The nominations for the BAFTA Scotland Awards 2020 have been announced. Alongside the best actors and actress nominations, the best films, TV and current affairs programmes, there’s the highly desirable games award.
There are three games in the running for the trophy, all of which would make worthy winners:
- AUTONAUTS – Aaron Puzey, Gary Penn – Denki
- CLOUDPUNK – Marko Dieckmann, Thomas Welsh, Rebecca Roe, Roman Agapov – Ion Lands
- DEAD END JOB – Production Team – Ant Workshop
If you’re somehow unfamiliar with the games in question, here’s a little more info:
Autonauts
Autonauts, is a colony-building game, which also teaches the basics of coding. Created by Dundee’s Denki (former BAFTA Award winner in 2012 for Quarrel), Autonaut‘s unique gameplay involves colonising fertile alien worlds from scratch, with the help of robot assistants which must be programmed to perform complex tasks – a process that involves teaching players the basics of coding. It was the most wishlisted title that publisher, Curve, has ever released. Plus it’s Denki, so you know it’ll be charming, cute and funner than clown school.
It’s out now on Steam for Windows PCs.
Cloudpunk
Cloupunk is a “neon-noir story in a rain-drenched cyberpunk metropolis. It’s your first night on the job working for the Cloudpunk delivery service. Two rules: Don’t miss a delivery and don’t ask what’s in the package.”
Developed in Germany, but with narrative and level design, from two Scottish developers, Cloudpunk marries the aesthetic of Blade Runner and William Gibson’s seminal Neuromancer, with the hovercars and vertical cities of Luc Besson’s Fifth Element, to create a seedy, rain-soaked neofuturistic environment – and it uses voxels, so the whole city comes to life.
The game is out now on Steam, Xbox One and Nintendo Switch.
Dead End Job
Dead End Job is a ghost-busting game with a difference. It’s not all glamour, goo and Sigourney Weaver, but a low-end McJob for a guy with a gun.
A twin-stick shooter, with procedurally-generated levels, Dead End Job requires players to wear down the health of the spectral scum, until they can be sucked up in your ghost vacuum (and hopefully recycled into something useful, like curtains, or bandages for injured puppies).
Produced by Ant Workshop, Dead End Job is available on almost every platform known to man, including Steam (PC, Mac & Linux), Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch and Apple Arcade.
Sadly, this years nominees won’t be able to mingle with the glitterati of Scotland’s screen industries at a glittering, star-studded ceremony. Instead the BAFTA Scotland awards 2020 will be streamed live and online on Tuesday December 8.
You can see the full list of nominees for the competition on the BAFTA website and even vote for the Audience Award category.
(We understand that River City is like a Scottish version of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, so that might be worth a vote…)
