Castle Paradox

[Pepsi Ranger]

Before I get started here, I’d like to let you know that this post is addressing three parts: Epic Marathon 4, Notable Contests of the Past, and Personal Opinions from the Creators. So if you discuss any of these, you’ll still be on topic.

The Epic Marathon 4 Discussion:

First of all, I know I normally announce this contest at least a month or two in advance. As you’ve figured out by now: that just wasn’t possible this year given the nature of the subject. But now that the first week of Epic Marathon 4 has passed, I guess this is a fair time to make the official announcement. Of course, you already know it’s here, and hopefully some of you have been thinking about entering, but I still want to make it official. Epic Marathon 4 started June 1 and will continue on through August 7.

Which brings me to my main question: do you (the community) still like the idea of Epic Marathon around here?

This is a tricky question for me to ask because I personally appreciate the concept behind it—everybody creates an installment to fit into a greater work. It’s the only thing we have right now that can extend the life of a single idea into many, many hours of play. It’s the only thing we have right now that allows a singular idea to be interpreted any number of ways, bringing about the question, “who of us makes the best director?”

But I’m still asking because Epic Marathon has this unintentional bad habit of launching at the same time that ten other contests happen to pop up, and thus gets lost in the crowd. I never plan it that way, of course. It just seems that whenever I have a start date in mind, the rest of the community has the same date in mind to launch their contests. The end result, therefore, is that months of planning get washed in a tide of random “hey, I have an idea!” announcements, and it soon becomes forgotten. So I’m not sure if it’s ever getting its fair chance.

So, I know I ask this every year, but I think it’s a good idea to gauge the health of a recurring contest, so I’ll gauge the health of this one: is Epic Marathon still a welcome lineup to this community’s list of repeats, or has it exhausted its stay?

The answers given won’t change the status of the current installment (Who Shot Bob the Hamster?), but it’ll help me decide what to do, if anything, about the next one.

Plus, like I said in the opening, I want to give you all a fair chance to digest the contest, now that the surprise is over.

Notable Contests of the Past:

Now, speaking about the health of contests, I think it’s time that we (as a community) discuss the contests of OHR past that we think work or have worked, and the ones that we’d like to see return again. We can also discuss the ones that we don’t care for if we want.

The Ones I Like:

Note: I’m not gonna list Epic Marathon in my list of favorites for the simple fact that it’s my contest, and mentioning it here would be like cheating.

1. The 48 Hour Contest

Personally, I think this is the best contest we have. Most of the time it’s versatile, giving creators a chance to make the game they want within very loose boundaries. It challenges them to prioritize their time, which most of us have yet to master it seems. The short window of creation time allows most contestants to get their game over with and still have time the rest of the week to do something else. It capitalizes on the college tradition of cramming the night before for a major exam, which many of us can empathize with. Plus, it’s just a fun exercise in complete madness for the authors, and probably the only contest that’s just as much fun for the players come the end of the weekend. Even though I haven’t made it all the way through one of these since 2001, it’s still a contest I like to see return year after year.

2. The Human Day Contest

I think Human Day is a terrible excuse for a holiday, as it bastardizes a sacred holiday of the same day that’s already been bastardized by commercialism. But the contest that initiates it is brilliant in my opinion. This contest demands the deepest exploration of creativity and intellect for game design than any other contest in our lineup, and thus proves one of the greatest challenges. It also has a rich history of judging on an insanely steep grading curve, which ultimately increases the challenge into something maddening, where part of the challenge is just to make sure your game is even eligible. And the feuds about prizes at the end of the contest are priceless. I love this contest.

3. The Halloween Contest

Again, we have a contest that falls on the heels of a holiday that I’m not particularly crazy about. But something about the middle of fall, with the evenings starting earlier and the weather getting cooler, just makes waiting for this contest a little like waiting for a bag of candy. Perhaps it’s the fact that none of the entries ever take place in medieval Japan that captures me. Or maybe it’s just the idea that designers throw out all their technical tricks to make it unique that I like. But the end result rarely disappoints me, and so it falls into my Top 3 favorites.

The Ones I Don’t:

1. Terrible Games Contest

I’m actually split on this contest. On the one hand, I appreciate the fun that it allows the designers to have as they create something completely absurd. Sometimes a game’s author will take it too seriously and end up having no fun designing something that should be about fun. For that I give this contest its deserved kudos. On the other hand, most of the products to spawn from it are no fun for the players. And when the contest is over, the only people left to clean up the mess are the players. So it has a season of joy, but spends its afterlife in torment.

