The International Mobile Gaming Awards Announces Winners
As the awards season wraps up the International Mobile Gaming Awards (IMGA) have held their mobile game awards to highlight the best of the platform in 2016. As expected, Niantic’s hit free to play game Pokemon GO took top prize but notable indie titles were recognized as well. Read on to learn more about the IMGA and what games were awarded prizes this year.
What is the IMGA?
IMGA is the longest running mobile gaming awards and this round was the 13th global edition of the awards. There were nearly 3,000 submissions for 2016 and 159 of these were hand-picked as nominees. In the end 16 titles were awarded prizes on February 28th 2017 at an awards ceremony in San Francisco.
"Our expert jury members reviewed close to 3000 games this year, and the 159 nominations that resulted represent the cream of the mobile gaming crop in 2016. Our 16 winners helped to make this a top year in terms of technology, substance, art and exploration in mobile games." says Maarten Noyons founder of the IMGA. “I want to thank all our sponsors: KING, Rovio, Supercell, Youzu, TDS, Samsung and Euroméditerranée and everyone who voted online for choosing the People’s Choice Award’s winner.”
And the Winners are . . .
Tomorrow Corporation won the Excellence in Innovation award for their game Human Resource Machine which will be launching on the Nintendo Switch soon. Best Multiplayer Game went to Clash Royale from Finish mobile gaming powerhouse Supercell. Best Quickplay Game was awarded to Denmark's Northplay for their game Conduct THIS!.
The noteworthy award for Excellence in Gameplay was given to Battle of Polytopia. 1979 Revolution: A Cinematic Adventure Game won Best Meaningful Play. Excellence in Storytelling was awarded to Devolver Digital's Reigns.
Awards for technical achievements and excellence were given to Dawn of Titans (Best Technical Achievement), Klei Entertainment's Invisible Inc. (Excellence in Visual Art) and, Crypt of the Necrodancer (Excellence in Audio).
New virtual technology was recognized with Multivrses AB's game Wands winning Best VR Game. Judges found Steppy Pants to be the Guilty Pleasure of the year and Steamburg to be the Best Upcoming Game.
Game Artist of 2016 is Ben Brudenell, Art Director at Natural Motion. The People's Choice Award was voted for by mobile gamers via an online poll and was awarded to Sky Garden: Farm in Paradise. Everyone's favorite free to play augmented reality game Pokémon GO
won the the top honor of Grand Prix. Last but not least the Jury's Honorable Mention recognized mobile title Mekorama by indie developer Martin Magni from Sweden.
