Topic: Suggestions for competitions and activities

[Andail]

Got a neat idea for a new activity or competition? Post a description of it here, and await approval from the moderators.
Check here http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=5477.0 to check whether your concept does not already exist, or is currently resting.

Include in your post:
* Title of activity
* A thorough description of its concept and purpose (educational or entertaining?)
* Periodicity (how long each round will be and how often it will occur)
* Type of competition: Will there be a winner, who will elect the winner (if there is a vote, how long will voting go on)
* Thread administrator: Will the activity/competition be maintained by the winner of the previous round, or by the same person every time?

You can also post here if you have comments or suggestions regarding the rules of already existing competitions or activities.

[Mordalles]

well, this is something i saw on the cgtalk forums, and quite enjoyed watching.

sprite battles.
purpose: entertainment.
administrator: not sure.


there are 2 versions that i saw:

1. background version:

- one guy starts off by doing something on the background (eg320x200), eg he draws a castle.
- then the second guy draws something to counter the first guy's sprite, eg, he draws an invading army with catapults thats attacking the castle.
- then the 1st guy again counters with, eg a force field.
- this continues until the background is filled and no more space left.
- you are allowed to alter the other guy's drawing a bit to make your own work.
- in the end it will come down to voting who added the best ideas.
-  2 can take part, or many more. everyone can take part in this one.
- period: till the background is filled.

2. character/object version

- two members compete against each other.
- both of them design their own unique sprite
- then, these two sprites are in war against each other.
- the first guy draws the sprite of how his character attacks the other character
- then the other member must counter the attack with his character,
- anything goes. creativity is key.
- again, voting will decide.
-period:depends, if you run out of ideas, the comp is over.

these things are really fun to watch and follow how the picture/battle evolve.
although, im not sure if this will work here.
anyway, its just a thought. 
would probably also not work as a weekly thing, more as once every few months or something..

[KristjanMan]

I had an idea reletad to RON movies....
Movies created with AGS!!
I think title may be Movie competition.
Anyway here is the idea...

The host will supply a theme for a movie, maybe a max or min lenght for it and sets the lenght for the competition (should not exeed 2 months or be less than a week). Winner will be voted voting is for 3 days. The winner will start the next one. If someone want they can create throphy for this competition so everytime someone wins he/she can add throphy in his/her signature. ( Thropy will always be the same i would have maken it but I'm not that good artist but i visioned the oscar holding a blue cup).

Thats it.
TY for reading.

[Ishmael]

Thanks Mordalles for refreshening my memory. I had this spinning in my head for quite a while, but then I gave it a little rest and almost forgot it...

I thought of an activity where someone supplies a simple picture, and then people add something to that picture. Just one thing per person at a time, the things not having to relate to each other, just that it fits into the picture. A bit like the MSPaint game works, but drawing into the same picture with no set theme. Much like Mordalles' first idea, I know.

This kind of thing could also get out of hand very easily, so it should be quite strictly moderated, in my opinion. Not that the idea would make it through anyway.

[skw]

Mordalles,

although, I'm not sure if this will work here.

So... where does it work fine? If there`s such place, please link it, I`d like to see it in practice.

I like the idea, but in overall it`s a little too messy. I don`t also know if there will be enough people to follow the restrictions. Generally, we have too many competitions which are in "almost dead" stance.

[Mordalles]

i couldnt find the amazing background one, but i did find these:

http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=256950&highlight=nebezial
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=259672&highlight=nebezial
http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?t=242860&highlight=mini-challenge

there are lots more of the threads, but not sure what to search for, so i can't find them all. it is a bit messy, but its just an idea.

[Nacho]

Ok... I had an idea, I don't know if it is good, but as this post has specifically created for posting ideas, I don't think this could bother anybody...

"THE TRAVELLING BACKGROUND"

The idea is to make a competition involving all the processes involving the act of making a background, divided into:

-Sketch. A topic is provided an all the competitors make a sketch, a pencil sketch or a two-bit file. The best one wins, and OVER the BASE of WINNER sketch we advance to step 2. The host of the competition decides the restrictions, and who has made the best sketch. The winner hosts the next step.In the same thread all the non-winners entries are deleted and we go into step 2. The winner does not have the opportunity to enter in this activity till the next round. One week of time to complete it all.

-Step 2. Coloring. Now this activity is based in coloring, having special care in choosing the appropiate pallete to roughly colour the sketch. There's no need at all to put effort in detailing effects, shading, dithering or something... We want a "colour test" in a Yathzee's style... See "The Shivah" in GiP as a good example of what I mean. The author of the sketch where people is working decides the winner and the restrictions but it is a pallete making activity, it should be sensible to use a limited colours for this... maybe 50? Dunno. The winner hosts the next step. One week to work, submit the entries, and decide the winner.

Example:


Coutesy of dr. Scary. 

-Step 3. Final step: Now it's the time to shoot all the artillery! With the coloured sketch and the winner pallete, do everything you want to make the better BG, even expanding the tones of the colour to reach 256, and adding tons of objects. The winner is decided by votation, one week for making and submitting the entries and one of voting. The winner of this last step hosts the next activity.

