RPGamer 2025 Awards – Michael A. Cunningham Memorial Award

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Michael A. Cunningham Memorial Award

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For our 2018 awards we unveiled a new special award in memoriam of our longtime Editor-in-Chief Michael A. Cunningham. This award holds a special place for us at RPGamer, as Michael loved being part of our awards process. Choosing a game that represents Michael’s integrity and his passion for smaller titles is often a daunting task and one we take pride in selecting and sharing.

Unlike the other awards that are voted on by the staff as a whole, the Michael A. Cunningham Memorial Award is determined solely by the awards committee and given to a game deserving of special recognition in the field of innovation, emotional resonance, or evoking Mac’s enthusiastic support for RPGs.

 

 

Deciding on this year’s winner was a tough job, with plenty of smaller studios providing notable releases for all shapes and sizes. Shoutouts are deserving for those that made our final shortlist — Cairn: Mathair’s Curse, Consume Me, Kabuto Park, and Shujinkou — but there was one title that stood out just that little bit more, and that was Something Classic Games’s Quartet. It demonstrates a clear understanding of the appeal of classic RPGs while offering forth its own ideas through its ambitious story and finely executed gameplay.

Quartet begins by introducing players to its four interconnected stories, which start out scattered in wildly different situations. It then carefully works to bring those stories together and show they are interconnected with a smartly woven set of reveals that keep the player fully invested in discovering more while being enamoured with the individual stories and motivations of its cast. Combining this with a turn-based combat system that keeps its strong pacing throughout, as well as a fine soundtrack from Tyler Mire, Quartet is a mighty fine title among a strong set of entries for this year.

 

by Alex Fuller