you submit it to the site? When was the release date?

No, I didn't. It was released somewhere in Sep as I remember.

[Gmicek]

PS: Gregory, I tried to mail you some news but it just bounces from diygames :confused:

Hmm, very strange. I know I get a lot of spam, and those Alawar press releases are pretty big, but I try to keep my in box at no more than 60% capacity. Anyway, you can always email me at gmicek at gamealternative dot com , it's on a better server with less problems associated with email.


Oh, and yeah, Dino And Aliens kicks ass, great graphics too!

[princec]

Is Troy playing Dudester yet? I don't think he's used his regcode yet...

Cas :)

[Gmicek]

Is Troy playing Dudester yet? I don't think he's used his regcode yet...

Good question. I'll try to find out, he's in the middle of rviewing 4 games for us (plus whomever else he writes for), so it's always tough to say, hehe.

[cyrus_zuo]

Well...I managed the graphics award, though if I did it again tomorrow they could all end up in a different order or there could be different games there entirely...but I'm happy with the 5 that I have tonight :)

[Gmicek]

Some good choices, although I'm a little surprised you chose Steer Madness over, say... Jets N' Guns.

[Anthony Flack]

Oh, I dunno.

I haven't played Steer Madness (only watched the video) but it did look very smooth, impressively detailed and with a nice consistent art direction. I can respect that. Whereas Jets 'n' Guns... I thought the best bits looked great, but overall I found it a bit patchy.

I thought they were pretty good choices all in all, even though I personally think Wik has technically impressive, yet revolting, graphics. Like a Boris Valejo painting. But I can accept that this aspect is somewhat subjective (I expect there's some people here who actually like Boris paintings too, right?). It is unquestionably well done and thoroughly professional, so hey - fair enough.

[princec]

I rather liked the Wik ingame graphics. Mind you, I rather like Boris Valejo paintings. Maybe it's all the nearly naked wimmin. None of those in Wik though.

Cas :)

[papillon]

I like Wik's graphics. I'm more mixed on Boris. I like the girls, but I don't like something in the way he puts his colors together. I am an Elmore fan all the way. :)

[Fost]

the big question about Boris Vallejo: was he really married to someone called Doris?

:)

[Chris Evans]

I'm protesting! :p

I think our game should at least got a mention in the "Intro" category in today's special awards. The voice-acting in our intro is pretty much universally highly praised. :)

Anyway, congrats to everybody else who got awards! I was happy to see Void War pick up an Award in the multiplayer category the other day. Plus, I got to see quite a few games I hadn't heard before, which I'll be sure to check out.

[Jack Norton]

I'm happy because I got both GK and UBM awarded in the Sport category... :)
Hm, well not much competition in there... I should have win it :eek:

[stay]

The GOTY pages have been fun and interesting to read. I realized why they split it up into one award per day when I found myself visiting the site almost every day to find out what was new... :)

We're extremely proud of Outpost Kaloki's Sim Game of the Year award (http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-viewarticle-68.html), and thrilled that Void War won the Multiplayer GOTY award (http://www.gametunnel.com/html/section-viewarticle-72.html). Good job, Jay!

-- stay