The 2003 XYZZY Awards Ceremony was held at ifMUD on March 2nd, in the Massive Auditorium, nicely refurbished since last year. As in years past, the awards were presented by last year's winners.

This year was the year for Slouching Towards Bedlam, by Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster: their game won four of the ten awards, with no other author winning more than one. I asked Dan and Star for their reaction to the awards. "I'm a bit stunned, actually," said Star. "This was just incredible," Dan agreed. He added, "The awards were really well done. Star and I were actually in the same room and we spent most of the presentations laughing."

Best Use of Medium: ASCII and the Argonauts (J. Robinson Wheeler)
Best Individual PC: The PC from Episode in the Life of an Artist (Peter Eastman)
Best Individual NPC: Triage, from Slouching Towards Bedlam (Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster)
Best Individual Puzzle: The Purple Room, from The Recruit (Mike Sousa)
Best NPCs: City of Secrets (Emily Short)
Best Puzzles: Gourmet (Aaron Reed)
Best Setting: Slouching Towards Bedlam (Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster)
Best Story: Slouching Towards Bedlam (Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster)
Best Writing: Narcolepsy (Adam Cadre)
Best Game: Slouching Towards Bedlam (Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster)

For those of you who didn't attend the ceremony, or did but couldn't keep up with everything that went on, my full transcript of the ceremony, either with or without the chatter on the #peanut-gallery channel, is available. If nothing else, be sure to read the halftime show and the Best Individual Puzzle presentations.