Home > XYZZY Award for Best Use of Medium
The XYZZY Award for Best Use of Medium is one of the annual awards given by XYZZYnews to works of interactive fiction. This award has been given since 1997. No specific criteria are given to voters, and the interpretation of what particular quality this award recognizes remains open; many voters choose to interpret this award as a recognition of particularly daring interpretations of the limits and abilities of interactive fiction, especially as regards the relationship between the player, narrator, and player character.Below, the winners of the award for each year are listed, followed by the other finalists for that year.
- 1997: The Tempest by Graham Nelson
- I-0 by Adam Cadre
- A New Day by Jonathan Fry
- The Space Under the Window by Andrew Plotkin
- Sunset Over Savannah by Ivan Cockrum
- 1998: Spider and Web by Andrew Plotkin
- Arrival, or Attack of the B-Movie Cliches by Stephen Granade
- Bad Machine by Dan Shiovitz
- Once and Future by G. Kevin Wilson
- Photopia by Adam Cadre
- 1999: Aisle by Sam Barlow
- Hunter, in Darkness by Andrew Plotkin
- Six Stories by Neil K. Guy
- Varicella by Adam Cadre
- Worlds Apart by Suzanne Britton
- 2000: shrapnel by Adam Cadre
- Ad Verbum by Nick Montfort
- Metamorphoses by Emily Short
- Rameses by Stephen Bond
- Shade by Andrew Plotkin
- 2001: The Gostak by Carl Muckenhoupt
- Best of Three by Emily Short
- Heroes by Sean Barrett
- Pick Up the Phone Booth and Aisle
- Textfire Golf by Adam Cadre
- 2002: Earth and Sky 2: Another Earth, Another Sky by Paul O'Brian
- Lock & Key by Adam Cadre
- Photograph by Steve Evans
- Savoir Faire by Emily Short
- When Help Collides by J. D. Berry
- 2003: ASCII and the Argonauts by J. Robinson Wheeler
- City of Secrets by Emily Short
- Max Blaster and Doris de Lightning Against the Parrot Creatures of Venus by Dan Shiovitz and Emily Short
- Slouching Towards Bedlam by Daniel Ravipinto and Star Foster
- To Hell in a Hamper by J. J. Guest