2024 Shortlist
Over 100 creators submitted over 500 entires to the World Anvil Worldbuilding Awards, from articles to maps to entire worlds. But only 5 per category made it to the second round of voting, and only 1 of them took home the prize.
I won't tell you how I voted, but I have listed my top five per category and how I decided upon them. Ones that ended up nominees and winners are highlighted. Read on, or use Page Navigation to skip to a specific section.
wow that's a lot of stars was nominated for Most Beautiful World 2024! It was an incredible honor to be seated with these other amazing worlds.
With thanks to Polina "Line" Arteev for the poster!
With thanks to Polina "Line" Arteev for the poster!World Categories
I started off writing blurbs for every item shortlisted, but ran out of energy pretty quickly. I hope to come back and fill them in later on, for all sections.
Most Beautiful World
When judging most beautiful, I focused on the homepage, intro article, and world meta, as available. Primarily:
- CSS: How much of the theme was made by the world owner?
- Design: Does the look and feel convey the genre and tone of the world?
- Composition: How are items laid out on the page? Am I able to follow its flow?
- Navigation: How easily can I find what I need, as a new or existing reader?
- Legibility: Is the text easy to read? Does it stand out against other assets?
Nominated!
I didn't vote for my own world, but I did submit to Most Beautiful 2024. I like to think I do well on my own grading criteria, but I'll let you decide :)
Intro | Meta
I didn't vote for my own world, but I did submit to Most Beautiful 2024. I like to think I do well on my own grading criteria, but I'll let you decide :)
Intro | Meta
Nominated!
The runic background, logo, fancy AF dropcap, and askew text immediately give Alana a ton of personality.
Intro | Meta
The runic background, logo, fancy AF dropcap, and askew text immediately give Alana a ton of personality.
Intro | Meta
Babikiye's dark blue is the cold side of the pillow on a restless night. The layout of columns and images makes every page feel balanced.
Intro | Meta
Intro | Meta
The airy colors and sparkly background convey DLSP's genre and tone, and the clean design makes everything easy to read.
Intro | Meta
Intro | Meta
Best World
My working definition of "best" world is one in which the premise is clearly stated and executed in a way that's accessible to the reader.
- The world is easy to read and navigate. The look and feel matches the tone and genre.
- The homepage has a hook for the setting and leads to new and existing reader content.
- The intro/meta states the goals of the world and makes a promise about its contents.
- The articles live up to the promises made on the homepage and in the intro/meta.
Best Newcomer
I'm taking this one as the junior version of Best World.
- The World is easy to read and has custom cover images.
- The homepage has a setting hook. Bonus points for any primers/meta.
- It's easy to start reading articles. Bonus points for focus on new readers.
Article Categories
With hundreds of articles submitted and just two weeks to vote on them, there was no way I could give every article an equal read. There are many possible ways to narrow things down, but I opted to randomly select 20 articles from each category. This way I got a broad variety of articles, with no preference for worlds or authors I already knew. From there, I went through three rounds of review, rating each article on a scale of 1 (lowest) to 5 (highest). If you're surprised about what's not in my top 5 for a category, there's a good chance the article(s) you're expecting didn't end up in the random selection of 20.Round 1: Composition
A cursory glance at each article to determine:- Is it legible? Nice to look at?
- Is there a cover image?
- Is the text varied (headers, lists, columns, etc.)?
Round 2: Hook
Reading the first paragraph/section to determine:- Do I want to keep reading?
- Is the topic interesting, or have a unique twist?
- Is the writing engaging?
Round 3: Payoff
Giving the article a more thorough read to determine:- Does the rest of the article live up to the style and hook?
- Do I want to keep reading to the end?
- Does it make me want to read more about the world?
Best Worldbuilding Article
Winner!
Hearts & Minds
An article touching on intellectual, sociological, spiritual or cultural accomplishments and traditions of a people in your world.
Pillars of Progress
An article describing a technological or scientific (including metaphysical) accomplishment, or celebrating creations developed by the people of the world.
Myths & Legends
An article describing an aspect of your worldbuilding that's mythical or fictional within the construct of your world, even if it's based on true events.
Rise of Nations
An article relevant to the history of civilisations and peoples of your world, and their legacies.
Strength & Honour
An article relevant to the interactions of the people of your world across a grand scale — diplomacy, war, trade and collaboration, and the people who drive and engineer them.
Wondrous Nature
An article describing anything from species to locations, to natural and supernatural events, and bizarre naturally-occurring materials.
Non-Article Categories
Like the World categories, these categories had few enough entries that I was able to look through all of them. Which made it, again, incredibly difficult to choose just five to showcase, nevermind voting for only one of them. I'm also very tired and short on time, so I won't be making article-block-alikes for these and you just get lists (sorrynotsorry).History
- Good use of timescale versus list. With the timescale locked to 1 year, events that happen very close together or very far apart tend to work better in list view.
- Good use of images. Timelines don't need images to be good, but visual flair is an important piece of what makes something the best.
- Events are connected to other parts of the world, such as articles or maps.
- Bonus: Good use of tags for filtering.
- Timescale: Kingdom at the River's End in Terraloga Nominated!
- Timescale: History of Mercury in Solaris Nominated!
- List: Events of the Shattered in Shattered
- List: Yonderverse Master Timeline in Yonderverse Nominated!
- List: Chronological Events in Red Sunrise
Cartography
- Enough icons that I can understand how to interact with the map, but not too many that it's overwhelming.
- Marker diversity to visually differentiate what they're for.
- Good use of layers and filters to reduce how much is displayed at once.
- Bonus: map tells a story
I enjoyed reading about your voting criteria. I think your idea of randomly selecting 20 articles for each category was a sensible one - there was so much to read and think about!
Explore Etrea
I definitely missed some gems by only viewing a subset, but it made it feasible for me to vote. I hope to catch up on the good stuff I missed later on :D
Speculative-Fiction Writing