This week is the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco. The conference features two awards shows, the Game Developers Choice awards and the Independent Games Festival awards. Here are the winners.
Papers, Please developer Lucas Pope’s latest game, the ocean mystery Return of the Obra Dinn, had a strong showing in both awards. The game about discovering the mysterious events that happened on a sailing ship won Best Narrative at the GDC awards, as well as the IGF Grand Prize and Excellence in Narrative. I never got that far in Obra Dinn, given my love of leaping to wild accusations instead of carefully piecing together its story, but this is certainly more inspiration to give it another go.
You can see all the winners for both awards below.
Game Developers Choice winners:
Best Audio
Celeste (Matt Makes Games)
Best Debut
Mountains (Florence)
Best Design
Into the Breach (Subset Games)
Best Mobile Game
Florence (Mountains)
Innovation Award
Nintendo Labo (Nintendo EPD / Nintendo)
Best Narrative
Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)
Best Technology
Red Dead Redemption 2 (Rockstar Games)
Best Visual Art
Gris (Nomada Studio / Devolver Digital)
Best VR/AR Game
Beat Saber (Beat Games)
Audience Award
Beat Saber (Beat Games)
Game of the Year
God of War (Sony Santa Monica / Sony Interactive Entertainment)
Pioneer Award
Rieko Kodama
Lifetime Achievement Award
Amy Hennig
Independent Games Festival winners:
Seamus McNally Grand Prize
Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)
Excellence in Visual Art
Mirror Drop (Ian Lilley)
Excellence in Audio
Paratopic (Arbitrary Metric)
Excellence in Design
Opus Magnum (Zacktronics)
Excellence in Narrative
Return of the Obra Dinn (Lucas Pope)
Nuovo Award (given to unusual, experimental games)
Black Room (Cassie McQuater)
Best Student Game
After HOURS (Bahiyya Khan, Claire Meekel, Tim Flusk, Abi Meekel)