Keen Awards 2025: Winners

[Quillax]

Happy Keen Day! It's the day where we usually get some cool Keen stuff coming out! Maybe stuff that will be nominated in the 2026 Keen Awards? Speaking of the Keen Awards, what about the results of the 2025 Keen Awards? We had some excellent stuff come out last year and it'd be great to acknowledge the hard work that went into them, along with the people who embody the spirit of Keen, wouldn't it? And what about the cool stuff made when Keen Awards was on hiatus? Oh, I know what you're thinking...

*drumroll*

Behold! The Keen Awards 2025 results! Congratulations to all of you winners!

1: Programming
1.1: Best Vorticon Mod
Inside the Vorticon Hyve by Vortlike
Link

1.2: Best Galaxy Mod
O-Mega-Matic by SodiumtheGlitcher and contributors (incl. DarkAle, Gridlock, Dave216, gabriel cheat man)
Link

1.3: Best Fangame
BomberKeen by DoomJedi
Link

1.4: Best Vorticon Level
Washington Tantalus Center (Level 16) from Inside the Vorticon Hyve by Vortlike
Link

1.5: Best Galaxy Level
Pyramid of Armageddon (Level 12) by Gridlock from O-Mega-Matic
Link

1.7: Best Tool
IMF Processor alpha v0.001 by K1n9_Duk3
Link

1.8: Best Update to a Mod
Foray in the Forest v2.0a by Nisaba and K1n9_Duk3
Link

2: Fan Art
2.5: Best Non-Computerized Art
Defender Of The Universe by Soul Monster
Link

2.6: Best Gameplay Video
Episode 58 - The Ruin of Roib playthrough by hairmonster12
Link

3: Web
3.1: Best Website
KeenWiki by Malvineous
Link

3.3: Online Community Service Recognition
Fleexy

4: Miscellaneous
4.1: Keenest Person of the Year
K1n9_Duk3

4.2: Really Keen Stuff
Reconstructed Commander Keen 1-3 source code by K1n9_Duk3
Link

4.3: Most Promising Project
Keen Meets the Meats Gold Edition by szemi

4.4: Best Work of the Hiatus
Battle of the Brains by Ceilick, Mink, and Tulip
Link

[troublesomekeen]

Congratulations, everyone! especially DoomJedi and hairmonster12 -- well deserved.
Thanks to Quillax for your efforts. Much appreciated.
Happy Keen Day!

[Nospike]

Congratulations to all winners

[SergeantSolar]

Happy Keen Day everyone and grats to the winners!

I'm new here but it warms my heart to see people still playing Keen and making so many wonderful projects.

[Soul Monster]

HAPPY KEEN DAY EVERYONE!!!

Congratulations to all the winners of the Keen Awards this year! Also, thank you to everyone who voted for my art as well! And of course, a big thank you to Quillax for continuing this annual tradition! It's great that some things have been modified in the awards now to give some much needed praise to projects created during the hiatus, which I feel really ushered in a new wave of fans in the community, and brought a lot of new innovations to modding.

The funny thing is, I don't feel my art that was nominated this year was my best. I just feel that there's more I could've done with it, but oh well, as long as you guys like it, it's good enough. Besides, I've got plenty more art to finish. I do have some new Keen art being made right now, and I'll upload it to this year's Christmas thread. PM me if anyone wants to see a work in progress.

Anyway, Happy Keen Day, and Happy Pi Day! Don't forget to do play a little Keen today over a nice piece of pie!

[DoomJedi]

Congrats to all winners!

Congratulations, everyone! especially DoomJedi and hairmonster12 -- well deserved.

Thank you so much. This is an honor to get my first award here, and for such a passion project with much soul put into it. I'm glad it shows.

Hopefully I'll have an inspiration to contribute more.
But meantime work hard many hours a day on my dream indie game.

[hairmonster12]

I won my very first Keen award!? I’m truly grateful! Deepest congratulations to all the winners AND kudos to all of the nominees! This is such a great community to be part of

[Snortimer]

Congrats to the winners!
Though I did kinda wish that "Best Work of the Hiatus" could've remained a 3-way tie as it was for a while.

The funny thing is, I don't feel my art that was nominated this year was my best. I just feel that there's more I could've done with it, but oh well, as long as you guys like it, it's good enough.

For me, it was between yours and the Keen Dreams pencil drawings by hairmonster12, which had a lot of character. I ultimately chose yours because you transferred something from EGA pixel art into another medium while keeping more-or-less the same aesthetic (same color scheme, etc), and I thought that was an interesting thing to do and I didn't see any flaws. I'm interested to see if it can be developed further. Which previous artworks of yours did you think were more deserving?

BTW, there was a discussion in the Nominations thread about whether the new remastered Bio Menace could be nominated for something, and Quillax ultimately decided that it didn't really fit anywhere. I've been thinking: would there be any interest in having a "Best Keen-Adjacent Project" category next year? Something that's not Keen, but that's close in one way or another. E.g. made by someone from the community (such as that AGS game that Dave216 is working on), or uses a similar engine, or a mod of a game from the same era, etc. Quite a lot of projects of that sort have been posted in the Releases forum over the years, and it might be neat to recognize some of them if more turn up:
viewtopic.php?t=5677
viewtopic.php?t=17863
viewtopic.php?t=17919
viewtopic.php?t=6561
viewtopic.php?t=10965
viewtopic.php?t=12050
viewtopic.php?t=4731
The tricky thing would be to decide whether something is eligible. One option would be to just leave it to the discretion of the voters... if too many people feel that something is TOO far away from Keen, it simply wouldn't be voted for.
Another option would be to explicitly spell out what is allowed (e.g. "mods of DOS games from the same era & (maybe) must be posted in the Release forum (?)", "other pixely games by well-known Keen community members")

[Vortlike]

Thanks everyone who voted for my projects. I do appreciate winning the trophy (2 even) this year. Congratulations to the other winners as well of course. Let's continue to keep keen alive, right?

[Benvolio]

Congratulations to the winners! And thank you to Quillax for emerging from the woodwork at exactly the right time to make the awards happen this year! Organisational stuff is not my main thing but if you ever feel like the awards are going to not happen one year, feel free to ask for my help!

Let's continue to keep keen alive, right?

Absolutely! The day will come when I return to Keen-related productivity as I have done before. Sadly, that day is not today.