MISAOS CATEGORIES 2018 (NOMINATIONS NOW OPEN)

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List from 2017:


Best Graphics & Artwork
The game you feel has the best graphics. (In general, this category should favor original artwork over ripped or commercial graphics)

Raddest Setting
The game you feel had the most clever, inventive, interesting and immersive setting/world for the game to take place in.

Best Sound & Music
The best soundtrack and creative use of sound.

Trippiest Game
The game that was most strange, bizarre, psychedelic, offbeat, and quirky released this year.

Most RTP Game Award
The game that best uses the engine's default resources.

"Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" Award
The most non-chalant use of rips in a game.

Best Game Title
The most clever, original, witty, or cool game title of the year.

Best Storytelling and Direction
The project you think is most effective at telling its story. Think in terms of its presentation, writing, clarity, cutscene direction, and originality.

Best Protagonist/Characters
The game that had the best lead or cast.

"Kefka Award" Best Antagonist
(Antagonist means 'Villain')

Best Shyamalan
Game with the most twists or the most mind-blowing twist.

Best Intro
Which start of a game hooked you the most?

Best Finale
An ending can make or break a game. Which game had the best ending?

The "How the Hell Did They Do That?" Award
The game that displays the most technical prowess and feats of ingenuity in gameplay.

Best Gameplay Balance
The game with the most solid and balanced implementation.

Best Dungeon/Level/Puzzle Design
The best stages/dungeons or cleverest puzzles.

The Most Boss of Fights!
The game that delivers the best battles and challenges.

Best Fan-Game
Self-obvious.

Most Fun And Addictive!
The game you had the hardest time putting down.

Best Old-School Game
A game so good it reminds you of the Golden RPG-era.

Sleeper Hit of the Year
The most underrated game of the year. The game everybody hears is good but nobody has bothered to play.

Most Promising Demo
The demo released this year you think has the most potential to be amazing.

Game of the Year
The absolute best game you played from RMN for the current year (any genre).


Suggest your own categories, support or shoot down these existing categories, and make your case! The end goal is a list of 1 to 25 (max) list of categories for the Misaos for 2018.
There are no hard and fast rules about the Misaos categories, either. In the earliest renditions of the Misaos, we actually had a 'misaos categories voting phase', where we'd pick the categories and the ones that got more than 3(?) nominations were eligible categories for the actual voting round!

I came up with this list last year (actually, I have come up with the list most years since 2009, or at the very least kickstarted the discussions). It is based off of me going back to the beginning and looking at all of the categories we've had and whittling down a list that I thought was both interesting and comprehensive.

I like the idea of having lots of categories, because it gives greater liberty for zaniness, and helps a bit with recognition of games. But the idea of a very short list of categories (or even just one: Best Game) intrigues me and am curious about how that would play out in practice, too.
InfectionFiles
the world ends in whatever my makerscore currently is
4622
Law suit waiting to happen could almost go hand in hand with best Fan Game. Since, like really good ones with straight rips get COed lol

Overall though, the list we have now is good enough for me. But again, some catergories might be a bit redundant.
author=InfectionFiles
Law suit waiting to happen could almost go hand in hand with best Fan Game. Since, like really good ones with straight rips get COed lol

Overall though, the list we have now is good enough for me. But again, some catergories might be a bit redundant.

Which ones? that's what we're here to discuss!

so, Best Fan-Game == "Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" Award ?
Scourge
I used to make games. I still do, but I used to too.
1605
author=kentona
Best Protagonist/Characters
The game that had the best lead or cast.

"Kefka Award" Best Antagonist
(Antagonist means 'Villain')


I think these categories could be rolled together into 'Best Characters,' or a similarly titled category.

Categories such as 'Game of the Year,' 'Most Promising Demo,' and 'Best Storytelling and Direction' shouldn't go anywhere.

