German Developer Award for survival role-playing game "Enshrouded"

The survival role-playing game"Enshrouded" by Frankfurt-based game studio Keen Games has won the German Developer Award 2024. This was decided by a jury of 160 industry experts and the title was honored at the awards ceremony in Cologne on Tuesday. For Keen Games, the win was the highlight of an extremely successful day, with the studio also securing the titles of "Studio of the Year", "Best Game Design" and "Best Technical Achievement". There was one prize less for Osmotic Games and the emotional game "Closer the Distance". It won "Best Audio Design" and "Best Story", as well as the "Innovation Award".

Very different winning titles

The German Developer Award has been presented since 2004 and is sponsored by the state of North Rhine-Westphalia and the city of Cologne. It is not endowed. When selecting the winners, the focus is not on commercial success, but on new game ideas, technical innovations and playful quality in video games. In addition to journalists, the jury is largely made up of developers from German studios. One of the sponsors is the German Games Industry Association game. While the separate German Computer Game Award includes prize money totaling 800,000 euros and is only awarded to domestic studios, the Developer Award is aimed at studios from German-speaking countries, i.e. Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

In the open game world of "Enshrouded", players fight alone or together with sword, bow and arrow against the undead. As is typical of the genre, they also have to build dwellings and overcome various challenges. In"Closer the Distance", on the other hand, everything revolves around the aftermath of a fatal car accident: a young girl dies and her loved ones have to cope with her grief. The player's task is to help them cope with their grief and give them courage. In"Dungeons of Hinterberg", on the other hand, monsters must be defeated and puzzles solved in an idyllic Alpine village.

"When creativity and technical performance go hand in hand, great games are created," said NRW Media Minister Nathanael Liminski (CDU), praising the fact that the award-winning titles impressively demonstrated this. Further awards went to "Dungeons of Hinterberg" as "Best Indie Game", "CubeQuest – A QB Game" as "Best Casual Game" and "Vampire Therapist" as "Best Game Beyond Entertainment". According to the experts, this year's "Best Graphics" went to "Harold Halibut". A year ago, "Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew" was the best title, the year before that "The Wandering Village".

(mho)