The nominations for this year's Best of 2006 awards are now up and the virtual voting booths have officially opened!
We'll be taking your votes for the next several days up until the dawning of the new year when we present the very best in casual gameplay that we enjoyed throughout 2006. Play along or just browse through the nominations and relive those cherished moments from the year.
You'll see we are doing things a bit differently this year. This being our third annual best of the year awards, we wanted to dig a little deeper than our previous efforts. We hope you will be pleased with what we have in store. Click.
Hey Jay -
I'm relatively new to your site -- but there's one game that I can't get enough of... Sudokucombat. Has that one been around for awhile? If not, may I have a write-in vote for that one?
Thanks for all your efforts! Happy Holidays!
Youch... it's been a good year for casual games: some very very hard choices I had to make in there! So as not to prejudice anyone else before they've voted, I'll hide my thoughts:
Adventure: Nethack is utterly engrossing, but I had to give Triglav the nod, mostly because Nethack really isn't '2006' (I've been playing it for probably 10+ years now) and Triglav is an incredible accomplishment for a browsergame.
Puzzle: How am I supposed to choose between the delicious puzzles of click-drag-type and the build-your-own genius of Rubicon? How, I ask you?
Download(other): Dodge That Anvil versus Eets? One's loads of fun and the other - yup, the other one is too. hmmmmm.... By the way, jay, I hope you don't mind my voting based on the demos of the non-free games?
Also, an observation: The tactics/strategy section games seemed sort of ... miscategorized ... to me. Combat Heaven and Bowmaster Prelude are both more arcade/action types, I thought, and Trilinks was more puzzle than strategy. Dice Wars was the only one that fit the definition. On the other hand, all the ones I thought of (Master of Defense, Steam Brigade, Oasis, Empires and Dungeons, etc) are of the non-free, downloadable type so I guess they don't qualify. Too bad...
can't remember my stupid typekey login...
but anyway, Merry Christmas to everyone and exspecially you Jay, for making this site more and more addictive every day!
i'm still not sure what to pick for adventure, interactive art, multiplayer, simple idea, or tacticle as i've never played any of those games much.
for action/arcade it was a choice between flOw and dolphin olympics. I choose flOw because i like the mellow atmospere and the simple, yet beautiful graphics.
in music, my choice was sound factory. i love the storyline and it's a very cute concept.
platform was another close choice between fancy pants, tri-achnid, and scribble. i choose tri-achnid because i loved the atmospere and the fact that i could build my web and climb anywhere i wanted. also, i was the only game i'd finished in that catagory, lol.
in point and click, it was definately hapland! any hapland i'll vote for!
for puzzle my choice was Click Drag Type. warp forest and super serif were cool, but click drag type is a reoccuring wonder to me
silmulation was definatly Subpoena Power! i'm still trying to finish that game!
for webtoy, my choice was the dolfi-blog. wierd little things that can entertain however you want them to!
my favorite in word was funny farm! it was great working together with everyone to solve it!
for the free download section, my favorite was Knytt. i love the atmostphere of that game
for other downloads, it is dodge that anvil. i never got the hang of the others and i am considering maybe buying anvil.
Thank you Jay and Co., for all the great finds this year.
I came across the site in August and have been hooked ever since. I played lots of point n click games, especially the room escape type.
voted for :
- flOw
- Gateway
- Click Drag Type
- Cost of Life
- BowMaster Prelude
- Line Rider
not in the list :(
- 'OUT file #01', one of the best room escape games, imho
- Chronon, very clever idea and real cute
Happy holidays from Belgium
i've had my votes, althought there was 2 sections i couldn't decide so left them.
I was surprised that no grow games were there.
Wow, so many great games! This is going to take me hours to work my way through them all and decide (*mischevious laughter*).
Jay, I hope you keep all these links listed like this after voting has closed! This is a great reference.
Write-in votes accepted, waahoowaa. =)
Valarauka - yes, admittedly, the strategy category is a bit of a hodge-podge. It's true that Dice Wars needed some competition, and since Combat Heaven and Bowmaster allow you to apply some strategy toward your choices for upgrades, that was the reasoning for including them. Trilinks, well, that's a Tonypa game and it was nice to include that one, too. Forgive us that not everything fit like a glove, we did the best we could. =)
Keith, good suggestion. We will be adding a page following each list of nominations with the winner(s), as picked by us and by everybody else.
Jay, you've mentioned several times that room escape games were your most requested games - why no category for just these?
FGM
Folks, please help us get the word out about this. If you have a Digg account, please DIGG this story.
Thank you! =)
Fairygdmther - this year we grouped the room escape games in with point-and-click. Perhaps we should have a category especially for escape games. We'll have to keep that in mind for next year. Thanks for the suggestion! =)
You should have put hapland 1 and super serif bros in!
umm... curses? The link doesn't work for me.
