The Adventure Game Fan Fair awards – Best adventure games of the 2020s (so far!)

• Features by Adventure Game Hotspot staff
• Published:

While much of the Adventure Game Fan Fair was dedicated to celebrating the genre’s glorious history, we also wanted to acknowledge the new standard bearers as well. After all, no convention is complete without its own set of game awards! But for our inaugural event, we were faced with a dilemma of what time frame to focus on. Late July is too early for this year, too late for last year, so we decided to expand our scope a little to recognize the best games of this decade so far. That made the competition all the more fierce, the decisions that much more difficult, and the ultimate accomplishment by the winners that much more impressive.

Your list may be different than ours, but that’s part of the fun of awards! The one thing we can all surely agree on is that we’re blessed with a wealth of options to choose from. So join us in celebrating these brilliant contributions to our beloved adventure genre as the best in their classes of the 2020s (so far).

Best Art & Visual Design: Creaks (Amanita Design)

Beauty may be in the eye of the beholder, but there’s no question that all five of our nominees feature their own jaw-dropping aesthetic that makes them visually distinctive. From gorgeous watercolor to crisply photorealistic 3D environments; from stylish hand-sketches to entire papercraft environments, there’s something here for every preference, but it’s Amanita’s delightful puzzle-platformer Creaks that claims the award for Best Art & Visual Design. Creaks was a departure from the norm for the acclaimed Czech studio in many ways, but its meticulously detailed hand-drawn look helped fully immerse players in its surreal subterranean cavern world, and any given individual scene is a stunning testament to why it’s so deserving of its own art book.

Runners-up:                            

Dordogne (UN JE NE SAIS QUOI, UMANIMATION)
The Invincible (Starward Industries)
LUNA: The Shadow Dust (Lantern Studio)
Papetura (Petums)

Best Score: A Highland Song (inkle)

Like the visual arts, music can be used to convey all sorts of emotions without a word. Our outstanding final nominees envelop players in a variety of diverse moods and senses of place, from a gritty urban atmosphere of decay, to a quirky futuristic world filled with eccentric gods, to a terrifying nighttime summer camp stalked by a serial killer, to a brand new whimsical Caribbean pirate adventure in a beloved adventure franchise. But one score stood above the rest in transporting us so completely to a world that most of us have never experienced. The soundtrack for inkle’s A Highland Song not only stands beautifully on its own, but its rich blend of ancient and modern folk tunes is integral to the journey through the lovely but rugged wilds of Scotland, making for a truly memorable experience.

Runners-up:

NORCO (Geography of Robots)
Paradise Killer (Kaizen Game Works)
The Quarry (Supermassive Games)
Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox)

Best Voice Acting: Lucy Dreaming (Tall Story Games)

Quality voice acting is all too often taken for granted, and yet oh so difficult to get right. It’s a special achievement for an actor in a sound booth to bring digital pixels to life in a way that makes a player fully embrace a character within a game. It can be a costly, time-consuming process that many developers skip altogether, but what a difference a well-acted game makes! Several of our nominees feature experienced teams of actors and directors whose expertise shines through, but what Tall Story Games achieved with Lucy Dreaming is something truly remarkable. Not only is it the studio’s first commercial game, but it features a child protagonist, which is one of the most notoriously difficult roles for an adult actor to get right. Yet with a brilliant performance by Emma Hardwidge in the lead role, and a stellar supporting cast headlined by Dominic Armato, it’s a wonderfully acted game that stands second to none, even among its much bigger-budgeted competition.