'Most Promising Demo' is especially important because, IMO, most of us who are active on the site, and probably the vast majority of anonymous guests, play completed games and might miss out on an up-and-coming release. We should continue to highlight upcoming games in their own category to support people who are bringing new ideas to the table. Gam mak can sometimes be a frustrating process with few rewards and a well-timed Misao might make the difference between someone releasing their game or giving up.
Cap_H
DIGITAL IDENTITY CRISIS
6625
I think some eight (nine) categories are a good number and an interesting change. This year's nominations were a failure (the truth is that most popular games came very late) and maybe giving wider and more classic categories would help.
My suggestion is to reduce it to the following:


1. Best graphics -The easiest to define category. Eye candy is important.
2. Excelence in narrative -story i for some people here more important than gameplay. This should encourage them to come with new topics. It contains everything related to writing: story, worldbuilding, characters, intros
3. Trippiest game - Personally I find this one attractive and especially rewarding for weird and surreal games. Some people can even aim to get this specific misao. It supports diversity.
4. Best game title - An easy to nominate something category.
5. Technical provess - Things I can't do in RM.
6. Best game design -it's different from best game as best design is not related to narrative or visual appeal. This combines battles and puzzles and mapping.
7. Best fan game - I love Lawsuit Waiting to happen as a name but its more confusing. I think that this category helps to stress RMN as a hobbyist friendly environment. Another category, which supports diversity.
8. Best demo - So you can't nominate one game in all categories.
9. Best game - The real popularity contest.

Edit: Maybe you can post this in announcements on discord for even more exposure.
Dropping "Sleeper hit" and "most fun an addictive" seems like a good place to cut right from the word go.

Considering that fewer and fewer games end up played and voted on (mea culpa too, I don't play all that many RMN games, but I really should), "The one you heard is good but no one bothered to play" would describe a quarter of the games on here. XD

As for "Most fun and addictive" that just seems like "Game of the Year" over again.

I'll take another look at the rest later.
author=kentona
author=InfectionFiles
Law suit waiting to happen could almost go hand in hand with best Fan Game. Since, like really good ones with straight rips get COed lol

Overall though, the list we have now is good enough for me. But again, some catergories might be a bit redundant.
Which ones? that's what we're here to discuss!

so, Best Fan-Game == "Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" Award ?

...C-can we keep "Lawsuit Waiting to Happen" at least for this year? Before we retire it? I currently have something in the works that might qualify for it.

There's fangames like "BlackMoon Prophecy" and "Final Fantasy Discovery".

And then there's games like Calunio's "Marvel Brothel" etc, which actually got a cease and desist order.

And then games like "Obama RPG: Magical Quest 3 HD - Future Legend of Superhuman President Starring Barack Obama"
where the creator was so afraid of getting into trouble for what he created that he actually took it down himself. etc -

Like, "Lawsuit Waiting to Happen" should be awarded to games that use copyright righted material or are dangerously close to being taken down due to copyright infringement. (Like the Super Smash Bros RPG I had in the archive that recently got a DMCA) Like, if voting was done properly, this award, would highlight notable games that bring up copyright issues and what's okay and what's not okay between the original creator and content creation - (that's a really interesting idea there!)

Like for instance: Neon Lighting Force should've at least been nominated, because of how much art assets it borrows from Denjin Makai/Guardians - A game no one knew about, but was still able to make an entirely original game out of, through the BOR Engine, another game making tool that people on RMN should know about, like that's kind of interesting!

...I mean, I dunno I can understand wanting to change the categories, since the turn out for votes wasn't so great this year. But, I'm not gonna fight ya guys over this, It'd just be cool to be eligible for something...
Keep these:

Best Graphics & Artwork
Best Sound & Music
Most RTP Game Award
Best Game Title
Best Storytelling and Direction
Best Shyamalan
The "How the Hell Did They Do That?" Award
Best Gameplay Balance
Best Dungeon/Level/Puzzle Design
Best Fan-Game
Most Fun And Addictive!
Best Old-School Game
Most Promising Demo
Game of the Year


Remove these:

Raddest Setting - A bit redundant with other categories like "Best graphics"
Trippiest Game - Largely dependent on whether or not any strange/absurdist games get submitted to the site.
"Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" Award - Redundant with Best Fangame (like it or not). Rips-and-edits games are also becoming less common. And as others have said, calling attention to this kind of thing is a big risk in general.
"Kefka Award" Best Antagonist - Combine with Best Storytelling.
Best Protagonist/Characters - Also combine with Best Storytelling
The Most Boss of Fights! - Combine with Best Gameplay
Sleeper Hit of the Year - Just seems unnecessary.
Best Intro and Best Finale - Can be easily combined into other categories.
The goal of surfacing/recognizing more games is being completely defeated by the ratio of category count vs average-user's-yearly-RMN games-played-count. It really might be better to start over from scratch with like, 3-5 categories and the restriction that users can only nominate a game for a single category. As for that list itself, would probably make it genre-y stuff like Best Horror/Story/Abstract/Fan-game etc, where it wouldn't make sense to have a game fit into multiple categories. Then for GOTY you can just display all nominations from the current year. (but keep Best Demo and change the art thing to Best Graphic Design so a user can potentially nominate the game without playing it)

Also, to get more nominations, prompt people to nominate every time they submit a 4-star or higher review.
edit : I'm'a changin' ma vote.
Other people have persuaded me otherwise ;o
author=SgtMettool
Remove these:

Raddest Setting - A bit redundant with other categories like "Best graphics"
Trippiest Game - Largely dependent on whether or not any strange/absurdist games get submitted to the site.
"Lawsuit Waiting To Happen" Award - Redundant with Best Fangame (like it or not). Rips-and-edits games are also becoming less common. And as others have said, calling attention to this kind of thing is a big risk in general.
"Kefka Award" Best Antagonist - Combine with Best Storytelling.
Best Protagonist/Characters - Also combine with Best Storytelling
The Most Boss of Fights! - Combine with Best Gameplay
Sleeper Hit of the Year - Just seems unnecessary.
Best Intro and Best Finale - Can be easily combined into other categories.
Strongly disagree. You're completely eradicating any nuance the Misaos have left if you do this.

There's nothing gained by narrowing it down to so few categories, but there is something lost, I think. Some games excel very -narrowly- (such as having a great intro, a strong villain, or whatever), why not use the Misaos to give those developers some recognition?

Especially the "Raddest Setting" category. Establishing an effective sense of setting/atmosphere is a much different skill than simply saying "Best Art."

Plenty of noteworthy films, similarly, have compelling characters but perhaps a lacking plot.

There are hundreds of games released on this site every year, each with its own strengths or flaws. I don't think streamlining the awards to such an extent is a helpful way to celebrate that diversity.
author=Blind
Strongly disagree. You're completely eradicating any nuance the Misaos have left if you do this.

There's nothing gained by narrowing it down to so few categories, but there is something lost, I think. Some games excel very -narrowly- (such as having a great intro, a strong villain, or whatever), why not use the Misaos to give those developers some recognition?

Especially the "Raddest Setting" category. Establishing an effective sense of setting/atmosphere is a much different skill than simply saying "Best Art."

Plenty of noteworthy films, similarly, have compelling characters but perhaps a lacking plot.


Having a nuanced, niche category isn't currently recognizing games that do a nuanced, niche thing though -- mostly it just serves to give another award to one of the like 5 games everyone played this year. Like even though setting/atmosphere are different, they're always going to get the same nominees, just like each of the half dozen story-related categories this year all have the same nominees. Although reviewing last year the voting is at least slightly different.
You guys are suck. Make them more interesting. Let's make things silly and fun. That's what the original Misaos were about. None of this "best art" or "best bullshit" shit.

"Best banana hammock" or "Most awesome trip" are much more cool, you boring bums.


That is, fuck nuance. Rock this shit up to the 11s!
author=psy_wombats
Having a nuanced, niche category isn't currently recognizing games that do a nuanced, niche thing though -- mostly it just serves to give another award to one of the like 5 games everyone played this year. Like even though setting/atmosphere are different, they're always going to get the same nominees, just like each of the half dozen story-related categories this year all have the same nominees. Although reviewing last year the voting is at least slightly different.

The problem you described isn't an argument against diverse award categories - it's the fact that people aren't playing enough games/are nominating the same ten projects for every conceivable option.
Maybe just best to limit nominations per game per user then. "People aren't playing enough games" is a bit tricker to fix :/

Also on the subject of fun new categories I'd like to propose the Best psy_wombats Game (if he actually bothered to get off his ass and do anything this year) award winner 2018: Umbral Souls
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
author=Liberty
You guys are suck. Make them more interesting. Let's make things silly and fun. That's what the original Misaos were about. None of this "best art" or "best bullshit" shit.

