Castle Paradox

[Pepsi Ranger]

Well, it's that time of year again. Time to roast marshmallows? Maybe. Time to play football? Probably. But more specifically it's time to get caught up on our favorite television shows. And, incidentally, it's also time to return to the world of Epic Marathon.

But this year, something has changed. This year Epic Marathon is trying, yet again, something new. This year, to make up for all the random contest schedules it's had in the past, and to make up for the fact that "annual" has become "whenever," I am releasing this year's contest with another.

Yes, this year we will be having TWO Epic Marathons.

But to keep from overwhelming you, I'll wait to release the details of Epic Marathon 6 until next month.

For now, let's focus on Number 5.

Fifth Annual Epic Marathon Contest

Rules

Table of Contents:

Mission Statement
Purpose
Method of Madness
Rules of the Game
Scoring
Contest Dates and Deadlines
Prizes
Story Elements
Design Mission Objectives

Mission Statement:

The Epic Marathon Contest is the reasonably yearly effort to create a community-based series of games that build in accord with each other as an epic, rather than separately as individual microcosms.

Purpose:

Too often community members produce games that only go so far before the story line completes itself or dies in the making. For those who manage to finish a project, only a few make the decision to expand the game’s universe to include more characters, locations, and situations to enhance the experience. Even then the creator will rarely take the sequel to promising heights.

The Epic Marathon picks up where the origin leaves off. Sometimes it means expanding an existing game. Other times it means creating a chain of games from scratch. Regardless of the subject, the Epic Marathon Contest promises to tie all game entries into each other to form a singular but ongoing epic that conforms to the main story as best as each designer’s imagination and collaboration skills allow.

This year, contestants will create television episodes for a network called the OBC Network.

Method of Madness:

Each contestant will either create a fresh story or build on an existing one and make a series of OHR movies out of it. Whether he or she makes a reality show like OHR House or a sitcom or cop drama, it doesn’t matter. The idea is to create a season’s worth of content to entertain viewers and to be the best creative talent while doing it.

To fit the contest, the games must be made in one of three styles: OHR movie, Youtube video, or screenplay. Graphic novels will not be accepted as entries.

Rules of the Game:

I am fairly lenient when it comes to contest games, so I don’t hold to many of the restrictions that other contest creators hold. However, some rules must apply to keep this contest running smoothly, so I will outline them here.

1. For this year only, the primary rule of subtitles will be dismissed. New games (anything not related to OHR House) should at least have “For the OBC Network” written in its about line, but I won’t impose any penalties if it’s not. Youtube videos and screenplays can list the name in their opening scenes if the author wants to, but again, it’s not a requirement this time.

2. Each major element of the game must be credited to someone (graphics, music, story, and plotscripting). I will allow ripping, but the source of the rip must be recognized. You don’t have to credit every individual tile specifically, but you must state that graphics were ripped from Final Fantasy, Chrono Trigger, or whatever other game you might choose to rip from. Same applies to music. Music from a commercial game can be credited as a whole, rather than by individual tracks. Only specific songs must be credited specifically (i.e. Sting—“Desert Rose”). Anything ripped from public domain sources only need to be credited as public domain. You may NOT rip graphics or music from other OHR games without the author’s permission. Violations will result in immediate disqualification.

3. The game release paradigm has also changed since last year’s contest. One of the staples of the Epic Marathon contest since its inception in 2002 was to keep an entry a secret until the deadline, sharing only certain details to keep one game in cohesion with another. However, because this year requires games to be presented as a series of short episodes forming a season’s worth of content, installments can be released as they’re finished.

4. Anybody can work on any game. One contestant may collaborate on two games, two contestants may collaborate on one game, or all contestants may collaborate on all games. It doesn’t really matter. The stipulation is that only one contestant may take official ownership of the game. Everybody else will be counted as “collaborators.”

5. Consistency is only relevant to a game’s specific content. While the three OHR Houses all tie into each other by name, I don’t expect other titles to do the same. Again, the binding thread here is that all the games must be presented as a season’s worth of short episodes based around some story the author chooses.

6. Entries must have an ending. Contestants are not required to complete the entire game as the story intends, but there must be a defined point where the program ends. Do not submit a game that hangs (leaving the player wondering if there’s anything else to do). There must be a working “game over” script implemented in the last playable area, and it should ideally show up at the end of a completed game, or at least at the end of a completed act. Please do not end the game in the middle of a scene. That would be inconsiderate to the players. (Note: this is a staple rule. I don’t suspect to have this problem with this year’s entries.)

7. Epic Marathon, though preferably made with the OHR, doesn’t have to be exclusive to it. Providing the contestant can finish the game within the time allotted, he or she can use the game engine of his choice.

