Suggestions for competitions and activities

Andail · Sat 09/12/2006 15:21:57

Ok, not enough attention is bad wording. The case is that we performed a public vote to determine the top 7 activities/competition, and the colouring ball didn't really get that many votes, simple as that.
If people liked it that much, why did they not vote for it?

MashPotato · Sat 09/12/2006 15:43:37

At the time of voting, the Colouring ball had only been held once before and it hadn't gone so well (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=27078.0), so no one knew what the competition was actually about. I think if the voting had been held a few weeks later, there would have appeared to be much greater interest.

Nikolas · Sat 09/12/2006 17:23:07

This is the last comp.

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=28453.0

Quite a few entries, all lovely.

A lot of people would like the colouring ball back I think. If I recall correctly the voting page, had a limit of 7 contest, so the colouring ball was left out.

I would also vote to start it again, although I never took part, and probably never (or very seldom) will... But I've never taken part in the Background blitz, and only once or twice in the sprite jam, but voted for them also.

Andail · Sat 09/12/2006 17:50:42

Allright, allright, you have convinced me.
I'm re-installing Colouring Ball as an official activity of this board.

PS:
I guess it's Progzmax's turn to start a new round. If he doesn't want to, the next one to reply here and express interest may have the honor.

vict0r · Sat 09/12/2006 18:35:45

If progZ aint interrested i could do it...

Mikko · Sun 17/12/2006 08:37:37

I sent PM to him days ago and didn't get reply, so maybe you, victOr, could start a new one.

Shane 'ProgZmax' Stevens · Sun 17/12/2006 09:24:04

Oh, I just noticed this. No, I don't really want to host it so whoever wants to can!

Andail · Sun 17/12/2006 17:19:56

Go ahead victor

Tuomas · Tue 06/02/2007 09:30:37

You know, I really miss the writing contest. I think the biggest problems with it were that it was a monthly contest, so most people lost interest in it after writing a story in one day. Because the stories weren't that long. Except for the one I wrote that was 8 pages and never finished. And then the fact that only the ones who wrote usually had interest in reading and voting.

I would love to see the reincarnation of this contest, but perhaps with a two week system, and possibly the poetry contest integrated. I mean, writing a poem every now and then is still writing, and it'd be a good change. So I was hoping there were more of us who liked to read or write.

Stupot · Tue 06/02/2007 10:48:16

A writing contest sounds like a good idea. Have you got any links to previous writing contests so I could see what sort of thing you used to do?

Tuomas · Tue 06/02/2007 11:01:05

http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=29096.0
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=28732.0
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/yabb/index.php?topic=28328.0

The latest three. You can see the competition suffering as I mentioned. THey're all here, just be patient and go through the pages.

Stupot · Tue 06/02/2007 11:15:15

Ahhh.. I see... Nobody's interested... I wonder why that is? its a great creative exercise..
You should start one anyway Tuomas, and, like you say, decrease the deadline to 2 weeks (or maybe even one week).
Also, maybe it would work better if there was a tighter word limit. say between 500 - 1000 words. and maybe extra rules such as having to include 3 particular items in the story.
What do you reckon?

nulluser · Tue 06/02/2007 16:56:45

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Rui 'Trovatore' Pires · Mon 12/02/2007 22:39:23

Hey, it only stopped because someone seems to have failed to start a new comp. When old competitions were pruned, it was, surprisingly, one of the ones to remain.

Stupot and VintageDemon, you didn't really get the spirit of the competition. Words limits are a BIG NO-NO in these things, so as to spark creativity - and if the comp-starter wanted to, he could always set limits himself. But the fun was, it could be a short poem or the prelude to a novel - anything, really. Also, "including 3 items" and such pre-supposed a story, a narrative. I've seen great writing exercises, extremely creative, that would never have happened with such, pardon me for saying, narrow-minded limits. And VintageDemon, with SO many things to choose from in a good piece of text, why should plot be the one thing that declares the winner? The fun of the whole thing was, since everybody has very different styles, it's the whole that appeals or not to the voters. It wasn't a quantifiable thing, and it certainly wasn't canonical. It was just about people choosing the ones they liked best.

Tuomas, the writing competition, in a way, always did include a poerty competition. If Stupot's example ever happened, it might not be possible, but it's not the case. Also, you've linked to some examples with very few restrictions, and for completeness' sakes I have to say I remember a couple of comps that DID have more restrictions - intelligent restrictions.

As for extending the deadline... well, give it a try, but there's a difference between "writing" and "banging a couple of ideas together". It's like the difference between a OROW and a MAGS. Now, there have been great OROW games, but mostly they could use with a lot more polish, while MAGS games usually have that extra level of detail.

Well, I guess it depends on what you're looking for. When I revived the comp, I wanted people to have the chance to actually develop their writing skills, or creativity, or whatever, so I gave them a whole month to do it. It worked - so much so that, surprisingly, it kept on going when many other competitions in this board were pruned. Right now it's on a bit of a standstill, so if you want to try something with other objectives, go ahead.

BTW, the rules in the previous comps were made by me and with the intent I just explained. If you do want to try another route, you'd better write some other set of rules.

Stupot · Tue 13/02/2007 19:28:46

I have an idea for a competition if everyone could humour me for a moment.

I've just bought a domain name, www.toxicsock.co.uk and I could do with a logo.
I could design it myself, but I thought what if I could set up a competition where I get YOU lot to design it for me.. and then I'll pick my favourite and use it on my site and I'll be sure to give credit where credits due...

Haha, sounds a bit lazy and selfish of me, but hear me out.
It could then be the winner's turn to set up a competition for something (be it a logo, or a sprite or a tune) that he/she needs for their website or game and each winner sets the next competition as we do with the other comps.

It could be called the "Make Me Something Useful" competition.

If any mods think it's a good idea please give me the go ahead to start it... or if its a bad idea, please tell me and I won't sulk.
What does everyone think?

Gilbert · Wed 14/02/2007 00:58:03

No, I don't think its a good idea. It looks like a request for material thing more than a member activity, and it's too broad as there's no fixed target format of creation (so as a competition in some rounds it would clash with well operated Sprite Jam, Tune contest, etc., for non-competing general creation activity we have occasional Artitude already) which should be kept away here. You can start that in your own site though.

Stupot · Wed 14/02/2007 13:53:50

Thats ok.Ã,Â Just an idea.Ã,Â Thought it would be a nice angle, that the winning entries actually get used in some way. No worries, though, I can design my own logo.. it'll be gash though... hehe

Tuomas · Thu 15/02/2007 10:24:32

Ok, I guess I just wanted to write/enter more than opening the compo myself. But mostly because I don't see myself in the position of plainly changing completely good rules sir Pires made. I was just thinking if we could find a way to bring it back to life, but I'm pretty bad at making actions like that unless I'm drunk and that we don't want. So this is just a request for a new opened compo. Bah, I have to go catch my train, chat with you later!

deadsuperhero · Wed 21/02/2007 00:18:14

How about this?

"The Greatest Backstory Game"

Basically, someone posts a link to a commercial from YouTube, and someone has to come up with a backstory to that commercial.

For example, a commercial showing a man feeding a dog and acting totally obsessed about it would be posted, and someone would post what the hell is going on.

Commercial-Man feeding dog.
Backstory- That's not his house...or his dog...

My dad and I do this kind of thing all the time whenever we're bombarded by five minutes of commercials.

nulluser · Wed 21/02/2007 10:46:10

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