2004 AG Underground Awards

Best Story

Enclosure by Femo Duo Entertainment

Sierra’s AGI games were never what you would call complicated when it came to storyline. King’s Quest rarely had any variation beyond “rescue A from B,” the Space Quests were pretty much always “save planet from destruction,” and the less said about the first Leisure Suit Larry game the better–so it’s interesting that an Underground game using the same, limited AGI engine could outdo Sierra on their home turf, as it were, and take our Best Story award this year.

While certain disparaging comments have been made about Enclosure‘s ending, that does not compromise the fact that from beginning to end, the game easily boasts the strongest storytelling of the year. Starting off by presenting the player an intriguing mystery in an isolated research station, the story goes from strength to strength with excellent pacing, well-rounded characters, and a genuinely unnerving sense of claustrophobia as the station and inmates descend with increasing rapidity into madness, horror and death. If only more technically proficient games could boast this level of storytelling skill.

First Runner-Up: Two of a Kind by Epileptic Fish

Second Runner-Up: The Dead City by NiHiLiS

Best Writing

Cirque de Zale by Rebecca Clements

Of course we at Adventure Gamers would never want to be guilty of stereotyping, but the reality is that the majority of developers in the Underground community are of the male gender. However, proving once again that quality always beats out quantity, Cirque de Zale is the brilliant product of Australia’s Rebecca “Kinoko” Clements. This game boasts what is clearly the most on-target understanding of the style of humor that made Monkey Island, Sam & Max and other Golden Age classics so engaging. With a fearlessly unlikable hero and a perfect balance of clarity and insanity present throughout the writing, as well as a great attention to detail that makes style manual dorks like me very happy, Clements’ dialogue is top-notch, with nary a misstep through the entire game.

Countless Underground games have tried so hard—way too hard, in most cases—to hit the target, that special sort of oddity that the aforementioned classics seemed to boast so effortlessly. Cirque de Zale, to us, is the first Underground game that reaches that level. We generally like to give this award to dramatic writing, but Kinoko just blew us away. Well done, Rebecca—you’ve made all the guys jealous.

First Runner-Up: Peasant’s Quest by HomeStarRunner.com

Second Runner-Up: Two of a Kind by Epileptic Fish