Journey dominates BAFTAs with five awards

Thatgamecompany was the big winner at the ninth Video Games BAFTAs last night, taking away a brace of awards for its 2012 downloadable game, Journey.

Journey was nominated for eight awards and won five of them, including Game Design, Artistic Achievement and Original Music.

The top award went to Arkane Studios’ stealth adventure Dishonored. Arty painting title Unfinished Swan took Debut Game and Game Innovation, and Telltales’ The Walking Dead took Mobile & Handheld and Story.

New Star Soccer, developed by one-man indie Simon Read, beat the likes of FIFA and F1 2012 to claim best Sports/Fitness game.

The Academy also handed out its first award for best British Game, which when to Fireproof Games’ iPad game, The Room.

And talking of British talent, the awards this year went to slightly fewer games of British origin. However, there was still plenty of British involvement. One of the Walking Dead’s writers was British journalist-turned-writer Gary Whitta, while Simon Read and Mike Bithell were behind indie success stories New Star Soccer and Thomas Was Alone respectively.

The prestigious BAFTA Ones to Watch award, chosen from finalists of the 2012 Dare to be Digital challenge, went to Starcrossed (Kimi Sulopuisto, Vili Viitaniemi, Minttu Meriläinen, Petri Liuska and Andrew MacLean) for Kind of a Big Deal. Last year, the award was won by Swallowtail Games, which recently launched its first mobile game Tick Tock Toys.

Valve co-founder Gabe Newell was also inducted into the BAFTA Fellowship.

This year, 13 BAFTA awards went to downloadable games out of the 17 possible categories.

Full list of 2013 award winners

Best Game: Dishonored (Arkane Studios)
Online Multiplayer: Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Game Design: Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Artistic Achievement: Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Original Music: Journey (Austin Wintory, Keith Leary, Monty Mudd/Thatgamecompany)
Audio Achievement: Journey (Thatgamecompany)
Mobile & Handheld: The Walking Dead (Telltale Games/Dan Connors, Kevin Bruner, Kevin Boyle)
Story: The Walking Dead (Telltale Games)
Game Innovation: The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Ian Dallas, Nathan Gary)
Debut Game: The Unfinished Swan (Giant Sparrow/Ian Dallas, Nathan Gary)
Action: Far Cry 3 (Dan Hay, Patrick Plourde, Patrik Methe)
British Game: The Room (Fireproof Studio)
Performer: Danny Wallace for Thomas Was Alone (Mike Bithell)
Family: Lego Batman 2 (TT Games/Jon Burton, Jonathan Smith, John Hodskinson)
Strategy: Xcom – Enemy Unknown (Firaxis Games)
Ones to Watch: Starcrossed – Kind of a Big Deal
Online Browser: SongPop (Olivier Michon, Thibaut Crenn, Daouna Jeong)
Sports/Fitness: New Star Soccer (New Star Games/Simon Read)
Fellowship: Gabe Newell