Spelunky Discord Community Awards 2017: Day Two Winners
Posted by hb on December 20th, 2017 @06:01PM
The ballots are in and the votes have been counted and verified. A big thank you to everybody who nominated and cast their vote.
The wait is over. We can now reveal the winners of this year's Spelunky Discord Community Awards! Day One saw a total of six winners announced -- you can go here to find out what they were. The results for the remaining five awards categories are below in this Day Two article...

The 'Wait, This Isn't Spelunky' Award
Kerbal Space Program
Marble Madness
Momodora III
Rocket League
THIRD PLACE
Momodora III (16%)
SECOND PLACE
Rocket League (23%)
AND THE WINNER IS...
MARBLE MADNESS (52%)
Written by Kinnijup:
Marble Madness is a very different, old, and fun isometric marble-rolling game for the NES. Three Spelunky runners took the game very seriously for a handful of months this year: Spef, MikeIsMyIke, and me (Kinnijup). We all made rapid progress and had a big impact on the top of a leaderboard which is more than 20 years old. In particular, Spef hit the world record very quickly and improved it two more times afterwards, discovering and incorporating many insanely precise and difficult strategies along the way. Mike is currently in third place, and I am fourth (#forever lost the rivalry).
Another runner who spent some time on the game is Konato_K, who ended up hitting a solid sub-four-minute time. Many other members of the community got involved with watching the game on Twitch for a while (some even played it), so I was not surprised to see this one win here!
--
Best All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament Race
GreatStriker vs. Spef (Quarterfinals)
Krille vs. d_tea (Finals)
Krille vs. ix (Group A)
Linkruler vs. Mazerak (Round of 16)
patchesfaces vs. ix (Group A)
Stuoid vs. Curticus (Group D)
SECOND PLACE (TIED)
Krille vs. d_tea (Finals) (23%)
Stuoid vs. Curticus (Group D) (23%)
AND THE WINNER IS...
GREATSTRIKER VS. SPEF (QUARTERFINALS) (26%)
Written by MikeIsMyIke:
An underdog story at its finest. Not only was Spef a tournament favorite going in, but GreatStriker was one of the lowest-ranked players left going into playoffs. Spef had breezed through his group undefeated, with two incredible times under 20 minutes. So it was a foregone conclusion, right?
Wrong. GreatStriker had already put on quite a performance to get this far, causing a huge upset against the highly-regarded falafel_raptor in the group stage and also beating hbix in the Round of 16. The 'Battle of Finland' absolutely delivered in entertainment, with a close back-and-forth race and a remarkable final result. GreatStriker was more than a minute behind Spef into the key split, but edged ahead of his compatriot after a forced reset from Spef -- the first key completely eluding the favourite.
GreatStriker was put under immense pressure into 2-3. In a twist, Spef stunned himself after throwing a bomb, and blew himself up. This gave GreatStriker a significant lead, one which he did not throw (despite a huge scare in 3-2, when his key nearly dropped into the abyss), sealing the win with a time of 22:03. "When he was ahead, I wasn't really nervous," he said in a post-match interview. "But near the end, I was actually nervous."
A Pot C racer, GreatStriker defied all the odds to make it to the final four. It was a shame that he had to withdraw from the semifinals in the end due to unavailability.
--
Favourite Spelunky Streamer
Abob71
falafel_raptor
ix
Kinnijup
Spef
Twiggle
Vlad
THIRD PLACE
Spef (14%)
SECOND PLACE
ix (22%)
AND THE WINNER IS...

KINNIJUP (33%)
Written by hbix:
Kinnijup draws the biggest Twitch audiences among the Spelunky Discord and MossRanking community, and it's not hard to see why. As the greatest ever Spelunky player, Kinnijup stuns his viewers with incredible plays at an alarming rate. Further to that, his streams have been home to numerous world records over the past year -- from his 3.52 million score and sub-1:39 Any% (in front of Derek Yu, too!) to less prominent categories such as Shield Run and Jumbo Money.
But while his legendary skill makes his streams consistently entertaining to watch, it's his personality, his character, and the environment he fosters in the Twitch chat that really seal the deal. Kinnijup is one of the nicest people in the community -- friendly and considerate, with a genuine desire to answer any questions from viewers and help budding speedrunners improve their game. It's this personality that rubs off on the chat. Regulars of his stream are warm and excited to be there. With his almost-daily streams, his Twitch channel has become its own mini-community in a way.
Kinnijup is representing Spelunky at All Games Done Quick (AGDQ) next year. And with his fervent, vocal fanbase, he is guaranteed to have plenty of support tuning in at the dead of night to catch his All Shortcuts + Olmec run. Good luck for January!
--
Newcomer of the Year
amourietta
chocolatecake5000
DaftLunk
DieDai
GreatStriker
Pojo
Spef
THIRD PLACE
chocolatecake5000 (14%)
SECOND PLACE
DieDai (20%)
AND THE WINNER IS...

SPEF (46%)
Written by Polo:
We were all suprised to see him eligible for nomination, and that's because it feels like he has been a member of this community forever. It's hard to believe that, yes, he joined in 2017. And yet... that says a lot about the man, and probably explains why Spef deserves this award the most!
Spef started to submit nice runs out of nowhere and joined the Discord server all the way back in January. Since then, Spef has made himself climb the MossRanking to end up as one of the best Spelunkers of all time. At the time of writing, he is in fourth place with more than 900,000 points (a Hell ranking) and only just behind the legend that is Krille71.
We could spend hours talking Spef's runs and how great they are, but that's not just what this award is about. Spef has also been involved every day in the Spelunky community to discuss strats, visiting and hanging out at everybody's stream, giving advice, and scouting daily challenge seeds. We all see him as friendly as the VoHiYo emote seems to be!
Spef winning the Newcomer award was probably the least surprising result out of all of them, but it's satisfying nonetheless to see one of the nicest guys out there being acknowledged.
--
Spelunky Community MVP
hbix
ix
Kazzy
Kinnijup
meowmixmix
saturnin55
Twiggle
THIRD PLACE (TIED)
meowmixmix (8%)
Twiggle (8%)
AND THE WINNER IS...