8. Specific to this year’s contest only, a contestant may submit the continuation of a game he’s already released to the public if it means turning the game into a series. This means OHR House, OHR House: Heroes, OHR House Kitty, I Made Dis, or anything that’s minimal or absent of gameplay can be submitted as a game entry if new episodes are included. The condition is that the new episodes must be selectable from a main menu like those found in the OHR House games.

9. For a game, Youtube video, or screenplay to be eligible, it must have a minimum of two episodes and at least one of those episodes has to be released during the contest period.

Scoring:

This year, the scoring will have two phases: the overall score and the episodic score.

The Overall Score:

Games and movies will be rated on a traditional judging system. However, each contestant will have the opportunity to add or subtract points from his or her overall score.

The judging phase will be based on a Top 10 system. If there are ten or more games submitted in the contest, then only the ten favorites must be accounted for in the judging. If there are fewer than ten entries, then all the games must be accounted for. The top rated game in a voter’s Top 10 list will receive ten points, the second will receive nine, the third eight, etc. until there are no more games to give points to.

A game that shows up in its “owner’s” Top 10 will be rated according to how it stands in other judges’ Top 10s. For example, if the owner (Fred) honestly believes his game deserves the No. 3 spot, then other voters must also agree that it deserves the No. 3 spot (at the very least) to garner points. The way this works is that for every voter that votes Fred’s game into the Top 3, Fred will earn a point toward his position maximum. Since the No. 3 spot is worth eight points, Fred must have at least eight voters (including himself) place his game into their third spot (or better) to get the full value. If Fred votes his game into the No. 3 spot, but only two people agree with him, then he will only get three points for his game on his list (one point for each voter including himself). If Fred votes his game in the No. 7 spot (which is worth three points), then he only needs himself and two others to vote for his game in the Top 7 to get the full value of that position. Regardless of where the contestant votes his game, he will gain at least one point (or whatever the point minimum will be) toward his overall score. The minimum point value will depend on how many games are entered. The contestant’s vote will always be worth the minimum.

Additional scores will be awarded under design incentives (including the one that was released a month ago about restoring old Epic Marathon contest games). Contestants will also be awarded an additional ten points for contributing as collaborators to the winning game (which has the possibility of swinging the winning game in the collaborator’s favor).

Points will be deducted for violations of certain rules. The following list will show the point deduction for violating the rules listed above:

Rule #2a: Failure to give proper credit for each major design element (graphics, music, story, and plotscripting)
Penalty — 50 points

Rule #2b: Ripping graphics or music from another OHR game without permission
Penalty — Instant disqualification

Rule #6: Failure to properly end the game with a “game over” script (leaving the game hanging)
Penalty — 100 points

Rule #8: Failure to include an episode select screen. This rule only applies to new games or old games with more than one episode. Youtube videos and screenplays are exempt.
Penalty — 20 points

The Episodic Score:

Some shows already have a cult following with several episodes under their belts, so it would be unfair to pit smaller shows against them without some sort of justice. Therefore, I am also implementing an episodic score. This score will not suffer the penalties that the overall score can suffer, so it’s the best place to rack up the points.

The scoring works exactly how it sounds: voters will vote for their favorite episodes each month through the traditional voting system and the points will go toward each author’s overall score.

Contest Dates and Deadlines:

Since this is supposed to resemble a season of television, the contest will last throughout the entire 2008-2009 television season.

It begins September 25 to coincide with The Office’s season premier (and My Name is Earl and 30 Rock) so you better get started. Only episodes released on or after this date are eligible.

November 1 - June 1 (monthly) — Episodic judging. Each round lasts a few days (I may balloon this to an ongoing vote if the first few days each month turns up nothing).

May 31 — Contest officially ends. All shows must be submitted by the end of the day (in your own time zones). No episode will be accepted after 6am June 1st EST.

Note: Due to the nature of the contest, there will be no extensions or bugfix periods this year.

June 7 — Judging for the overall series begins.

June 25 — Judging ends. Results will be posted sometime afterward.

Prizes:

A prize will be awarded to the first-place winner. Judging by my own luck with the mainstream publishing world, this will either be an awesome prize or a really crappy one. Essentially, the winner will have the opportunity to have the game of his choice (it has to be his own) played by the main character of an upcoming novel. This will mean not only exposure for the author’s game to an untapped audience, but exposure for the OHR itself (if a publisher buys it and people read it). Of course, this has the potential to go absolutely nowhere, but I’m not ready to submit to that, so plan on having your game exposed to an audience of ten thousand or more without going through a Brazilian website.

Remember, only one person may claim ownership to an entry. That person will be the winner of the prize. Contributors to the winning game may receive ten points to the overall score of the entries that they own (potentially changing the winner), but will not share in the final prize (unless the winner chooses something that he or she is able to share).

In the event of a contributor taking the lead through the ten-point spike, his or her potential contributors will not be awarded additional points for their entries.