Runners-up:

Beyond a Steel Sky (Revolution Software)
The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (Cloak and Dagger Games)
The Quarry (Supermassive Games)
There is No Game: Wrong Dimension (Draw Me A Pixel)

Best Protagonist: Thomasina Bateman, The Excavation of Hob’s Barrow (Cloak and Dagger Games)

The best adventure game protagonists are so seared into our consciousness that we don’t even need last names at this point. Gabe. Guybrush. April. Kate. (Well, Kate Walker; it’s always Kate Walker.) They’re our avatars, our conduits to the game world, and as we embody their roles, it’s crucial that we relate to them on a personal, emotional level. While Kate Walker made a well-deserved appearance among our final nominees, it’s a brand new set of promising lead characters that rounded out the list for Best Protagonist of the early 2020s. All of them are strong, independent women (except maybe the cat; we didn’t check), none more so than our winner Thomasina, the smart, feisty, trail-blazing antiquarian in early twentieth century England from Cloak and Dagger's The Excavation of Hob's Barrow. Remember the name!

Runners-up:

Lucy, Lucy Dreaming (Tall Story Games)
Mara Whitefish, Perfect Tides (Three Bees)
The Cat, Stray (BlueTwelve Studio)
Kate Walker, Syberia: The World Before (Microids Studio Paris)

Best Sidekick: Officer Patrick Dooley, The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark (Spooky Doorway)

While lead characters tend to grab the headlines and the glory, often it’s the sidekick that gets the best lines and has most of the fun while the hero is out doing straight-laced goodie-goodie hero things. (Sam's Max, for example.) This is largely true of our final nominees, including the long-awaited (both in-game and out) return of everyone’s favorite robot, a suddenly point-and-click-averse best friend, the opinionated if imaginary friend of Sherlock Holmes, and the ghost of the wrong dead man. But none of them deliver the laughs quite like The Darkside Detective sequel's Officer Patrick Dooley, the faithful buddy cop companion of Detective Francis McQueen of the Darkside Division. He’s not very attuned to the supernatural forces they’re confronting, but he’s always quick with the quip and a pleasure to have at your side through thick and thin.

Runners-up:

Joey, Beyond a Steel Sky (Revolution Software)
Dan, Lair of the Clockwork God (Size Five Games)
Jon, Sherlock Holmes: Chapter One (Frogwares)
Artie, The Will of Arthur Flabbington (Gugames)

Most Diabolical Villain: Game, There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (Draw Me A Pixel)

On the opposite side of our heroes and sidekicks is often a deliciously devious villain that steals many a scene. They aren’t all mustache-twirling madmen; they may not even be human. Even an old weasel, an undead pirate or an android can be a villain. (So can small-town sheriffs with a badge and an attitude, but that’s less of a surprise.) What all the best villains contribute, however, is a memorable personality and an uncanny knack for presenting conflict, and no one does that better than the disembodied Game itself in Draw Me A Pixel’s incredibly creative There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension. Despite Game’s protests, there really is a game, and it’s a hoot to defy your underhanded antagonist’s attempts to thwart your progress at every turn. It’s every bit as meta as it sounds, but play it and you’ll fully understand why Game is a character that players love to hate.

Runners-up:

Wes, BROK the InvestiGator (Cowcat)
Million, NORCO (Geography of Robots)
Travis, The Quarry (Supermassive Games)
LeChuck, Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox)

Best Relationship: Meredith and Angie, Lake (Gamious)

The adventure genre has had many notable duos over the years: George and Nico, Sam & Max, Sherlock Holmes and Watson, to name just a few. Some are platonic, others romantic, but all benefit from a rich dynamic that together exceeds the sum of their individual parts. We’ve had some great pairings in recent years as well, including some feathered buddy cops, late night radio show hosts, wise-cracking British buds with very different approaches to problem solving, and a welcome return for Syberian explorer Kate Walker and the automaton Oscar. But the relationship that touched us most is entirely optional. As protagonist Meredith Weiss in Lake, you can decide how much or how little you want to pursue a relationship with Angie Eastman, along with the very nature of that relationship. Either way, developer Gamious has presented a mature, thoughtful, adult friendship that’s wondefully written, beautifully acted, and well worth taking the time to nurture to get the most out of the experience.