IT'S A TIE!
HBIX (36%)
SATURNIN55 (36%)
Written by saturnin55:
We are very fortunate to have such a talented person in our community. We all know hbix is a very good Spelunker, one of the best around, but hbix also does so much work in this community without seeking the spotlight. They're an amazing writer and wrote 17 'My Favourite Games' articles in Spelunky News this year, presenting members of the community and helping us to get to know a little bit of the non-Spelunker side of everyone featured.
I'm also pretty confident to say that without hbix, the Spelunky All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament would be either still in planning or a bad memory of an attempt to make something too big for us to handle. All the organizers dedicated a lot of time into the planning of the tourney, but I'm just short of words for all of what was accomplished by hbix. hbix was silently working with the other organizers behind the scenes one month before the tourney really publicly kicked off, and has been a real trooper: handling any type of work that others didn't want to do, helping a ton in the planning, writing documentation, and communicating with all the organizers and other people involved in the tourney.
More than often, hbix just took it upon themself to do stuff nobody thought of and came to us with an amazing document, leaving us dumbstruck. Then, when the tourney really started, almost all of the results, standing updates, summary articles were done by our joint MVP winner. hbix was also back and forth communicating about issues we did not foresee, always on the lookout so everything could go as smoothly as possible for everyone, and it is just a joy to have someone dedicated and selfless like hbix on your team providing such quantity and quality of work.

Another side of hbix that most people are not aware is all of their work behind the scenes as a Discord moderator. Always pushing the moderation team to do things better, for the benefit of all the community (old-timers and newcomers), raising important issues, and providing very thoughtful opinions, always in the most polite and respectful manner towards everyone. Even though sometimes issues can get pretty heated and emotional, hbix stays calm or takes some time away to think and cool down before voicing their opinion.
Furthermore, hbix has been an important contributor to all MossRanking discussions and debates we had since joining the team. There is often something going on behind the scenes, and I'm very thankful for all hbix's contributions: talking about categories, rules, or the website. hbix is someone you can always rely on to provide insightful opinions.
The MVP award just embodies very well what hbix is to this community: a real MVP. I won't lie, I was a bit worried before the voting because I was under the impression that a lot of hbix's doings were too much behind the scenes to get the deserved votes. But I realize now that it was just me that was too much in the bubble, and I'm so glad you're all giving hbix the deserved wave of love for everything they did for this community.
hbix, thank you for everything! We hope you can be part of what's coming ahead, because without you, things would be much more chaotic and this community would have not grown as much as it did in 2017! Congratulations MVP! 

Written by hbix:
The first ever Spelunky Discord Community Awards have been a lot of fun, but there is nothing more fitting to close this out than to talk about the incredible saturnin55. When I started planning this event, I thought to myself that it would be an utter traversty if saturnin55 did not win something. You cannot have a celebration of 2017 in Spelunky without mentioning him. Thankfully, it turns out that we as a community collectively agree.
In the many winners' texts across the Day One and Day Two articles, the word "legend" has been used a few times. Kinnijup, d_tea, Krille71, and more are legends in their own right. But saturnin55 is a very different kind of legend -- the irreplaceable kind. He may not want to admit it, humble as he is, but saturnin55 is the greatest influence of the Spelunky community right now.
When MossTier was dying a slow death, saturnin55 created MossRanking.com, this very site you are reading right now. With the help of others, saturnin55 revolutionised the Spelunky rankings, bringing a fresh, addictive competitive edge to the table and rejuvenating speedrunners and score runners alike. That was in 2016. This year, saturnin55 continued to build on this fine platform -- adding new categories, coding a bevy of new features, and more -- in turn providing newcomers a powerful incentive to stick around the community. 2017 has seen many new faces in the form of Spef, GreatStriker, DieDai, Pojo, DaftLunk, ContraMuffin, chocolatecake5000, and so many more people on the MossRanking leaderboards, as well as the re-introduction of Stuoid, all of whom having had a positive impact on the wider community, particularly on Discord and Twitch.
saturnin55 has had an indirect but crucial hand at keeping the community buzzing and active, moreso than anybody else.

2017 also saw two huge events: the Scoreathlon and the All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament, both of which were huge successes and could never have happened without saturnin55. Both the Scoreathlon and especially the All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament were incredible to be a part of -- whether as a participant, viewer, or organiser -- because it brought the whole community together. Seeing everybody congregating in one place, buzzing with excitement on the MossRanking Twitch chat, is unlike anything else in the Spelunky community.
saturnin55 worked tirelessly on the administrative sides of both events -- coding on the back-end, coming up with solutions to problems, taking responsibility in managing the potentially overwhelming projects -- and ensured that they were smash hits. Personally speaking, I have learnt so much during my time working alongside him on the All Shortcuts + Olmec Tournament. It has been a genuine and enriching pleasure to have had the opportunity to do so.
The last thing I would like to mention about saturnin55 is the number of times I've messaged him for help and how he responds and sorts out my request quickly every single time. How he manages to find the time given that he is an incredibly busy parent as well is beyond me. saturnin55 is currently working on evolving MossRanking in preparation for Spelunky 2. It is with good fortune that we have somebody like saturnin55 in our community, and I'm excited at the prospect that, when the first wave of Spelunky 2 players comes across our passionate and tightknit group, even more people will be able to appreciate his work.
Congratulations, saturnin55! There is nobody more deserving than this title than you.
