Every year, the standard of games I write about here on The Friday Game seems to get a little better, and 2011’s been a wonderful case in point. Here are some of my favourites from the last 12 months.
The Friday Game of the Year Award
Panda Poet
Panda Poet has to be my Friday Game of the year for 2011, because it’s the game I’m still playing every day. SpryFox’s brilliant HTML5 word battler is simple, social, and deeply tactical: sometimes, it’s better to let your rival go for that really great word, if it means you can swoop in and lock down some vital territory afterwards.
Developer of the Year Award
Jonathan Whiting
Between Antagonist and Traal – co-developed with Alan Hazelden – Oxford-based designer Whiting has been my go-to man this year for creeping claustrophobia delivered in big, chunky pixels and the kind of colours beloved of 1970s wallpaper designers. His recent Ludum Dare 22 entry Craequ is very close to being his best work yet, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with in 2012.
Best Source of Inspiration Award
Wonderputt
One of the very best things about free browser games is their designers’ willingness to look beyond Tolkien and Star Trek when it comes to world building, a point that Wonderputt proves with ease. Reece Millidge’s unusually elaborate offering takes crazy golf and mashes it together with the kind of illustrative techniques you get in science textbooks. Cutaways, giant arrows, exploded blueprints: everybody who plays this ends up loving it.
The Endless Reliability Award
Nitrome
It’s not the sexiest category, perhaps, but it is the hardest award to win. In 2011, I could have written about Nitrome every week – and at times, it seems like I did. Whether it’s counterfactual tank-battling in Steamlands, underground mining in Canary, or even Stumped, a Halloween game about running around as a disembodied Frankenstein foot, Nitrome can always be trusted to come up with something intricate, pacy, and wonderfully pretty. I genuinely don’t know how this team does it.
The Pajitnov Would be Proud Award
Untris
Stephen “Increpare” Lavelle has had a very good year, but I’m not sure I’ve ever loved him more than the time he decided to see what would happen if you played Tetris backwards. It turns out it gets kind of tense.
The Best Game I Didn’t Cover Award
Impasse
Earlier this year, I really wanted to tell you how good Wanderlands’ puzzler Impasse is. Then, when trying to describe how it works, I hit an impasse. Coincidental, perhaps, but that’s not really much of an excuse. Go and play it right now.
Happy new year!