Messages

#883

⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
⬜⬜⬜⬜🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Spoiler

Some time ago I stumbled over this word and thought it would be an interesting Wordle solution.

[close]

Congrats, Stu! Do you get the puzzles earlier in your timezone?

 #879

🟩🟨⬛⬛⬛
🟩⬛⬛⬛🟩
🟩🟨🟨⬛🟩
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Average solve for me since I got the first letter immediately.

Possibly combine Best Demo and Best Short game?

Ah, I haven't thought about that. But actually, a demo can of course count as a short game or even non-adventure game.

I am slightly in favor of keeping the programming category, if only because these are awards centered around a game making engine. Many people here are familiar with AGS. While noone knows the quality or details of game code, people can acknowledge skillful use of the engine (in the lines of "well done, I wouldn't know how to do that", "creative use of the engine" etc.).

So, can we all agree on the following?

*) A tighter schedule for nomination, voting and the ceremony

*) Reduced categories
All graphic category are merged into a "Best Visual Design", all audio categories into "Best Audio Design" and puzzles and gameplay are merged into "Best Gameplay".
"Best Demo" and "Best Character" are dropped.

Keep in mind that doing big changes to the categories mean also changes to the awards client. Not sure, but the intro animations still include the category names.

*) Snarky agreed to update the award client if we go the simple route (i.e. only use the screenshots from the database)

[Best Game Design]

So here's a very minimalist version, built upon LimpingFish's suggestions:
Best Game Design: Puzzles, game mechanics, GUI design, game flow, overall enjoyment.
Best Visual Design: Backgrounds, GUI graphics, animations, sprites.
Best Sound Design: Music, sound effects, voice acting, how it all plays together overall.
Best Original Story and Writing: Story building, world design, character design, dialogues, writing quality.
Best Non-Adventure Game: (unchanged - it still feels distinctive enough to keep).
Best AGS Game of the Year: (unchanged - the alternative might be splitting into Freeware and Commercial like LF did).

Thoughts? I do realize this looks like a rather radical change, but more generic categories are also easier to interpret and understand (Best Gameplay and Best Puzzles, I'm looking at you two!).

I don't like the "Best Game Design" category. This is too similar to "Best game" and I think both awards would go to the same game. Instead, I would keep "Best puzzles". It's about adventure games after all.
I would also, as @Snarky said, keep the commercial/non-commercial "Best game".
Not sure about "Best short game" (my favourite). While I think this is a very important category for game makers, the lack of votes in recent years shows, that it is maybe not important to players.
I'm all in favour of dropping "Best character". The free text field is really hard to fill in for voters.

Not sure if we have to change the categories radically. Maybe some small improvements, together with an easier voting page, would go a long way?

So, my suggestions would be a mix of yours and @LimpingFish

Best Free Game
Best Commercial Game
Best Puzzles (combines Puzzles and Gameplay)
Best Writing
Best Visual Design (combines all art awards)
Best Sound Design (sound, music, voice acting)
Best Non-Adventure Game
Best Short Game
Best Programming* (often the same as non-adventure)

I take it that means you don't think you're the person to create the content/host a ceremony livestream in a more typical Twitch/YouTube format? So should we rule out this alternative?

If so, does it also rule out the "Discord call with a PowerPoint presentation" option, or is that easier to prep/host?

I cannot do a Twitch/YouTube livestream ceremony. I have no experience with that. Maybe I could do the Discord call thing, I never did this but it sounds more feasible.

A panel of jurors is not going to work. This would require a dedicated group of at least 5 committed people who play all games and then enter discussion and decide on a result.
It's hard enough to find people to be part of the committee that decides on best innovation and lifetime achievement (and I do not want to give up on those two awards).

These two quotes just gave me an idea to help streamline the nomination process.
What if the dropdown box for nominations, only includes the games that were posted in the "For Your Consideration" thread, and only for the categories that the person has listed in their post.

Then the organizers can fill out the list by adding any additional games that weren't posted in the thread, but that they personally believe should have the opportunity to be nominated.

It's not a perfect solution, but it might help get more nominations by streamlining the whole thing.

I would not go this route. This would only encourage authors to suggest their games in all categories and exclude those who might just be on vacation during nomination period who cannot post in the FyC thread.

However, we could try to make the list smaller, by only including games that are eligible in a certain category (e.g. only games with voice acting in "Best voice acting", only short games in "best short game" etc.). I can check with AGA if it is possible to restrict the list, if we provide the correct data. We could make this a community effort to set up those lists.

Do we have some statistics about number of people that nominate vs. people that vote vs. people that attend the ceremony.

Here are the numbers of nominating and voting people per year.

Year	Nominators	Voters
2022	36	45
2021	42	52
2020	39	48
2019	47	45
2018	35	48
2017	49	68
2016	46	53
2015	47	58
2014	56	87
2013	70	92
2012	79	112

So, it was stable low in recent years. However, we only got this number of nominations after I urged several times on the forum for people to nominate. In some categories, we almost didn't get 5 games with 5 nominations each (this is the minimum required for a game to be nominated). Maybe people tend to nominate less games? I don't have more detail who nominated for how many categories.

