Bytten Ernie Awards 2012

Retro Goodness Award - 8-bit Commando

This award is pretty self explanatory, but it’s worth pointing out that too many indie games go down the path of retro presentation simply because the developers are too lazy to make their games look and sound better. But 8-bit Commando plays very nicely. The levels are distinctive and flow well, enemies are varied and challenging, and the chip-tunes that accompany the action are epic. There has been a lot of effort put into making the game just as playable and attractive as a good game was in 1990 rather than just adapting a poor game to a retro formula.

2DEngine.com have succeeded in 2011 of creating the illusion of pushing the limits of the hardware of days gone by. It’s a subtle art and not many can pull it off.

Best Niche Game - Maximum Roller Coaster

Maximum Roller Coaster is a very impressive piece of software. The graphic engine is superb and can produce scenes that verge on photorealistic. There is a robust physics engine that dictates an extremely realistic ride on any track design that the user feels like creating in the versatile and WYSIWYG editor. There are lots of flavour elements that park architects can use to create the most attractive theme park that they can imagine, and the 3-D environment can be explored in a true first-person perspective. But at the end of the day, a superb and almost flawless design tool is all that it is.

There will surely be a very few players out there that will have hours and hours of fun in designing coasters and park layouts that many could only dream about, but most players will be left longing for a game to play once their immersive world has been created in this amazing sandbox.