Eeeks! What link doesn't work?!
Gameman - Hapland 1 was soo last year. In fact, it landed in the top 5 of the Best of 2005. Super Serif Bros is a nomination this year in the puzzle category.
Damn you, jay! Why do you make me decide between Bowmaster Prelude and Combat Heaven?
I think those two game together make up a majority of the time I've spent playing games on this site, and I've played just about every game on this site.
Oh well, Combat Heaven wins, just because it takes longer to finish (read: collect all the weapons) than Bowmaster Prelude.
I'd like to extend a huge thankyou, firstly to all of the people who contribute to this site who were tasked with boiling down all the games on the site to the 40 or so you see here, it certainly was not an easy task.
Secondly I would love to thank all the fans of the site, especially those who contribute in their own way through the comments system.
My final thank you has to be to Jay, for all the work he puts into the site, this year has seen many improvements to the site, my favourite of which has been the IRC. Keep up the great work Jay, we all love you.
Here's to an equally fantastic 2007!
Happy Christnukkwanza!
Some of those decisions were really hard. x_O
It's going to be interesting to see who wins for each of the categories. =O
Capuchin - If you hadn't pestered me about an IRC channel for the site for months, then it might've never happened. =)
The page didn't seem to want to load in Mozilla Firefox, but I was able to vote in IE.
This has been an excellent year for games, and makes it all the harder to choose between them. Some of the choices ones were forced to make were heartbreaking, such as... well, i won't impose my opinion.
Action/Arcade: Many great offerings in Flow, Pretty Pretty Bang Bang, and Gamma Bros, but the final two really stand out in Dolphin Olympics and Winterbells. While I love Dolphin Olympics, Ferry Halim steals my heart and my free time with Winterbells.
Multiplayer: Kudos to Ryan Drewsbury, who has two excellent offerings in kDice and gPokr. kDice takes the prize because it is the only one of its kind, while there are many poker games on the web.
Music, Rhythm, etc: Sound Factory is great because it has a fun progression of unlocking instruments, and for the final push, includes a recording studio that allows you to make your own music.
Platform: Alas, that one should be forced to chose between Mission in Snowdriftland and The Fancy Pants Adventure. It makes me want to break down and cry. The Fancy Pants Adventure gets my vote because of the pants, the music, the smoothness, and the promise of more to come.
Point and Click: Hapland 3 runs away with the title for this category, although with Thief and Gateway there are no bad choices.
Puzzle: Click Drag Type all the way. Many puzzles in this excellent selection give you a 'Eureka!' moment.
Simple Idea: I loved the spiderman concept in Double Wires.
Simulation: The Cost of Life gets my vote because it lasts longer than many of the other offerings, seems realistic, and while difficult to play, can be beaten.
Tactical or Strategy: As a vote for kDice is a vote for DiceWars, it seems unfair to give one game two places. BowMaster Prelude gets my vote.
Webtoy: LineRider wins. This excellent and addicting game has prompted many updates, fakes, and modifications of the real thing. A video game company purchased the rights to make a version of this for both the DS and the Wii.
Word: I am not into word games, but I spent many hours playing Text Twist, so I vote for that one here.
That's about it.
"The page"... which page? This one? One of the 15 voting pages?
The voting form was successfully tested in: Firefox (1.5), Firefox (2.0), Opera (9), Safari, Camino, and IE (7).
So, I don't really understand why you encountered any issues at all. :/
What type of game is line rider because I think #2 should be nominated.
Ninjaz - you bring up a good question that I'd like to point out for anyone curious.
Line Rider and Line Rider Beta 2 are the same webtoy, and should be considered the same when voting.
Likewise for DofI's sand games (listed under DofI Blog in Webtoy). I believe that grouping them all together as one entry is far better than adding one for each iteration he created.
Also, in Interactive Art or Fiction, consider all of Zarf's iFiction references in that review, as well as all 3 of Inanimate Alice when deciding.
We will be considering the best piece included in each review that referenced multiple pieces, and you should do the same when voting.
Line Rider is fun, but does it qualify as a game? There doesn't seem to be any competition involved.
I was also disappointed not to see Chronos.
Cost of Life doesn't work for me.
Josh - they changed the link for the game (Cost of Life). Thanks for pointing that out. It should be fixed now. cheers!
Or rather, Chronon. It's not so surprising that I didn't see "Chronos."
Yes, redfox, I agree it's disappointing not to see one of On's creations in the line-up this year.
Chronon was a very interesting game, very original and unique. It was also highly ambitious and suffered some problems as a result. For example, the game is very confusing to solve since actions performed can be negated easily and without warning. Also, the objective of the game is not clear without learning from someone else that had struggled through it first.
I miss Sanchosisland. The best game this year!
How about a category for best overall game of 2006.
Update