NEWS
NEWS

October 17, 2021

Andreas Betsche

Singapore Scores Big at Inaugural Asia Game Awards 

October 17, 2021 | Andreas Betsche

As part of the Singapore Games Week and gamescom asia, the Asia Game Awards 2021 were presented in a live stream moderated by SGGA’s chairwoman Gwen Guo herself. The awards recognize the best work in Asia’s games scene. Not only were candidates from Southeast Asia nominated but also from Central Asia, South Asia, and East Asia.

Gwen Guo moderating the Asia Game Awards 2021

Here at Virtual SEA, we are, of course, particularly pleased that the jury, consisting of renowned members of the game scene, has awarded prizes to studios from Southeast Asia.

Troy Chin, author of A Red Sky at Dawn

The “Excellence in Narrative Design” award went to Troy Chin and his detective visual novel A Red Sky at Dawn. In addition to the comic artist’s visual style, the game is characterized above all by its exciting and varied narrative. Our Kenzie was able to confirm this in her review of the game. The best part is that A Red Sky at Dawn is available for free at itch.io. The following games were also nominated for this award: Kabaret by Persona Theory Games (Malaysia) and Opus: Echo of Starsong by SIGONO (Taiwan).

Kabaret by Persona Theory Games
Winston Ng

The award for the best “Gaming Content Creator” also went to Singapore. The winner is Winston Ng because, with Vanda Bay, he and his company Finute are creating a virtual version of the city of Singapore and holding a variety of interactive events in this virtual City of Lions. Vanda Bay is still in development; you can find out more about the project here.

The “Jury’s Honorable Mention” category shows other cool games from Southeast Asia, where three games from the region were honoured. The winners are the coop game At Your Service from Thailand, the platformer Jump Jerboa from Singapore, and the visual novel EDDA Cafe from Indonesia. The games mentioned here could not assert themselves in other categories, but in the jury’s opinion, their overall quality is so high that they should also be honoured.

Edda Cafe by Mushroomallow

Here are the other winners of the Asian Games Awards 2021: The prize for “Excellence in Audio” and “Excellence in Design” went to Opus: Echo of Starsong. The roguelike deck builder Gordian Quest was also nominated in this category. Find out more about this game from Singapore in our review.

The nominees for Excellence in Design

The title for best “Visual Art” went to Behind The Frame: The Finest Scenery. This artistically extremely appealing game also deservedly received the award for “Overall Best Game”, for which The Signal State from Singapore was also nominated. Unfortunately, this original synthetic puzzler came out empty-handed this time.

The Signal State

The two esport prizes for the best “Esport Athlete” and “Gaming Event” went to Xian and M2, respectively.

We are pleased that another game award is moving the Asian game scene into the centre of attention with the Asia Game Awards. We are, of course, excited about the winners and candidates from Southeast Asia.


Andreas Betsche

Andreas Betsche founded Virtual SEA in early 2016 after researching Cambodian mobile games for his Master’s thesis. He has a background in Southeast Asia studies and has worked and lived in Cambodia, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Since he has been actively playing games since the early 90s, combing both worlds in Virtual SEA brought together both of his passions.

View Profile »

RELATED POST

Andreas Betsche | November 30, 2023

All Indie Games from Southeast Asia Released in November 2023
GameDev Summit Philippines

Andreas Betsche | November 29, 2023

Philippines to Host B2B International Video Game Industry Event: GameDev Summit Announced
Level Up KL Indie Game Zone Header

Kenzie | November 25, 2023

Level Up KL 2023’s Indie Game Zone Fires up Malaysia