Runners-up:

Sonny & Marty, Chicken Police: Paint It RED! (The Wild Gentlemen)
Poe & Munro, Dark Nights with Poe & Munro (D’Avekki Studios)
Ben & Dan, Lair of the Clockwork God (Size Five Games)
Kate & Oscar, Syberia: The World Before (Microids Studio Paris)

Best Gameplay Design: The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)

No matter how good a title looks, sounds, and controls, the crux of the player experience will always come down to the gameplay design itself. And while the basic formula offers a combination of story, exploration and puzzle solving, there is no end to the creative innovations that continually refine our understanding of what an adventure game can be. Our nominees for Best Gameplay Design are some of the cleverest evolutions of the genre ever conceived, whether interpreting languages to bring disparate people together, manipulating time to uncover an ancient mystery, balancing traditional point-and-click with physics-based platforming, or defying all conventions across multiple genres in new and continually surprising ways. But our ultimate choice is Color Gray Games' The Case of the Golden Idol, a deceptively simple game of mystery deduction, combining grisly eighteenth century murder investigations with an elaborate word-based Mad Libs style of gameplay that’s so delightfully addictive we never wanted it to end. (And with DLC expansions and an upcoming sequel, it still hasn't!)

Runners-up:

Chants of Sennaar (Rundisc)
The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller)
Lair of the Clockwork God (Size Five Games)
There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension (Draw Me A Pixel)

Best Narrative Design: Perfect Tides (Three Bees)

For many players, gameplay may be the reward of a good adventure, but story provides the motivation to play. It’s like diving into a good book or movie, only even better, because it’s you at the controls to drive the action forward. Stories, of course, come in all shapes, sizes and subject matter. It could be an epic tale of an ancient Roman people forever trapped in a time-looping curse, or a collection of zany nineteenth century Japanese legal mysteries to be resolved in a courtroom like no other. It could be about the dying remnants of a society caught in the ravages of "progress," or an ethics-challenging fairy tale that’s destined not to end happily ever after. Or, it could just be about a teenaged girl struggling with the inevitable challenges of growing up. Meredith Gran’s Perfect Tides doesn’t present an intricate plot so much as a remarkably relatable slice of life about coming of age. Its timeless themes cross gender, space and time, so you don’t need to be a young woman in a small American tourist town in the early 2000s to fully appreciate the depth of its writing, which is alternately hilarious and heartbreaking. And it’s all wrapped up in a charming, eminently playable adventure game that is sure to resonate with players long after they’re done.

Runners-up:

The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller)
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles (Capcom)
NORCO (Geography of Robots)
Slay the Princess (Black Tabby Games)

Best Death: Getting tractor-beamed by space aliens, Somerville (Jumpship)

Ah, death – that infamous adventure game element that drilled the adage “save early, save often” forever into our heads! And yet, though often spoken of with derision, the more outrageous the deaths we experienced, the more they stand out in our minds even decades after the fact. Thankfully, the genre has moved past the more punishing early days of suffering a random demise for a perfectly harmless act. In fact, death is often now a reward to be pursued for laughs or gory thrills, knowing you’ll be gently restored to carry on your way. There’s nothing funny about alien abduction, mind you, which is used most effectively to increase tension in Jumpship’s haunting puzzle-platformer Somerville. It’s something you’ll try hard to avoid… but definitely worth experiencing once!

Runners-up:

Being turned to gold, The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller)
Hurling yourself off the boat, Overboard! (inkle)
Attacking the koala, Repella Fella (Misadventurous)
Holding your breath for 8 minutes, Return to Monkey Island (Terrible Toybox)

Best Setting – NORCO (Geography of Robots)

A substantial part of adventure game appeal is the ability to escape for a time into worlds much different than our own. With the click of a mouse button, we can be transported to exotic fantasy realms, a quaint mountain town, a rural Renaissance community, a scenic noir-tinged and voodoo-infused island, or anything in between. But settings are more than locations; the best of them feel like real, living places with their own characters, history and lore – places that began before you arrived and will continue on after you’ve left. Our nominees all immersed us in their own diverse environments, but none more so than NORCO by Geography of Robots, a powerful tale that could only be set in the titular suburb of New Orleans dominated by Big Oil, part of an 85-mile stretch referred to as “Cancer Alley.” We sure wouldn’t want to live there, but boy is it an incredible place to visit.

