Small Town Emo is a Pavs 2023 Finalist!
whats the pavs???
The Pavs are a celebration of Australia and NZ’s best and boldest game development achievements. Organised by the New Zealand Games Festival (NZGF), a grassroots not-for-profit whose purpose is to celebrate NZ and Australian games, and promote the industry as a “tool for social good and old fashioned fun”.
The Pavs aim to the put a spotlight on local games that have gone the extra mile to immerse, entertain and tantalise. Pavs finalists go in the running for a coveted trophy and this year have the opportunity to feature in the Kiwi Interactive Showcase at NZGDC.
ABOUT OUR NOMINAYS:
Small Town Emo managed to get nominations across four different categories. It’s made even more exciting by the calibre of other nominees that were chosen for The Pavs. We were nominated for the following categories:
The ‘Slice of Heaven’ Grand Prize
The Poetic Serving: Excellence in Narrative
The Decorative Piece: Excellence in Visual Art
The Diverse Delight: Excellence in Representation
The ‘Slice of Heaven’ Grand Prize
In the Slice of Heaven category there’s (of course) Dredge by legendary local Ōtautahi team Black Salt Games — if you haven’t heard of Dredge you absolutely must. go. play. it! Also up for this big hot #supreme Pav award is the intriguing tabletop game Ovation, who have a Kickstarter page you can take a sniff at if you like the sound of a late 18th century composer-themed deckbuilding game (which imo sounds v cool).
The Poetic Serving: Excellence in Narrative
Alongside us in the Poetic Serving (narrative) category is The Ugly Club which absolutely looks like the best idea ever: it’s an Aotearoa-based dating simular where all of the characters are anthropomorphic wildlife from NZ. Hot!
The Decorative Piece: Excellence in Visual Art
We’re also in this visuals category alongside Dredge (again, classic Dredge lol), Epicool Kai Karting (a charming racing game based on a Kiwi kids’ cartoon), Little Robo Climber (an adorable retro-platformer with detailed pixel art), and Neon Knives (a two player stealth PVP game with beautiful graphics)
The Diverse Delight: Excellence in Representation
This diversity nomination is super near and dear to us. We’re up for a representation award against Epicool Kai Karting (bc that racing game has depth fr) and Sub-Verge which, based on its description, is a conversation-based relationship building game involving a character in slowly sinking submarine (very topical).
Check out the rest of the 2023 Pavs Finalists here. It’s a fantastic list of really wicked (and very different) games from our corner of the globe. Hells yeah.