Inspired by a conversation on The Show about a potential Best Story contest, I decided to host a nomination topic maybe expecting 25 or so participants, but Board 8 really came out and showed their enthusiasm for the idea. 52 participants submitted a list of their Top 10 favorite stories, supporting 200 individual games across all submissions, producing a final list that personally speaking has a wide variety of games with excellent stories from all sorts of different genres, systems, and decades.
1. How was the list decided? I initially weighted the voting for each Top 10 list in a +10, +9...+2, +1 way, but later changed the weighting to be more like +10, +9, +8.5...+5, +4. This helped out games that were on multiple lists but necessarily high on peoples lists, and ended up feeling much more fair.
Furthermore, I limited the final list to games with three or more supporters, as just two ardent supporters getting a game onto a list representative of all of Board 8 felt iffy. This only snubbed a few games, and that ones that were snubbed will be mentioned.
2. Why a Top 60? Looking at how the submissions ended up, it just felt right. Any less snubbed some big names, any more and the points-per-game started to get really low.
3. The games at the beginning of the list dont seem to have many points. The list ended up very top-heavy. I honestly could have made this a Top 30 and it would have made just as much sense, but decided to err on the side of including a lot of games, because why not? More fun that way.
Before we start, heres some fun facts!
1. Out of the 200 individual games supported across all lists, 106 were only supported by one person. Our tastes ended up being surprisingly varied! Of those 106 games, 10 received a single +4 vote (the lowest possible vote after points were weighted) from a single person.
2. Special note goes to Her Story, which received three +4 votes and nothing else. Not nearly enough to make the final list based on points, but hey, making that many lists is still praiseworthy.
3. Eight games received a single +10 vote and nothing else. They may not be the most popular kid in class, but theyre already found someone who loves them. They were:
Bastion Bomberman 64: The Second Attack! Lenna's Inception Night in the Woods Phantasy Star 2 Terranigma The Beginner's Guide The Longest Journey
4. Three games were featured in two submissions and would have barely made the final list if I hadnt implemented the at least three supporters rule. Sorry, but thems the breaks! They were:
Deus Ex Sonic Adventure 2 80 Days
Special mention goes to Deus Ex, which received two +10 votes and nothing else. That...doesnt surprise me.
5. For a long time, the overall #1 spot was a tie between two games. I was disappointed when one of them ended up running away with it.
6. The Top 20 will all get banners and writeups.
Ill post some more fun facts throughout the topic if I think of some more. Without further ado, lets begin.