Many of you noticed that we didn’t announce any Golden Lock Award winners back at the start of the year… We didn’t forget, we weren’t being lazy, and we didn’t abandon our award. We were low-key moving it for a whole bunch of reasons.
So let’s start with the details on the 2022 Golden Lock Awards… and then we can chat about why we moved it.
2022 Golden Lock Awards
The 2022 Golden Lock Awards livestream will happen on Saturday, April 30.
We’re hosting a live gathering of the REA Hivemind: a swarm. We’ll all be together to share our favorite games of 2021 and Q1 2022. Moving forward, we will be hosting the Golden Lock Awards in April.
So, yes, the Hivemind and our active reviewers will be a big part of this year’s awards and their presentation.
The last big change we’re making this year is the addition of a Tabletop Escape Game category. Plus, special for this year only, we will be adding retrospective awards for Tabletop Escape Games we played in the past that really defined this medium.
Why the Changes?
The Golden Lock Awards were the first escape room awards (in English) that we’re aware of. Since launching them on January 2, 2016, a lot of folks have joined in honoring their favorite games in different ways. No shade from us; it’s a great thing to do and we certainly didn’t invent the concept of awards.
We did, however, fatigue on “escape room award season,” which for the past few years has begun with the prolonged TERPECA nomination and voting process in the fall, and has ended with our Golden Lock Awards… with a lot of other awards in between. By the time it was our turn, we were legitimately tired of escape room awards, so we decided to move ours to a time of year where we and our community will have renewed award energy.
This move also solved a problem with the Golden Lock Awards that has annoyed us since shortly after we launched it. The most current award always felt immediately out of date. (For example, we awarded the 2020 Golden Lock Awards in January 2021). It’s a small detail, but it has long irked us. This year, the 2022 Golden Lock Awards will be announced in 2022.
Finally, Room Escape Artist is more than Lisa and me. The Golden Lock Award has long been our pet project, but there are so many more people involved, and we wanted to take the time to figure out how we were going to evolve this award in a way that would include the entire review team. When Andrew Reynolds, Fro, Kate Wastl, Matthew Stein, Sarah Mendez, Sarah Willson, or Theresa W show up at a company to review their games, we don’t want those companies to feel like they aren’t in the running for the Golden Lock Awards. We value our reviewers, we want them to be able to bestow the honor on their favorite experiences as well.
So, that’s the rationale. We’re excited to produce this award show, and look forward to streaming it on April 30th. Hope to see you there.
Past Golden Lock Awards
Thank you!
We’ll take this opportunity to thank our Patreon backers. This community empowers us to do so much by ensuring stable funding. It’s really hard to grow a niche media company in 2022, and we are eternally grateful to the folks who continue to commit money to help us achieve our goals and grow this community.
Alexander Gierholz
Alyssa Diaz
Amanda Harris
Andrew Preble
Andrew Reynolds
Andrew Sturridge
Anna Lysova
Anna Simon
Anne Lukeman
Armchair Escapist
Barry Joseph
Ben Rosner
Bethany
Bill Chang
Breakout Games
Brent Mair
Brett Kuehner
Brian Resler
Brian Vinciguerra
Bronna Butler
Byron Delmonico
Bytes
C.J. Smith
Cara Mandel
Chris Cannon
Chris M. Dickson
Chris White
Daniel Egnor
Daniel Kolb
Darren Miller
David Longley
deadpan113
Derek Tam
Drew Nelson
Elaine
Eliza Cantlay
Emile Wang
Erich Schultz
Expedition Escape
Farand Pawlak
Greg Marinelli
Haley & Cameron Cooper
Herbert Chan
James Lai
James Shearer
Jan-Luc Van Damme
Jason Richard
Jenna
John Wardrope
Jon Kaufthal
Jonathan Dautrich
Jonathan Driscoll
Joseph Friesen
Josh Kendrick
Julie Burge
Justin Nevins
Ken Zinn
Kevin
Kurt Leinbach
Laura E. Hall
Leanne
Lee-Fay Low
Lindsay Froelich
LionTree Media
Lonnie
M. Sean Molley
M&C Saiewitz
Mark Blume
Mark Denine
Matt Beverly
Matt Keyser
Matthew Stein
Michael Andersen
Michael Augustine
Michael Wolman
Michelle Rundbaken
Mihir Kedia
Natalie Currie
Nathan Walton
Negina Kolesar
Neil Patrick Harris
Nick Moran
No Proscenium
Olivia Anderson
Omer Aru
Patrick McLean
Paul
Paul Tashima
Paula Swann
Philip Ho
Puzzling Company
Rebecca Horste
Rene Sorette
Rex Miller
Rich Bragg
Richard Burns
Rob Tsuk
Ruud Kool
Ryan
Ryan Brady
Ryan Hart
S T Cameron
Samantha Koehler
Sarah Zhang
Scott Olson
Sean McBride
Sendil Krishnan
Seth Wolfson
Simon Edwards
Spencer Arnold
Stephanie McNeill
Steve Ewing
Steve Gaddy
Steven Rawlings
Steven Valdez
Stuart Bogaty
Stuart Nafey
Tahlia Kirk
Tammy McLeod
Team Bluefish
Terry Pettigrew-Rolapp
The Escape Room USA
The Wild Optimists
Theresa Piazza
Tiffany Schaefer
Todd Geldon
Todd McClary
Tommy
Victor van Doorn
Vivien Ripoll
Will Rutherford
YouEscape
To those of you reading who have the means, we hope you’ll consider joining this wonderful group of supporters.
Support Room Escape Artist’s Mission
There are lots of ways to support Room Escape Artist, like buying from Amazon, Etsy, or Art of Play after clicking into the links included in this post or backing us on Patreon.
The money that we make from these helps us to grow the site and continue to add more value to the community that we love so much.