Bytten

Welcome readers to week two of the annual Bytten Ernie awards. To follow Andrew Williams' awards, here's my selection of winners in a few different categories for outstanding achievement. For me the year was marked by a distinct absence of a standout "blew me away" review submission, and so I'm going to avoid the "Best Overall" award this year, and instead praise some indies that, in my opinion, excelled in specific areas or genres.

I rarely find casual games that can sustain my interest over a prolonged period of time – by definition, I suppose that they aren't really meant to. Most lack depth of gameplay choices and have limited longevity value due to their simple design. Loco Mogul is a breath of fresh air. Each level is broken up into 3 distinct and diverse periods that bring elements of puzzle, turn based strategy and time management games to each scenario. On top of this is a requirement for the player to have an overall strategy in play over many levels. The game is just fun and addictive to play whether you have 15 minutes to spare or a couple of hours to burn and is a real winner for sheer pick-up-and-playability.

Brainpipe is a simple game that sees the player navigating a series of interconnecting pathways of somebody or some thing's brain. Entirely mouse controlled, and requiring virtually no other player input other than a bit of ducking and weaving, it relies very heavily on visual and audio stimuli to keep the player hooked. Luckily for this game, both are brilliant, but it is the audio that really stands out. A cacophony of bizarre, sometimes soothing and sometimes unnerving samples over an evocative and swirling composition of background tracks. Sound effects that not only react to the action on-screen, but are important to the player in terms of timing and spacial awareness. Brainpipe is noteworthy as a game not only because of the degree to which the player interprets and utilises the in-game audio during play, but also the quality of the audio itself, which is excellent.