Nominate Encounter for the "Outstanding Visual Style" Award!
There’ve been an incredibly large number of fabulous games released this past year, so the probability Encounter can get any award of any kind is so close to zero that you’d need an electron microscope to see that it’s not actually zero!
Anyway, I’m using Encounter as a way to learn about parts of the game-dev process I hadn’t touched before, so I’m basically role-playing “indie developer”!
Why did I choose “Outstanding Visual Style”? Well, Encounter is clearly not a Game of the Year candidate. It plays nicely on Steam Deck but is probably far from the best game on it (that being said, I’m quite certain it’s not the worst either). Being a single-player game, it can’t possibly fit in “Friends Forever.” The gameplay is certainly not the Most Innovative either, and since it’s not a tough game, it can’t be “Best Game You Suck At.” Per did an amazing job with the soundtrack, but even with his talent, the three square-wave channels of the AY-3-8912 are no match for modern musical scores.
So what remains?
Well, there’s “Outstanding Story-Rich Game,” which Encounter definitely is not (there’s a backstory, but it’s there to provide substance to the setting; it’s not there to make you emotional).
“Sit Back and Relax” could possibly have been it — it’s a relatively zen game you can finish quickly — but that’s not a core feature.
So finally I chose “Outstanding Visual Style,” which is described as:
Visual style doesn’t aspire to real-world graphical fidelity (though a noble goal in itself)… it describes a distinctive look and feel that suffuses an entire game.
I think that’s actually not a bad choice because the game is uniquely recognizable: there are almost no modern games with this type of visual split between graphics and text, and very few games that choose full monochrome graphics... which means it "Stands Out"!
That’s the reasoning behind the choice!
As I said, the chances of winning are null, but thanks for reading, and at worst you could still nominate Encounter for the “Labor of Love” category, because it really was!
Thanks :)