You can vote for your favourite games in the Game Awards, play some other favourites on your iPhone and iPad, and I chase down where amusement park sims have gone.

Apple’s App Store Award winners announced

Every year, Apple’s curators who keep an eye on software in the App Store decide on the best apps of the year.

This year, the list of applications being recognized include the BeReal social app and GoodNotes 5, which is all about using a stylus with an iPad to take notes by hand.

Games making the cut include Apex Legends Mobile, from Electronic Arts, and Inscryption, which is recognized for its Mac computer version. There’s also the intriguing Moncage, which is a puzzle game serving up optical illusions for you to interpret and make sense of.

There’s also Inua: A Story in Ice and Time, a narrative adventure set in Canada’s north which celebrates Inuit culture and features music by Tanya Tagaq.

Game Awards voting is open now

Fan voting for this year’s Game Awards is now open.

And fans get to have a say in the decisions, too, without breaking the system.

Winners of the awards are “deteremined by a blended vote between the voting jury and public fan voting”, with 90% of a score coming from the jury and the remaining 10% coming from fan votes.

Big category nominees include:

Game of the year

• A Plague Tale: Requiem
• Elden Ring
• God of War Ragnarok
• Horizon Forbidden West
• Stray
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3

Best ongoing game

• Apex Legends
• Destiny 2
• Final Fantasy XIV
• Fortnite
• Genshin Impact

Best indie game

• Cult of the Lamb
• Neon White
• Sifu
• Stray
• Tunic

Other categories cover the various genres and there are five awards for esports.

The Game Awards broadcasts live starting at 4:30 p.m. PT, 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, December 8. It’s being presented on all platforms including Discord, Twitch, YouTube, and social media channels.

Valve giving away a Steam Deck every minute of the Game Awards live broadcast

This just in: Valve will be giving away dozens of Steam Deck handheld consoles (512 GB edition) during the live broadcast of the Game Awards.

You need to preregister to be eligible and you need to be watching the broadcast on Steam to be a winner.

Rollercoaster sims let you build your own amusement park

A question came in on the Shift last week asking whether there’s been any updates to RollerCoaster Tycoon, which a listener remembers playing on a computer running the Windows XP operating system (circa 2001).

This series of games put players in the role of an amusement park designer and operator. The objective is to design the rides, construct the park, and operate it. Think the Sims go to Disneyland.

The original RollerCoaster Tycoon came from the brain of game designer Chris Sawyer and was released in 1999.

Games in the franchise have appeared regularly, some being received better than others.

The first two original games that Sawyer designed have been ported to Android, iOS, and Windows 10 as Rollercoaster Tycoon Classic.

If you’re interested in a modern console experience, look to Planet Coaster, which is available on PS4, PS5, Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.