Apple has recently announced the winners of the annual Apple Design Awards while honouring fourteen top-quality apps and games. Development teams across the world are the winners this year. They are selected for technical achievement, stellar design, and innovation.
Winners of this year have shown the way apps and games are capable of enhancing the lives of users. The company said that it is very excited to celebrate the hard work of these developers at WWDC 2024.
There are seven various categories that recognize one app and game for
- delight and fun,
- inclusivity,
- innovation,
- interaction,
- social impact,
- visuals and graphics, and
- a new spatial computing category.
There were 42 finalists, and the winners were chosen from them.
What Are Apple Design Awards?
Design awards highlight new and innovative products by providing an exciting platform for the finalists and winners to celebrate their products.
Purpose Of Apple Design Awards:
Design awards help your clients to get confidence about your skills & work. Besides, these awards help to increase your publicity and fame, while allowing you to create and maintain your reputation.
You can even get new leads from the design awards. While ensuring that more people can see your activities, these awards let you maintain your competitive spirit.
Design awards allow you to build respect among your peers, while getting credit for your work. Moreover, these awards help you to get recognized for your works and give the possibility to describe yourself as “Award Winning.”
Apple Design Awards And The Finalists:
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Delight And Fun:
App: Bears Gratitude
Developer: Isuru Wanasinghe (Australia)
Bears Gratitude enables you to encourage and embrace self-reflection. With the help of the journaling app, you can establish daily gratitude practices.
Game: NYT Games
Developer: The New York Times Company (United States)
Along with redesigning its navigation, NYT Games expands the gaming catalogue via a compelling mix of titles. Connections is one of the new titles calibrated for maximum replay value. Besides, the elegant and user-friendly design of this game encourages everyone to participate in this fun.
Names of the finalists in this category are as follows:
- Dudel Draw by Silly Little Apps, LLC;
- Hello Kitty Island Adventure by Sunblink Entertainment LLC;
- Rooms by Things, Inc.; and
- WHAT THE CAR? by Triband ApS.
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Inclusivity:
App: oko
Developer: AYES (Belgium)
This app is beneficial for those who are impaired visually. It notifies pedestrians about the state of signal lights via audio and haptic feedback. This solution takes help of Apple technologies, including VoiceOver, Dynamic Type, etc.
Game: Crayola Adventures
Developer: Red Games Co. (United States)
This one is a colorful adventure game that can provide plenty of creation options for all players. In addition, the game comes with some life character choices like body types, skin tones, etc. People of all ages get the chance to enjoy this awesome game experience that offers multiple activities, including:
- making decorations,
- solving puzzles and
- reading storybooks.
The finalists of this category are:
- Complete Anatomy 2024 by Elsevier,
- quadline by Kovalov,
- Tiimo by tiimo ApS, and
- Unpacking by Humble Bundle.
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Innovation:
App: Procreate Dreams
Developer: Procreate (Australia)
This exceptional design tool called Procreate Dreams enables the creatives to generate 2D animations. It uses an extensive library that is full of gestures, and brushes. It allows users to use PencilKit-enabled behaviors from the original Procreate. Procreate Dreams comes with intuitive controls that are compatible with Apple Pencil and multi-touch interactions. Moreover, the app is capable of providing audio and video and powerful animated effects, helping you to bring life to your artwork and creation.
Game: Lost in Play
Developer: Happy Juice Games (Israel)
In this game, you can find endearing characters and exciting minigames. This game is capable of providing players a charming journey via childhood imagination with crafted puzzles.
The point-and-tap journey comes with hand-drawn graphics and interactions that are simple to learn to create a childlike sense of discovery throughout.
This category’s finalists are:-
- Call of Duty: Warzone Mobile by Activision Publishing, Inc.;
- Copilot Money by Copilot Money, Inc.;
- SmartGym by Mateus Abras; and
- Wavelength by Palm Court LLC.