In the event of a tie, each winner must write an essay of 250 words or less why he or she thinks his game is the better of the two (or three, etc.). I will judge which essay is the most convincing (with two other judges giving second and third opinions for objectivity) and award the prize to the last man standing.

Story Elements

Official Game Title:
The OBC Network

Special Notes:
Since this is about anything, you can make anything. But since there are already enough reality style shows in OHR land, a sitcom or thriller or anything else would be nice.

Design Mission Objectives:

The design mission objectives are a series of options a designer can take to enhance the experience of playing the game, as well as to make a game out of the design process itself.

Typically, the incentive for taking design mission objectives is to increase your overall score in the judging. For this contest, a designer will receive an additional 10 points to his overall score for each design mission he or she implements (up to three).

Mission #1: What’s a television show without a cast of characters? Create an opening title sequence with the names of your actors (or characters as actors) superimposed over their portraits, and maybe layer it with some action from the show.

Mission #2: Create a scene where the main character(s) haggle with a door-to-door pizza deliveryman.

Mission #3: For a sitcom, introduce a crazy landlord who thinks the main character is gay. For a domestic drama (or soap opera), have the lead female give birth to sextuplets and sell five of the children to another television show. For a police drama (leftover from last year’s design mission #3) include a mad scientist as a forensic specialist—his babble should lead to something genius, but it should still come out like babble (this can work for 24 style thrillers and science fiction shows, too). For a reality or game show, turn a famous out-of-work child star into a contestant.

Mission #4: Interrupt the episode with a commercial for another game or project.

Mission #5: Make your characters afraid of the coming of the Werewaffle.

Mission #6: Implement voice acting or a catchy theme song to your main credits (as long as it’s not “the Incredible Mikey T”).

Mission #7: Advertise at least three real life products within the context of your story (the more insane the product, the better—but it must be something I can actually go to Publix or some real life establishment to buy).

Mission #8: Create an OBC Network logo to flash at the start of your main episode (you can do this for all episodes for continuity, but you only need to do it for one to get the points).

Note: Designers will be encouraged to include supplemental materials with the game file, including story documents (a word document outlining any back story or design element that might not be apparent within the game, or a written account of the game itself), graphic documents (pictures of your favorite characters), timelines (how the character reached his status as hero), music files (songs about your representation of the character), or anything else you can think of to enhance the game experience. Supplemental materials will be awarded 10 points each, up to 30 points total, and will go toward individual episodes, not the series as a whole. So, if you make eight episodes for a show and accumulate 30 points per episode, you can tack 240 points onto your final score!

And don’t forget, there’s still an opportunity to gain an additional 50 points for making or refurbishing a game from one of the first four Epic Marathon contests.

Last Thoughts:

Remember the contest starts September 25, but I encourage you to start building your episodes now so that we can launch the season with actual content. You can make as many episodes as you’d like (more episodes increases your chances of winning). Just be sure to post your season finale by May 31. Also, outline your design missions in a separate text file just so the judges (and I) know what to look for (do this for each episode). And have fun. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask.
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Progress Report:

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

[Pepsi Ranger]

Just a reminder that Epic Marathon 5: The OBC Network officially begins today. Any episodic game released between now and May 31 will be considered for this contest.

Also, I wanted to say a couple things in regard to Epic Marathon 6 and the future of the contest as a whole.

When I envisioned the Magnus Sequel Marathon (the first Epic Marathon) six years ago, my intention was to create something that was unlike any other contest to hit the community so far. I wanted something that everyone would have fun doing. I wanted something that was different, something that separated itself from every other carbon-copied contest that gets thrown our way. The first incarnation of Epic Marathon was praised for doing just that (even if the subject was controversial).

I tried to keep that uniqueness going for each incarnation to come along since.

Sometimes that meant varying the content a little. I think the Magnus and Who Shot Bob the Hamster? contests did that the best. Often times that meant altering the structure of things to keep contestants from getting bored year after year. That was the whole point behind the layered scoring system. Every time that meant trying something a little different—a little something that might’ve required explanation.

And yet, when I post these explanations, people start to cringe. Why? Because they have to spend five minutes of their lives reading it—five minutes they could’ve spent writing “lelelele,” “lol,” or “narf” in someone else’s post.

And now I’m reaching the painful reality that some people are actually refusing to participate because they think there’s too much to read here.

What?

Here’s the thing:

Several contests have tried to be unique in the last six years. And they each had their own set of rules to keep things moving smoothly. Some great contests were simple enough to keep the rules short (8-Bit Contest). Other great contests were a bit more complicated and needed further explanation (Evil Spock). They all posted what they needed to, to get their objectives across.

Epic Marathon does the same. It doesn’t try to skimp on details to coddle its readers. It only outlines the things that matter to the structure of the contest including story points, story-specific rules, penalties for breaking the rules, and scoring incentives like the Design Mission Objectives. And that requires a few pages of explanation. Instruction manuals for video games are often guilty of the same thing.

