And once everyone agrees a given game is most divisive, it’s eliminated from consideration and we go on to another round of voting.
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“So Bad It’s Good”
I sure played a few games that would qualify.
Case in point: Magic Realms – The Sword of Kasza - Details (ifdb.org)
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In my experience, the appreciation of short games directly proportionally decreases according to their length.
You may want to do a separate award class based on length/size, for all categories.
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Guess the Verb/Noun comes to mind. Also “shoot the moon” logic puzzles (e.g. Sierra On-Line)
Then there are regional/niche games that people love to hate. People call these games “Divisive”. You really need to have an open mind to be able to appreciate the blood and tears the authors put through in order to make and finish the games.
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I’ve updated the initial post with a list of categories that have reached the 15 vote threshold.
So far, the categories are:
-Best Debut
-Best Game with a play time over 2 hours
-Outstanding Short Game
So far the poll on procedures has firmly placed both comps simultaneously in February. I plan on letting nominations for categories run until Jan 15th.
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I’d love to see short games getting more love. Best Debut game would also be awesome.
How about best replayability?
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Probably too niche, but best based/adaption/reinterpretation of an exisiting property (CC allowance required obvously. ie Public domain works (old texts, fairy tales, folkore, mythology,) Based heavily on historical people’s lives or events with or without artistic license.
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Strongest MC character voice. (For playing characters with a fair degree of their own personalities set in and coming through in the story options.)
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Best commercial (pay to play the whole game) vs non-commercial (free, add supported etc) games.
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Best written characters
Or is that too specific?
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Best combination of mechanics and story. For games that are particularly well designed or innovative in how the mechanics and story mesh together. This might be kind of vague but it’s something I’d like to see more of.
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The Xyzzy’s “Best NPCs” award works out to this in practice, so I don’t think it’s too specific! Frankly, “Best Written Characters” is probably a better description of the category as it currently stands in 2022. Maybe “Best Cast” would be a pithier title for the same concept, though?
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Outstanding Puzzle Design
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Best Use of Interactivity
(I feel strongly that we should celebrate games who use the medium to the fullest - ideally, this award would go to something that couldn’t be done as anything but IF).
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Best visual design
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Best artwork (as opposed to graphics above, which seems more nebulous to me)
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Best game about repairing a spaceship
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Best title! 
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I’ve updated the main post, but here are the current nominations past the 15-vote threshhold:
Nominations that have passed the fifteen vote threshhold:
-Outstanding Game of the Year (automatically included)
-Outstanding Debut
-Outstanding Game with a play time over 2 hours
-Outstanding Short Game
-Outstanding Unawarded Game
-Outstanding Feelies
-Trailblazer Award
-Oustanding (insert language here) Game (currently thinking French, German, Spanish; not sure about English, as its already so represented and < 5 non-English games ever had XYZZY nominations)
-Hanon’s suggestion changing ‘best’ to ‘outstanding’ (reflected in list)
-Outstanding Worldbuilding
-Outstanding (Genre) Game, with genres including Comedy, Drama, Horror
People will not be required to vote in each category; every contest will be a separate poll, and people can vote in whichever category they desire.
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