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Interaction:
App: Crouton
Developer: Devin Davies (New Zealand)
This app can offer a clean interface to stash away recipes, present stepwise instructions in the kitchen and create grocery lists. The app’s outstanding and easy interactions allow you to keep the focus on the counter instead of the screen.
Game: Rytmos
Developer: Floppy Club (Denmark)
This game allows users to use simple drag gestures to make pathways in order to solve puzzles Once you complete a level, a new element will be added to an evolving song.
In this category, the names of the finalists are-
- Arc Search by The Browser Company of New York Inc;
- finity. by Seabaa, Inc.;
- Little Nightmares by Playdigious; and
- Procreate Dreams by Savage Interactive Pty Ltd.
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Social Impact:
App: Gentler Streak Fitness Tracker
Developer: Gentler Stories (Slovenia)
Gentler Streak Fitness Tracker is powered by encouraging as well as optimistic reminders that are crucial for both physical fitness and mental well-being.
Game: The Wreck
Developer: The Pixel Hunt (France)
Players of the visual novel entitled “The Wreck” follow Junon’s story, who is a writer. He is called to a hospital in order to make an important decision that can change life forever and impact her family, too. This game invites players to think about what they want to choose throughout the gameplay experience.
These are the names of the finalists for this category:
- Ahead: Emotions Coach by Ahead Solutions GmbH;
- Cityscapes: Sim Builder by MagicFuel Games;
- How We Feel by The How We Feel Project, Inc.; and
- The Bear by Mucks Games.
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Visuals And Graphics:
App: Rooms
Developer: Things, Inc. (United States)
Rooms bring a blank slate for users, allowing them to produce imaginative scenes, a platform for cozy gaming, and a social space providing interactions with the creations of other people. This app allows users to create their own room just by dragging & dropping things, as well as adjusting the properties. It comes with a Thing library that allows users to add from its library of >8,000 user generated 3D models. Meanwhile, the Thing editor feature of this game allows users to use its built-in block editor to edit things, or create one of their own.
Game: Lies of P
Developer: NEOWIZ (South Korea)
This game enables players to control a robotic puppet made by Geppetto, who needs to survive a battle match through the burned-out city in order to find his maker. Whether it is detailed lighting, wonderful textures, or mind-blowing effects, you can experience all in this game. It brings some visual customization options, – volumetric fog and MetalFX upscaling effects on Mac. With the help of these customization options, you can style the game as you prefer.
The finalists in this category are:
- DEATH STRANDING DIRECTOR’S CUT by 505 Games (U.S.), Inc.;
- Honkai: Star Rail by COGNOSPHERE PTE. LTD.;
- Meditate by RhythmicWorks; and Sunlitt: Sun Position and
- Path by Nicolas Mariniello.
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Spatial Computing:
App: djay pro – DJ App & AI Mixer
Developer: algoriddim GmbH (Germany)
This app allows you to interact with music in a spatial environment. The app comes with a cool interactive effects panel, top-quality turntables, and magnificently considered environments, and allows users to be more creative when mixing different music, while getting high-definition sound quality.
Game: Blackbox
Developer: Shapes and Stories (United States)
In this game, players are challenged to think about each corner of the spatial canvas. They will find clever easter eggs and puzzles at their every turn. The wonderful details of this game make it more exciting and give the players the feeling of like learning a new magic trick as puzzles will unfold around the players and curiosity will be rewarded.
Names of the finalists in this category are:
- Loóna: Cozy Puzzle Games by Loona Inc.;
- NBA by NBA MEDIA VENTURES, LLC;
- Sky Guide by Fifth Star Labs LLC; and
- Synth Riders by Kluge Strategic Inc.
The Bottom Line:
In this article, we have discussed almost all the details about the Apple design awards and names of the finalists and their innovations. At WWDC24, winners around the globe will be recognized for their excellence in design, innovations, as well as technical achievement in apps & games.