"Best banana hammock" or "Most awesome trip" are much more cool, you boring bums.


That is, fuck nuance. Rock this shit up to the 11s!


I mean, technically speaking, those are more nuanced, not less.

Also I like this tack. "Most awesome trip" seems like a good category, especially when you can make it cover "trippiest game" as well as a more literal reading.

Part of me wants to turn "banana hammock" into a general "fanservice" thing, except I know that that would end up with no bananas at all, just a parade of boring cantaloupes. :(

I'll think on some more categories to suggest. I think making the awards more fun would be a super great plan!

I gave my opinion on the current categories in another thread so I'll just quote it:
author=Sooz
Yeah, there's certainly room for consolidation or just clearing out dead wood. Looking over the list now:

"Trippiest" and "Shyamalan" are both highly subjective and not necessarily going to have any valid entrants in any particular year.

"Lawsuit waiting to happen" just seems like a weird category that's not critically-based like the others.

Storytelling, Protag/Antag, and Intro/Finale are all similar enough that they could be folded into one another. I'd personally drop "storytelling" and "finale" entirely; the former feels sort of redundant, the latter is just a practical concern, in that around voting time, there's going to be the problem of voters never getting to the ending in the first place.

"Balanced gameplay" and "Best battles" are basically the same thing in this community for the most part.

We've covered the problems with "Sleeper Hit."

So that's my proposal for slimming the Misaos down.


Dyluck
For thousands of years, I laid dormant. Who has disturbed my slumber?
5184
I don't think slimming down the categories just to prevent the most popular games from getting too many awards would be helpful to other games in any way. I don't see what else it would really accomplish.

If anything, I think the vague sounding categories should be expanded into more specific categories, like "Best Dungeon/Level/Puzzle Design". That category currently encompasses so much. If that was split up, then actual pure Puzzle games could get an award.
Scourge
I used to make games. I still do, but I used to too.
1605
author=Dyluck
I don't think slimming down the categories just to prevent the most popular games from getting too many awards would be helpful to other games in any way. I don't see what else it would really accomplish.

If anything, I think the vague sounding categories should be expanded into more specific categories, like "Best Dungeon/Level/Puzzle Design". That category currently encompasses so much. If that was split up, then actual pure Puzzle games could get an award.


I think you're getting at something here. We have a category for game of year and a category for old-school game, but RMN's not just home to RPGs anymore. We've had Visual Novels, Puzzle Games, Horror Games, Simulation Games and more featured on the front page.

If you look at the Buzzing Games section, there's traditional RPGS, but about half the games are from other genres. There's Lisa, Heartache 101, Oneshot, Pocket Mirror, and Dreaming Mary. I think this is an area where we need to expand categories. Yes, this is rpgmaker.net, but we're not just about RPGs anymore. I think we need to give other genres their own categories.
Sooz
They told me I was mad when I said I was going to create a spidertable. Who’s laughing now!!!
5354
Best pet(s)

Booty-shakinest track

Cutest character

#1 Butt

author=Scourge
If anything, I think the vague sounding categories should be expanded into more specific categories, like "Best Dungeon/Level/Puzzle Design". That category currently encompasses so much. If that was split up, then actual pure Puzzle games could get an award.


I think you're getting at something here. We have a category for game of year and a category for old-school game, but RMN's not just home to RPGs anymore. We've had Visual Novels, Puzzle Games, Horror Games, Simulation Games and more featured on the front page.

If you look at the Buzzing Games section, there's traditional RPGS, but about half the games are from other genres. There's Lisa, Heartache 101, Oneshot, Pocket Mirror, and Dreaming Mary. I think this is an area where we need to expand categories. Yes, this is rpgmaker.net, but we're not just about RPGs anymore. I think we need to give other genres their own categories.

The one problem I see with this is cases where there's low or no turnout for any particular genre. "Best Simulation Game" doesn't mean much if there's only one in that year.
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