Other grand prize contenders include AI and sadness visual novel Eliza, uplifting flap-about A Short Hike, irresistible card-pusher Slay The Spire, and irritable waterfowl punter Untitled Goose Game. Also in the running is Anodyne 2: Return To Dust, the only game on the list that someone at RPS hasn’t thrown lavish praise at. Soz, Anodyne. You’ll find most of those games in our picks for the best games of 2019, which non-coincidentally also includes some of the best writing of 2019. Here’s Alice O on Mutazione, an adventure game I didn’t do justice to with that glib summary. It’s about dealing with ecological and interpersonal fallout, sometimes by accepting that you can’t. (Here’s Alice Bee’s Mutazione review, too)
Graham called A Short Hike “spiritually refreshing”. It’s up for the Excellence in Design, too. Bird-based island exploration didn’t resonate with me to quite the same degree, though I still found it lovely. Top flapping, but: For Eliza, which is also up for the Excellence in Narrative award, Sin’s Eliza review says it all. Then it keeps saying things until you are as angry at the world as you should have been, but hopeful nonetheless. It’s one of the best examples of how a critic can elevate an already excellent game. Katharine’s “only real complaint” about Untitled Goose Game was that she wanted more of it. Check out her Untitled Goose Game review to hear her honk about the good stuff. fittingly, Goose Game is also up for Excellence in Audio. “How do you get back into life after a long period of grieving and isolation? Can you go back? Should you?”
Here are the finalists in full. There are too many worthy nominees in the other categories for me to mention them all, but I will briefly highlight Knights And Bikes, which is up for awards in both Art and Audio. It’s an action adventure game about the perils and delights of childhood, with so many neat touches it could qualify as a masseuse. I said as much in my Knights And Bikes review. IGF will announce the winners on March 18th, during the Game Developers Conference. (Disclosure: Hannah Nicklin, who has written for us, is studio and narrative lead for Mutazione developers Die Gute Fabrik.)
