Last night the Tribeca Festival announced the jury winners for this year’s official selections. For Tribeca Games – now in its second year – the Tribeca Games Award 2022 went to the Outerloop Games-developed RPG Thirsty Suitors, with Night School Studio‘s Oxenfree II: Lost Signals receiving a Special Jury Mention.

Tribeca said:

“For its quirky comedy, artful aesthetic, and innovative blending of storytelling and gameplay mechanics, the Tribeca Games Award goes to Thirsty Suitors!”

Thirsty Suitors is a quirky turn-based RPG developed by Outerloop Games and will be published by Annapurna Interactive. Its synopsis,

“Jala is a young woman returning home for her sister’s wedding and confronting her past. With wildly varied gameplay, Jala will fight skate punks, random suitors, and ultimately, her exes, in the ultimate battle to heal old hurts and ignite new truths, bringing Jala closer to understanding what she wants from her future. Can she learn to love herself and heal the wounds of her past?”

And here’s the game’s trailer:

 

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals received a Tribeca Games 2022 Special Jury Mention. Night School Studio’s sequel to its acclaimed 2016 horror adventure game (available on consoles, PC, Mac and mobile devices). It is expected to debut on PC, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Nintendo Switch. It will be published by Netflix.

The synopsis,

Oxenfree II: Lost Signals is the mind-bending follow-up to the critically-acclaimed narrative adventure game Oxenfree from Night School Studio. In the small coastal town of Camena, unnaturally occurring electromagnetic waves are causing interference with electrical and radio equipment. Reluctantly, Riley Poverly returns to her hometown to investigate the mystery. What she finds is more than she bargained for.”

Other games that made this year’s official selection are A Plague Tale: Requiem (Asoba Studio | Focus Entertainment), American Arcadia (Out of the Blue Studios | Raw Fury), As Dusk Falls (Interior/Night | Xbox Game Studios), Cuphead – The Delicious Last Course (Studio MDHR), Immortality (Half Mermaid Productions), The Cub (Demagog Studio | Untold Tales), and Venba (Visai Games | [Publisher tbc] )

You can view Tribeca Games Spotlight special presentation of this year’s selection here:

The Tribeca Games Festival has taken place since 2021 as part of the broader Tribeca Film Festival’s bid to broaden scope to include interactive visual storytelling mediums. This year the Tribeca Festival also celebrated its 20th anniversary.

According to their website:

“Tribeca Games at the Tribeca Festival celebrates the convergence of games, entertainment and culture, highlighting the storytelling, art and innovation of games. Tribeca champions every frontier in the art of storytelling, and video games are at the forefront of pushing narrative to ever greater heights.”

The 2022 Tribeca Games advisory board comprised a mix of luminaries of the film and game space including filmmaker Nia Dacosta; writer, producer and director Jon Favreau; EA co-founder Bing Gordon; Game Awards Producer Geoff Keighley; visionary games auteur Hideo Kojima; Remedy Entertainment Creative Director Sam Lake; Halo Transmedia & Entertainment head Kiki Wolfkill; and Epic Games CCO Donald Mustard.