@Ali Usually, the ceremony WAS live-streamed on Twitch/YouTube. I know some people were either watching the stream live or afterwards the recording when they couldn't attend.
The problem is, that content that is streamed, has to be created somehow...

[Earlier ceremony]

Thanks for your ideas, Stu!

Earlier ceremony
I do think having the ceremony earlier would help keep people interested. Last year it was right at the end of May, and I think that is rather late.

One idea is to set the date in stone earlier on so that we all know when to look forward to it and have more of a build up.

Ok, noted. Ceremony earlier.

Better banners

They are done by AGA. Maybe he could put up a banner image, but then again there has to be someone who CREATES such an image...

Separate MAGGIES
Traditionally, the MAGGIES winner is announced as part of the AGS Awards ceremony. But one option would be to have this announcement a little earlier. It could help by giving people something exciting to whet their appetites in the build-up to the main awards. And the MAGGIES winner could still be announced during the main ceremony, even if the winner has already been declared a month or so prior.

Good thinking. I love MAGGIES being presented during the ceremony, but I think they also suffer by the fact that they are revealed so late in the year. MAGGIES don't have a nomination phase, just voting (actually, nomination kinda happens year round). They could be finished much earlier.

More forgiveness
I think there is sometimes a pressure to have played every game in a category before voting in it. I can't be the only one who has decided against voting in a category because I wasn't able to play all the games in it. While this should definitely be encouraged, I think we should be more forgiving in this regard.

I think this especially applies to nominations. Some people don't nominate because they have only played few games, but nomination isn't a "this is better than the others" thing. It's more like "this game has great graphics!", and it doesn't matter if others, that I haven't played might have great graphics as well.

For MAGGIES in the last couple of years I have tried to include links to video play through for anyone too busy to download and play all the games. I'm trying to get this sorted even earlier for next year, so that every entry will have a video to watch. Maybe something similar could be done with all the AGS Award nominees.

Another great idea!

This is not about the games - there are enough of them. And more importantly, while the number may decrease, the quality is going up from year to year. There are lots of possible winners for each category. This is solely about the awards.

[Nomination and voting]

Wow, it's November already! The next AGS Awards are around the corner. Now would be a good time to start catching up playing this year's games. 

More importantly, though, I would like to discuss the future of the AGS Awards. We, the awards team (cat, @Kastchey and @Snarky), noticed a steady decline in interest. Fewer people nominate and vote, provide resources or attend the ceremony.

Nomination and voting
Good news first, @AGA has confirmed that he will take care of the voting page again. We will be able to do nominations and voting like always. However, there is a noticeable decline in the number of people who nominate and vote. While I think there will be still enough to have a significant result for 2023, it is still worrying.

Is there anything we can do to increase participation? Should we reduce the number of categories (e.g. best graphics and best animation could be merged, best gameplay could be dropped etc.)? Any other ideas?

The ceremony
The ceremony where the results are revealed has been the highlight of the AGS awards for many years. However, it comes with several problems:
* It's getting harder and harder to collect the required resources as many people either deliver them late, in weird formats or not at all. Even when they are collected, someone has to prepare them and put them in the client. We have lives beside AGS and this is taking quite some time.
* Fewer and fewer people are attending. Last year was the lowest number we ever had, as far as I remember. The huge effort of preparing the ceremony seems wasted time for such a small crowd.

Was the timing the problem? Was it just the wrong date and everything would be better with a tighter schedule and a ceremony earlier in the year? Is the ceremony not interesting anymore?

We considered various options for replacing the ceremony:

• IRC only, as in the good old times
• Chat only, but using Discord
• A discord voice call with a shared powerpoint presentation
• No ceremony at all, the result is just posted in the thread

What are your thoughts on this topic? Are you going to participate in voting or join a ceremony next year?

Looks like the recordings of both days are already online to watch. Not the same as being there, but better than nothing 

Hi @jwalt, nice to see you back here on the forums, it's been a while!

[Fountain of Youth Demo]

The Fountain of Youth Demo I found somewhere on the internet. The end credits mentioned AGS and that's how I ended up here

I'm just glad you haven't worked in my kid's daycare...

If my kids were to play apes when walking on the street with me, I would not stop them because some passerby demands it. Of course, the situation would be different on a bus or train, but not just walking somewhere outside.

Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but eri0o did some amazing 3D stuff in his games:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2530-i-rented-a-boat/
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/site/games/game/2643-don-t-give-up-the-cat/

I moved the discussion about downloading online only games to a new thread:
https://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/forums/adventure-related-talk-chat/re-links-to-ags-games-not-in-the-database/

Good idea, I have added a poll.

[Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum]

This might be a good opportunity to mention that I recently read (well, listened to, in the dulcet voice of the author) Montgomery Bonbon: Murder at the Museum.

Thanks for the recommendation, it was a fun read and I loved the illustrations (it's a pity novels for adults don't have such nice illustrations). @Ali did you choose the illustrator or was she decided on by the publisher? In any case, good choice.

The book includes so many mystery novel tropes and puts a twist on them, my favourite probably being

Spoiler

the room behind the book shelf that turns out to be a dusty store room

[close]

I was a bit surprised to see a real murder case. When I was a kid, no one ever died in children's mystery novels, I think the worst thing was a broken arm or something.

I'm looking forward to the next book!