Runners-up:

Chants of Sennaar (Rundisc)
Lake (Gamious)
Pentiment (Obsidian Entertainment)
Voodoo Detective (Short Sleeve Studio)

Adventure Ambassador – Francisco González

This award is not a celebration of a particular game or game character, but rather a real-world figure who best exemplifies the spirit of genuine community. Someone who takes every opportunity to actively and enthusiastically engage with fans and fellow gamers, always ready to promote the genre, support independent developers, and inspire others with their passion and dedication. It could be a media professional, event organizer, video producer or any other form of popular influencer – but it sure doesn’t hurt when said person is ALSO designing one of the most hotly anticipated games of their own. Francisco González checks all of these boxes and more as a tireless, ever-amiable advocate for adventure games that serves as a positive example to us all. Now, ambassador, about finishing Rosewater…

Runners-up:

Jack Allin
Tom Cole
Meredith Gran
Troels Pleimert

Best Debut – NORCO (Geography of Robots)

First games from a new developer are supposed to be riddled with issues – things a rookie didn’t know they didn’t know, things to fix and do differently after learning from their mistakes in a follow-up project. Except … none of today’s indie devs seem to have gotten the memo. We’re continually astounded by the quality of work produced by new developers their first time out, often small teams or even solo individuals making games that put even experienced studios with much bigger budgets to shame. This award may recognize the best debut, but our nominees need no additional qualifier to be acknowledged as some of the best games, period. Any would have been deserving winners, but for so fully immersing us in the industrial swamplands of Louisiana, the nod goes to Geography of Robots for NORCO as a work of baroque horror, a science-fictional condemnation of industrial capitalism, and a heartbroken elegy for a real-world place.

Runners-up:

The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
Lucy Dreaming (Tall Story Games)
Perfect Tides (Three Bees)
Repella Fella (Misadventurous)

Adventure Game of the Year(s) 2020 - 2024: The Forgotten City (Modern Storyteller)

Even a single year would have produced a number of eminently worthy candidates for best game, but by expanding our scope to all of the 2020s so far, the pool of choices really became an embarrassment of riches. With all the talent in the modern adventure game scene, standing above the rest is no small feat, and all four of our runners-up are award winners in their own right. Saving the best for last, however, we are pleased to award The Forgotten City our game of the decade (to date). It began life as a Skyrim mod, but this is no traditional RPG in the Elder Scrolls universe. Instead, with this polished commercial update, Modern Storyteller has crafted a rich, nonlinear, time-looping murder mystery in a mythological ancient Roman city. We can’t reset time for real, but with the game's moral dilemmas, varied approaches, and multiple endings, you’ll surely want to go back and replay it all over again to squeeze every last drop of adventure gaming goodness from it. So congratulations to Modern Storyteller, and to all developers working today for making this such a difficult decision!

Runners-up:

The Case of the Golden Idol (Color Gray Games)
Lucy Dreaming (Tall Story Games)
NORCO (Geography of Robots)
Perfect Tides (Three Bees)

Special thanks to the following Kickstarter backers, whose generous support included the option to nominate awards categories:

Alex Cain
Brant Langer Gurganus
Gareth Paterson
Pink-Pummy
Jack Wu

Note: The Forgotten City was originally announced as one of the finalists for Best Debut, but has since been ruled ineligible and replaced due to its earlier release as a mod.

Links

• NORCO
• The Case of the Golden Idol
• Lucy Dreaming
• The Excavation of Hob's Barrow
• Perfect Tides
• Somerville
• A Highland Song
• Lake
• The Darkside Detective: A Fumble in the Dark
• Creaks
• There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension
• The Forgotten City
• Adventure Game Fan Fair 2024