Bytten Ernie Awards 2005

Most Ambitious Game

Awarded to Silmar by Jeff Mather

I find that most programmers consider their game genre the most difficult and complicated to make. I think that of all game types, dungeon games like Rogue are the most difficult. Such games have lots of monsters and objects, and each can be interacted with in lots of ways, and the random environment adds a level of danger for the game designer that takes a lot of hard work to balance effectively.

With that in mind, I award Silmar an Ernie for most ambitious game. The dungeon game has been in constant part time development for many years, and although the graphics are simple tiles without animation, and although the game is difficult and sometimes frustrating to play, Silmar has as much depth and complexity as any other role playing game.

To create a Rogue-like game from scratch takes a lot of work. Games like Nethack and ADOM have been in development for many years and games like those are highly ambitious projects for any lone developer.

Special Award

Nightmare Castle by Thomas and Andrew Venables

Some players believe that playability is more important that presentation. While this might be true, a highly playable game essentially requires high quality graphics and presentation to get noticed.

I wanted to give a special mention of the platform game Nightmare Castle. Created by two brothers, the game is highly playable and many aspects of the game were very well constructed. From the lightning strikes and living statue fight during the opening sequence, this scrolling platformer in the style of the original Prince of Persia game had exactly the right amount dramatic content, when most games have none.

The controls and feel of the game were perfect, but the old fashioned looking graphics and lack of slick presentation probably unfairly damaged this good game. Of all of the games I've reviewed, two stand out because of the excellent dramatic presentation of their respective plots. Those games are the highly acclaimed Starscape, and the less well known Nightmare Castle.