But now people are begging me to shorten the rules because they can’t be bothered to read more than a page’s worth of information.

And that disheartens me.

The one thing I always believed about Epic Marathon was that the moment it became just another contest with the same boring design system of “introduce poorly thought-out theme, impose tight time limit, make game, vote for favorite a week later, keep it OHR-related” that many contests seem to have around here—which usually comes down to basic wash, repeat instructions that you can tack onto any contest—was the moment I’d have to kill it off. And shortening the rules makes the risk for watering down the contest into such a bland experience very high.

But, guess what?

I’m gonna give in to reader demands because I’m tired of hearing the complaints.

But here’s how it’s going to work:

First off, I’m postponing the release of Epic Marathon 6 until January 2009. This is partly in response to all the negative criticism going into the current contest. It’s also partly due to the fact that it won’t need the same kind of timeframe that Epic Marathon 5 has. So that’s that.

Secondly, when I do post the rules for it, I’m gonna trim it down to a single page to appease those who think the rules are too long.

And if for any reason that means taking out just enough details to turn this into a carbon copy of every other contest to hit the OHR, then I will not only cancel the current Epic Marathons, but all future ones as well.

And that’ll be a shame because I have some really cool stuff planned out for the future (especially for 7).

Now, I don’t want it to come to this. But if I get any more complaints about the length of the rules, then it will come to this. And if I shorten it, and then have to answer a bunch of questions related to things I had to omit, then it will come to this.

The rules are what they are for a reason. I’ve said it time and again that if you’re a veteran you can just read the parts that are different from the last contest. If you’re new to this, then the rules outline everything you’d need to know so you don’t have to pester me with questions that could’ve been addressed ahead of time.

But if shortened rules are what you want—if that’s what it’s gonna take to get you to participate (or at least consider participating)—then I will shorten them come EM6. Just be ready for the results if this blows up.

So now I ask you, do you want the one-page version for the next one? Or can I make the contest the way I intended it?
_________________
Progress Report:

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

[Calehay]

Short answer:

Do what you want. It's your contest.

I personally don't mind reading the rules, long as they may be. They are very informative. I think you're over-reacting to the "negative criticisms" you've heard.
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Calehay

[Chenzi]

Eh. No hard feelings or rage implied or anything, but I figured you'd like to hear some of the actual reasons why some people didn't sign up.

When I saw the announcement for the epic marathon (not the post, just the announcement), I got excited. I remembered the original Magnus contest and how well it turned out, and I thought "hey, maybe I should get back into the contest scene".

Before reading the post, I had some things already set in my head, that you did not necessarily have any control over.

1. A lot of people would be participating.

2. The rules had been predefined through the previous years of running the contest.

3. The topic of the series of games would be something that would make an epic series of games enjoyable to play.

I read through the rules, everything seemed fine and dandy -- until I read the topic of this years contest.

"Reality show? WTF".

Then I read the "extra bonus points". They were very specified, almost creating the game before it was even made.

I figured I'd wait to see if there was already a large calling of people going to participate. Sadly, I didn't see one measly post in this whole forum.

You know what though? That's not your fault. It's the CP userbases fault. They don't give a flying fuck about anything. It's nearly impossible to surprise, impress, or even get a "lol good job!" out of anyone. So don't fret about that.

In short, you did nothing wrong with this contest, other than picking an idea that may have been a bit too original for a lot of peoples taste. Maybe try something generic? It might get a larger participant count than the last few years.

tl;dr, I tell mah story.
_________________
Allow me to preemptively disclose that I probably hate the person posting below, including myself.

[Pepsi Ranger]

Just letting everyone who reads Castle Paradox and not Slime Salad know that there's a condensed version of the rules over there in the post with the same name. This one is more thorough, though, so if you need the rules explained better, read the one here.

Assuming the condensed version works out, I'll experiment with using two versions of the rules in the future for those who still need things explained.

Chenzi:

I appreciate the consolation. I'm actually over the disappointment now, so no worries.

Just to clarify, it's not about reality shows (in fact, I made this contest to steer away from them). It's about episodic story lines within a single game, like watching a season of television on DVD or playing a season of Sam & Max on the PC. I just left the info about the OHR House games in there to remind the creators of those shows that they're eligible for votes this year.

But if you want to get in on the contest bandwagon this year, I'm open to anything that comes with two or more parts. What you actually make is up to you.
_________________
Progress Report:

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

[Chenzi]

Well, in the "missions" you (possibly not intentionally) suggested that each "episode" be a "sitcom", "romance", or other stereotypical show types.

Sorry if I'm not making much sense, I'm pretty doped up.
_________________
Allow me to preemptively disclose that I probably hate the person posting below, including myself.