So, we have a good example of how to make a BG... I think it could be instructive, and not too messy, because the non winner entries should be deleted, and at the end we could only see 3 entries, showing 3 stepts to make a good BG.

[Afflict]

I think that all these ideas will have some people interested and get people ot do them from time to time.

Heres an idea...

A hosting person will supply a basic room sprite or even just a character sprite...

What will then happen is that people will add more enviroment objects and characters to the scene...

A general theme can be selected. This winner will simply be the best atmospheric and creative entry.

[Mordalles]

i like farlander's idea, because that is a good way to improve your own background techniques. i myself suck at backgrounds, and think something like that would help me immensely.

[Andail]

News:
We have decided not to treat any new suggestions until the voting and the cleaning up is over with. Feel free to discuss current competitions and activities in the mean time.

[Nacho]

Thanks Mordalles...

[Ali]

Just a couple of thoughts on the existing contests.

Photoshop Biweekly-
Interest has waned somewhat since DGMacphee handed it over to some loser who turned it into a regular winner-hosts-the-next contest. Ahem...

Like some of the less popular contests it often has good challenges, but few entries. Extending its length to a fortnight has helped, but I'd like to see it revitalised a little more.

Perhaps the host should provide at least one image which must be integrated into the entries. Or perhaps we could consider a photoshop-off to choose another regular host.


Coloring Contest-
This has been a bit of a mess, and is at the moment treading on the toes of the sprite jam. If it was renamed the Paintover Contest and didn't require a theme it might be fun. AGSers are always keen to paint-over work in the critics lounge. This would be an opportunity to do the same, but to subversive or comic effect.

I don't think it should be restricted to sprites either, any 2D line art ought to be submissible. I'll admit that this is close to the 'Sketch to Functional Background' contest but that doesn't seem to be running at the moment.

The other advantage of the name Paintover Contest, is that it wouldn't include the US spelling of 'colour'.

[Matt Goble]

AGS ANNUAL COVER COMPETITION

(Copy and Pasted from the topic running in Adventure-Related Chat (See my Sig)).

The back of the case will included a list of the content of the disc, while the spine will match last year's annual, so entries should be limited to the front, which has a dimension of:

1536x2175 pixels (wxh)

Entries should be supplied as either TIFFs, PNGs or JPEGs (the less compression the better), and emailed to me:

mattgoble is my username, gmail is my account.  Hope that makes sense 

Below is a link to last year's artwork (Not the greatest, I know, but a last minute, late night attempt by yours truly)



What does the winner get?

Whether the 'winner' is coming to either Brittens or Mittens or not, I will send them a final copy of the annual, along with any other 'goodies' I can think of.

[Phemar]

Ok I copied and pasted this from the monthly writng thread:

Just to raise a question, how many people feel that the writing competition is too long? Maybe we should reduce it to something like a bi-weekly competition? One week for entries and the next for voting and admin?

I mean, I feel that the competition takes place over WAAAAY too much time, and everybody had their entry in within 3 days anyway.

Just a thought, tell me you may think!

(I mean, just adding here, I may enter a lot more often if there were more topics to choose from. Waiting a month for a topic change because the current one doesn't really appeal to you is not very nice )

Anyway, tell me your thoughts!

[voh]

No. I disagree. The Aesop's fable is an example in your favour, but most of the ones before it had people entering a day before the deadline. If you make the writing competitions only a week, you'll see less people entering who need to spend time on their writing. I write fairly quickly, but for one of my first compo's I spent 2 weeks chafing away at my entry before submitting it.

Writing often can't be forced, and forcing people to write within a week would be a silly thing. Limiting it to 3 weeks would probably be a wise decision, or maybe 2 weeks, but that's still a bit iffy.

[Gilbert]

I disagree also, I don't think writting activity should be made that frequently. If it's just short paragraphs like hiakus or poems (well poem competition was proven a failure here, one strong problem was that it's obviously a no no for those who're not fluent in the English language; while not everyone has artistic skill, the graphics and music etc. activities are different stories, as they can still attract attrendances from all over the world) it may be okay, but not when it's some short story (even if it's short story).

Moreover, if writting competitions are held too often it's more like school homeworks, which can reduce the interest of people and may even be a cause of th activities' deaths.

[voh]

I like the writing contests because I have time enough to see if inspiration strikes. I also have time to start a story, scrap it, and start over.

In a week, I'd have to go with the first story, even though I'd hate it

[DeadSuperHero]

The Junkard Game

A few teams are formed by regulars on the AGS forums.
Basically, I post a basic plot of the game, which is pretty basic, along with a bunch of random screenshots from classic games.
I also name the style of sprites, which could be anything.
Then, the teams have 15 days to make a game using background textures only from the screenshots, no where else.
After that, we vote, and the game gets featured as a Junkyard Game.

Well, what do you think?

EDIT:

News:
We have decided not to treat any new suggestions until the voting and the cleaning up is over with. Feel free to discuss current competitions and activities in the mean time.

Shoot...

[KristjanMan]

That's a great idea alliance!

[Gilbert]

Well it sounds a bit just like the AGS Team Challenge activities, which never work properly.