The new year has been around for little over a month now and the community has taken it's time to pick the best of the bunch of the various scenarios and campaigns released during the past year. While 2010 wasn't the most active year when looking at the number of scenarios released, there were still a good few awesome ones released; from cinematic masterpieces to innovative maps and grand epics.
Now, it is time for me to make the results public at last. Welcome to the fourth annual Game of the Year Awards!
Placement: Scenario/Campaign/Member name (authour)
Gameplay is very easy to define. In essence, if a game has good gameplay it means you enjoyed playing it; the more entertaining the scenario, the better the gameplay. The most entertaining scenario of 2010, according to the ballots I received, won by a landslide;
2
3
Honourable mentions: IceQuest (friendman), The Epic Adventures of Marvin and Rob (Lord Basse)
Map design these days isn't what it used to be. Back in the good ol' days you could just press the Generate Random Map button, place out two grand armies and some ruins between them and call it a day. Nowadays there are people out there who make such fantastic looking maps that random maps aren't even considered average designs anymore! This year's most fantastic map is, you guessed it, the winner of the Totally Terrain Contest, Julius999's
2
3
Honourable mentions: The Lake of Garahil (Tarsiz), The Epic Adventures of Marvin and Rob (Lord Basse)
Most highly rated scenarios these days come with a great and engaging story, and the story is often the thing that sticks in people's memory long after they played the scenario. Most of the commonly recognized greatest scenarios of all time put a big emphasis on story, and so do the winners of this year. And yes, there is a tie for the first place folks!
3
4
Honourable mention: IceQuest (friendman)
Soundtracks are used to make the gameplay more atmospheric, to draw you into the story, get you in the right mood, suit the gloomy setting or get you even more on your feet for the intense battle to come. Sound effects and music might not make a scenario great on their own, but they can certainly take an already good scenario to a whole new level. The nominees for this year all made good use of their scores and it was a close race for the first place; however, in the end one scenario snitched the trophy by only one vote's margin;
2
3
3
Some of you might be wondering why this new award has been called the Dunscombe Trophy. Phillip Dunscombe was an AoKH forummer and, for a while, seraph, who became famous for discovering and describing about 50 new tricks that he didn't want to share the process behind. His experimenting with the editor and finding new tricks, many of which were eventually figured out by others as well and used in many scenarios back in the day, made me think he'd be the right guy to name the new award after. The most creative scenario this year, presenting an array of creative gameplay and innovation, was andymok's
2
2
4
4
Changing from single player maps to multiplayer noew, it's time to have a look at the many grand multis released in 2010. It seems to me that classic blood maps are starting to become out of fashion, or at least not produced as much as before, because none of the nominees, not even the winner, is a blood map. Instead, a whole bunch of different styles are emerging in this year's list; from classic B&D to U Da Prey zombie style, role playing scenarios and more. The winner, a joint project between Popeychops, Guthan and BF_Tanks, is
2
3
3
Honourable mention: Gwyndlegard - Multiplayer Edition (Lord Basse)
Minigames are a peculiar kind of scenarios, in which entire story can be crammed into a 20 minute scenario, or simple ideas can be given the entire scene, wasting little time on story and atmosphere. Minigames come in a wide range of styles, from defend the spot battles to role playing games. The winner this year missed out by just a day in 2009's Minigame Competition and compensates that by winning the award for best minigame of 2010; Hawk_KK's
2
2
4
4
You might say that the golden age of cinematic scenario has passed, it isn't like back in 2006 and 2007 when people would make teasers and prologues for everything and then never finish the actual scenario. Cinematic scenarios aren't produced as much these days, but those that are produced still hold up against the stars of the past. The quantity may have diminished, but not the quality, which this year's winner clearly prooves;
2
3
Switching over from the scenario-oriented awards to the designer-oriented ones now, it's time to decide who the community thinks is the most promising designer of the year. Out of the people who released their first scenario in the Blacksmith during 2010, who is the most promising? Well,
2
3
4
4
6
6
6
6
Even the greatest scenario designers all started out with humble designs and improved over time into the Ingo van Thiels, olivers, aMas and Berserker Jerkers we know of today. Improving your design technique is a never ending quest if you keep on designing, and the ones that have come the fathest this year have been chosen by the public; in first place we have none other than
2
3
4
5
5
7
7
And now for the grandest of all the designer-oriented awards, and perhaps of all the awards, it's time to see who the community thinks has been the best designer of the year. With a large concentration of votes to the top three, we find Julius999 and Sebastien in a split second place with eight votes each, and in first place, three votes ahead of them, we find yours truly,
2
2
4
4
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
That's all for this year folks! Congratulations to all the winners and thanks for all the votes!
*clinks pepsi glass*
The
OF | [/ \] |¯| [/ \] | ME
______________________________________________________________________________ |__ _ |¯|____|_______________________________________________________________________________
The Relics of Athalën (5.0) | AoK Opus - 100,000+ downloads | StormWind Studios | "I consider the conversion of Basse to be one of the great triumphs of my modding crusade" - Matt LiVecchi
[This message has been edited by Lord Basse (edited 02-05-2011 @ 12:59 PM).]