2. 528 Hour Contest

I don’t have a problem with this contest per se. I just don’t think there’s anything particularly wonderful about it. It essentially borrows the idea of the 48 Hour contest, but extends it to 22 days. On the surface it sounds like a great idea—give the people more time to make their game, and thus, more time to fit in all the crap that they can’t fit in two days. But it also forgets that the more time people think they have, the less time they actually give to the contest, and thus the entries fall apart during the 11th hour. This is actually the big problem with most contests longer than 48 hours, but this is the only one that doesn’t really offer any additional characteristics (that I can recall anyway) to make it a standout.

And that’s my short list. I don’t have much recollection for the millions of other contests to come in go in the seven years that I’ve been hanging around. But for those with a stronger memory, I welcome your thoughts. Maybe you can encourage that shy one-hit wonder to come back out of hiding and initiate his sequel.

Personal Opinions from the Creators:

The third section of this post is reserved for contest creators past, present, and future who feel like talking about their contests. You can discuss how the idea started, any reservations you had about launching it, things you’ve learned from each installment, etc. Pretty much anything you ever wanted to say, this is the place to do it. I’ll write my history lesson about Epic Marathon in a separate post sometime after this discussion gets rolling. For now, I’ll let you all begin your chatter as this post is reaching its attention span limit.
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The Adventures of Powerstick Man: Extended Edition

Currently Updating: General sweep of the game world and dialogue boxes. Adding extended maps.

Tightfloss Maiden

Currently Updating: Chapter 2

[Moogle1]

EGC: I've enjoyed every single one of these and have participated in a couple myself. Unless the mood really hits, however, I can't see myself participating in this one, not because it's any less well-designed than the others but simply because I find myself with less time. As half the fun of any good contest is playing its games, I hope the contest does well without my participation.

48hr: These contests produce some of the most awesome games. I've only ever taken part in one of them, usually because it's hard to dedicate the required time. The one 48hr game I made was awful. This is a staple of OHR tradition and deserves its perennial resurrection.

Human Day: Despite my participation in the majority of these, I don't really care for this contest. I'm still owed prizes; maybe that's a partial cause.

Halloween: Does this contest even officially exist anymore?

TGC: This produces a lot of unplayable crap, true. However, the winners have always been the funniest, quirkiest, or funnest entries. If you don't like this contest, you've been playing the wrong games.

528: There have only been two or three of these, right? The week-long contest is more popular and serves as an attractive alternative to the 48hr contest for those of us on tight schedules.
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Slime Salad :: Independent Game Design

[Iblis]

I think that the best contest idea is the Gameathon which Moogle hosted last year, but it was poorly timed. It was right at the end of the school year which I think contributed to the low turnout (though, obviously low community activity in general was a factor).

The Human Day contest is an interesting idea, I think its way of handling a contest theme is better than the 48 hour contest, where the Human Day contest theme might be just one word the 48 hour contest tends to specify a bunch of plot details, which often don't appeal to me. However, the last few HD contests have had themes I couldn't really get interested in either.

The 48 hour contest is a good one I think, even if the themes are usually too specific and constraining. I can understand how providing entrants with ready-made story details makes it easier on them, since they don't have to come up with the whole story on their own, but it can also drive people away if they think the theme isn't interesting. This new 48 hour contest seems like a neat idea, hopefully the following weeks will do better.

Although the TGC has produced a few great games, I think the contest is really a pretty bad idea. Mainly because of the name. There are a few people who make games that are weird and annoying and experimental, but that are still interesting and that you might want to play more than once. But then most people just throw some crap together that's intentionally bad but that's bland and uninteresting. An "Experimental Games Contest" would be a better idea, I think.
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Locked
OHR Piano

[FyreWulff]

There should be a 'standing agreement' that for the entirety of 2008, contests are banned.

Right now the OHR community is at an all time low in population, and contests will just split up and an all productivity leading into that year. It's barely supporting two contests, let alone 3. This way nobody has to worry about "preparing" for any contests, nor anybody having to worry about putting one together. What i would like to see return next year is people posting new demoes of their games every month like the old days.

[TMC]

At 2 months, isn't this EGC shorter than the others? I've always perceived this contest as requiring more time and effort than any other. If only because the original had hundreds of posts in the announcement thread and I couldn't figure out what was going on.