Adamant's Crap Shack

2018 CACOWARDS

They were actually put up before midnight, I think that’s a first!

If you wanted WADs to play, or if you just simply want to ogle at the winners and debate on the internet whether or not they deserved to win (but why would you even do that?), here are all the winners:

Espi Award - For lifetime achievement Erik Alm - “The WADfather” - Creator of Scythe and Scythe 2

Top Ten WADs

- Avactor - Dark Universe Part 1 - The Adventures of Square: Episode 2 - Preacher - Dimension of the Boomed - Struggle: Antaresian Legacy - REKKR - Maskim Xul - Doom: The Golden Souls 2 - UAC Invasion: The Supply Depot

MULTIPLAYER AWARD Quake Champions: Doom Edition

Gameplay Mod Awards

- Guncaster - Netronian Chaos - GMOTA

Mordeth Award - Released project with the longest “development time” - Total Chaos

The Spaceship of Theseus - Most noteworthy project that has become so removed from DOOM - Total Chaos

Codeaward - Most noteworthy programming effort of the year - Doom Builder X

Machaward - Most creative, unusual, or artistically compelling project of the year - Mr. Friendly

Creator of the Year - Revae

RUNNERS UP

- Exomoon - Man on the Moon - Umbra of Fate - Port Glacia - Magnolia - The Alfonzone - Ashes 2063: Episode 1 - Demonastery - Doom 404 - Cryogenics

Ashes 2063 Fan art by NotMuchNormal

All the programs we sampled were released during or after 1995. They had a narrow window to thrive, the 5–6 years between the widespread consumer adoption of CD-ROMs and the point when the internet obsoleted the format. (My copy of the Williams-Sonoma cookbook supports Windows XP, suggesting it was still published through at least 2001.) Like the CD-ROM itself, they were transitional. MasterCook had to bridge the gap between a traditional cookbook and whatever digital format came next. They needed an audience willing to manage recipes on their computers when a multimedia home computer was finally becoming more than a novelty.

Eve doesn’t assume to have answers to these increasingly tricky relationship questions. By throwing together so many varied, rich, medium-crossing items, it smartly lets players composite their own reactions.

If the game offers any planned space for a cathartic reaction, it does so through the Interactive Music eXperience, a multimedia music video toy for Peter Gabriel’s songs that caps each section. In the IMX, many of the backdrops, art pieces, and sounds you encountered act as instruments for performing Gabriel’s music. It ties your personal connections with the ideas and art back to the songs that provided the game’s loose structure, and as a culmination of the experience, it adds greater meaning to both.