Castle Paradox

[Camdog]

Overall, I'm pleased with how everything went down, and I had a good time participating. I tried to use this contest as impetus to get off my ass and finish my current project (The Ritual), but unfortunately I bit off more than I could chew. I wanted to fix up my 48-hour contest entry (Water), finish The Ritual, and maybe release some mini-games to show off my 133t plotscripting skills. I didn't even get to completely finish The Ritual, and had to release Water as-is.

I wanted The Ritual to be a complete RPG with character development and an interesting story that was SHORT. Virtually everything I see come out of the OHR are stillborn projects meant to be sweeping, 40-hour epics that rival Final Fantasy XVIwhatever. I'd really like to see the community move in a direction where these "short-story" type RPGs are what's focused on, as that's whats really doable for lone authors or small-groups. This situation reminds me of the interactive fiction community, which I was once more involved in, but still check up on from time to time. The stipulation of their major yearly contest was that judges needed to score the game based on 2 hours of playtime and no more, in order to encourage the creation of a library of complete games. Maybe something like that could work here?

One of the things I noticed about the contest was that there were basically no actual RPGs entered (though I wasn't able to check out Retrogamer's, and I didn't play Nathan Karr's, because can that kid produce anything other than douchebaggery?)

I believe The Ritual was the only 'traditional' RPG entered; everything else seemed to be a tech demo. Those are cool and all, but it seems like they have become the focus of the community, which seems odd to me. If you want to make non-RPG games, wouldn't you be better off using a different engine, or programming from scratch? Not to rag on the cool stuff I've seen done with the OHR, but I'd be happy to see some old school RPGs coming our every once in a while, too.

Anyway, I think everyone involved with the contest should post their final thoughts: what the creation experience was like, what they were trying to accomplish with their game, etc. I'd also love to hear the judges thoughts on the games, instead of just seeing a bunch of numbers.

And it'd be great for me personally if I could get some bug reports on The Ritual. I know there have to be a few, considering how damn rushed that thing was.

[Artimus Bena]

Once I was able to sit down and finish the list, I had quite a lot of fun. I was impressed at some of the things you guys accomplished, and there were certain entries I just couldn't get enough of.


I'll address the Best of Show entries, and a couple of the other notable games.


Ritual was phenominal. I've said many times, it's rare for an rpg to hold my attention for more than 20 minutes, and this game achieved more than that. There was a point to all the play, and a point to all the story. Long story short, I was pulled in instantly, and it took a really hard battle to get me to stop playing ; p


Megalomania didn't have the story going for it, but because it was so fun and engaging it didn't matter one bit. I felt like I was playing really cool old games. The kind of games that were actually games, and didn't require huge quests and walkthroughs. Excellent job with everything, including the innovative game design.


Now to the notables

Water was excellently designed, once I got past the weird control setup (weird for me, anyway); if you really pumped that game up with something spicy (perhaps music? a slight bit more than just fight\charter\gain money) I'd have played much longer than I did. I realize it wasn't a complete game though, so all that's forgivable.


The Final Fantasy memory games were fantastic as well. Simplistic, like megalomania, and it was perfect the way it was. I enjoyed DX a little more, naturally; and I had been wanting to hear music with it in the original version, and I must say it really did help in DX, along with other enhancements.

BlackJack OHR was just cool, and although I could've used a little more motivation than rent money, it was a clever game tactic.


If your game wasn't mentioned, don't be offended. First of all) you tried second) you tried and third) you tried.


I'm glad I got the opportunity to judge. Next time, I'll know what to expect. Thank you for your attention.
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SACRE BLEU!

|||Compositions!
|||Eldardeen Soundtrack!
|||Red Mercury!

[Iblis]

[Ysoft_Entertainment]

Reflecting back on the contest, I wish I had released more games(well mini games to be exact). I started making blackjack ohr before I made the memory games, and finished it on the last day of the contest. What I should have done was finish blackjack ohr before starting anything else, that would have given me more time to work on other games.

I didn't really want to make a full rpg game because it requires good amount of planning.

Also next time I won't wait till the very end of the contest to start working on games. Procrastination is evil, so don't use it!
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Try my OHR exporter/importer.
OHRGFX
Striving to become better pixel artist then Fenrir Lunaris. Unfortunately the laziness gets in the way of my goals.

[Camdog]

[Battleblaze]

I just Finished the ritual and now I'm abit depressed. It was like an episode of the twilight zone or a dystopian sci-fi novella.

Art, to beat the game make sure you use the awsome skill poitn system and keep upping you're strenth the only thing that really matters. Make sure you buyt he latest equipment and look around dungeons for items (Holy Sheild)(Goblin Sword) after awhile things get retardedly easy.

I feel empty..yet full. Ritual was definalt a plot driven experience. The graphics ranged from terrible to average and that turned me off a bit. But due to time constrain I'm happy that it was full game and not a demo.
But overall its definatly a game worth the time. Alternate endings would make it even more interesting I think.

Kudos on makign an OHR game I actaully finished and enjoyed and thought more about after I was done. Perfect short story plot. Plotscripting pretty spiff with only a few hiccups. Graphics *grunt of concern*
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Indy OHR! and National OHR Month Contest going on now!

"Aeth calls PHC an anti-semite; PHC blames anti-semitism"
-squall

[Moogle1]