These Are The Unity Vision VR/AR Award Winning Games news

Closing out last week's Vision Summit 2016 was the Vision VR/VR awards, a night in which 21 finalists, chosen from over 250 submissions, competed in a number of VR-specific categories. The judges included professionals from Oculus, Google, Unity, Microsoft, and Sony, all of whom looked toward the games and media that were breaking new ground within virtual reality as a medium. Here, then, are the 2016 winners for each category.

I Expect You To Die, a comedic spy puzzler from Schell Games, took the Vision Inspire Award. It was up against Radial Games' Fantastic Contraption, and Anomaly Productions' Faster Than Light - with honourable mentions going to Owlchemy Labs' Job Simulator, Lucid Trips' Whateverland, and USC's Bravemind.

Thunderbird: The Legend Begins, from Innervision Games, landed the Best VR Experience award for its fantastic realistion of a Myst-like adventure game with room-scale tracking. Following closely behind were runners up Fantastic Contraption and Job Simulator, with honourable mentions going to Sunken Paces' Classroom Aquatic; VR Immersive Education's Apollo 11 VR; and Alientrap's Modbox.

The Best Augmented Reality experience went to murder-mystery game Eleanor of Ayer, from Gelly Bomb Games - a game which combines the room escape format with mixed-reality puzzles. The runners up were Faster Than Light and SRG United Solutions' game, Table Zombies, while honourable mentions went to Clandestine: Anomaly, and Kraft Interactive Placemat.

Modbox took the Technical Achievement Award for its creation of a Garry's Mod-style, room-scale physics sandbox game. Arch Virtual's Residential Condominium Architectural Simulation, and EasyAR's Engine, took the runners up places. Both Fantastic Contraption and Kraft Interactive Placement scored honourable mentions.

First-person cyberpunk game Technolust, from Iris VR, won the Artistic Achievement Award for its depictions of dual realistic and virtual future worlds. The runners up included Lucid Trips' Whateverland and Red Corner's Sens. Three honourable mentions went to Residential Condominium Architectural Simulation, Jake and Tess' Finding Monsters Adventure from Black River Studios, and Vertigo Games' Arizona Sunshine.

Neat Corporation's Budget Cuts stole the coveted Best VR Game award, with its innovative approach to locomotion using a teleportation gun no doubt being a good part of the draw. The runners up for the Best VR Game category included Shell Games' I Expect You To Die, and Sunken Places' Classroom Aquatic. Honourable mentions were given to Jake and Tess' Finding Monsters Adventure, as well as Vanguard V, and Adventure Time: Magic Man's Head Games.

Awards were also given to Best Live-Action Experience, which went to U2's Song For Someone, as well as Best Film/Interactive Story, which was picked up my Apollo 11 VR.