This year's XYZZY Awards Ceremony resulted in a wide range of games being recognized for their accomplishments.
It was held at ifMUD on March 11th, in the XYZZY Auditorium. While everyone's favorite presenter, NamelessAdventure, was on hand to give out some of the awards, it was characters from Varicella who did much of the presenting.
The awards were spread among many games, with only Being Andrew Plotkin, by J. Robinson Wheeler, taking more than one award.
Best Use of Medium: Shrapnel (Adam Cadre)
Best Individual PC: Alex, from Rameses (Stephen Bond)
Best Individual NPC: Galatea, from Galatea (Emily Short)
Best Individual Puzzle: The whole game of Replay (Andrew Pontious)
Best NPCs: Being Andrew Plotkin (J. Robinson Wheeler)
Best Puzzles: Ad Verbum (Nick Montfort)
Best Setting: Shade (Andrew Plotkin)
Best Story: My Angel (Jon Ingold)
Best Writing: Metamorphoses (Emily Short)
Best Game: Being Andrew Plotkin (J. Robinson Wheeler)
I asked Rob Wheeler how he felt after winning the award for Best Game of 2000.
"I knew when I was working on Being Andrew Plotkin that I was writing something very good. My whole intent at the time was to win the IF Comp. I had no idea it would be voted Best Game of the year! After I won the Best NPCs award earlier in the ceremony, I was quite content and ready to walk away a happy author. Winning Best Game just didn't seem possible when I looked at all of the other nominees in that category.
"It's quite a thing to suddenly find oneself in the top tier of IF Authors, to be recognized and lauded by one's peers. I would like to say that I feel like I was just getting started with BAP, and that my best IF work is yet to come. I hope this proves to be the case."
I'm not going to follow my usual tradition of posting my favorite funny moments from the ceremony. Instead, I encourage you to read the full transcript, either with or without the chatter on the #peanut-gallery channel. Be sure to read Nick Montfort's acceptance speech for the Best Puzzles award, Primo Varicella's presentation of the Best PC Award, and, if I may be so immodest, my presentation of the Best Setting award. Oh, and be sure to read the very last bit of the entire transcript.