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FREE GAME OF THE YEAR, 2006
There are so many quality Free RPGs on the Internet that, even though Free games are considered for the Indie Game of the Year Award, they really deserve their own category. This category honors the game designers who make their works of passion and then offer them for free. Note: If a Free game wins the main award and this Sub-Award, the runner up for this Sub-Award is chosen instead.
THE FREE GAME OF THE YEAR FOR 2006 IS...
JAGS Revised, by Marco Chacon / with 49 points
Selected Peer Feedback (Note: More Feedback on some of these games can be found in the Indie RPG of the Year: Runners Up section):
"A good system cleaned, burnished, and polished into a great system."
"A game that has been around and talked about, deservedly, for some time is given an enjoyable reworking."
"Jags-Revised is an extremely thorough book. While it packs a punch with plenty of crunch, at its core the Jags system is a very simple and adaptable system. The fact that it is a free product is amazing. It boasts substance and detail that many "established" industry books lack."
THE RUNNERS UP:
EABAlite by Greg Porter / with 34 points
"No flies on Greg Porter."
Mexican Standoff, by Timothy Kleinert / with 33 points
"A competitive and fun game for friends. Low buy-in, big pay-off."
"Makes me want to run around shouting "bang!" randomly at people to see if I can walk away with some money."
"Is there anything better than putting real money on the table and putting a gun to your fellow-player's heads? John Woo step aside, Mexican Standoff is the rpg world's best party game."
"This game is just too much fun not to be considered the best free game of 2006."
Unistat, by Andrew Morris/ with 30 points
This would be a great, fun game even if Andrew wasn't running roughly a thousand sessions of it per convention. But he does, and that just magnifies the awesome.
Clean and simple, Unistat lets us see that the stories are in us, not in the game.
A surprisingly clever game that balances creative input around the table and allows that group's traditional RPG muscles to flex.
Simple20, by James D. Hargrove / with 22 points
D20 done right. close but it does provide an alternative.
Beat the Clock, by Fred Hicks / with 13 points
Inntil vi synker, by Magnus Jakobsson / with 13 points
Already a classic of Nordic game design. The apparent lightness of the rules, written as suggestions rather than encapsulated in mechanics, hide the subtleties of the game.
Chimaera, by Fred Hicks / with 10 points
Fred Hicks' take on Adam Dray's character sheet is an enjoyable game of altered states and big monster fights. What's not to love about it?
Kazekami Kyoko Kills Kublai Khan, by Jonathan Walton / with 7 points
One of the better ideas for a two-player "RPG" that I've seen.