Post by: mobius on September 22, 2014, 06:56:03 PM
I will post more details of the contest later. But here is a quick summary. If you'd prefer the rules to be different just say so. I am open to suggestion. A good contest requires lots of discussion.
There will be the designing phase lasting a month then the solving phase lasting a month, then a voting phase.
During the level designing phase participants will submit 1 level to be played and judged later.
During the solving phase; anybody [even people who did not submit levels] may play a level and send solutions (via dropbox or another website like mediafire) to both the creator and me) This is so I can keep a record and announce "so and so solved such and such" but solutions should not be revealed to everyone until the solving phase is over. The creators have this time to correct backroutes and embellish their levels for judging.
Players will get points based on how many levels solved and if they are backroutes or not. Intended solutions will be worth more than a backroute. The winner will be the player with the most points there.
Then during the voting Everyone will vote for their favorites levels based on different criteria like: appearance, playability, 'puzzle funness'. (I only used these three words because I cannot remember the creteria I used last time.)
Post by: geoo on September 22, 2014, 08:10:59 PM
Combined with the usual format of getting a point for every level solved (probably in addition to other scores through voting), this makes for an interesting challenge as you'd have to try to make two very hard levels which I believe is very tricky, so at least one of the two levels would probably appeal to an audience that's not into solving extremely hard levels. What do you think?
Post by: mobius on September 23, 2014, 01:32:27 AM
Also, so everyone knows; if the majority doesn't want to do a full on solving contest we can just do a level creation or if everybody only wants to solve we can just focus on that.
Post by: RubiX on September 23, 2014, 02:09:05 PM
Honestly, i'd be most interested in just a single level build contest only.
If it could be just a straight up puzzle build challenge where maps were anonymously submitted to you (only you know the person who submitted the map) and voted on after people all played them, that would be pretty sweet for revealing who designed which map after the results are in.
Just my thoughts.
Post by: Minim on September 23, 2014, 02:36:34 PM
Post by: Nepster on September 23, 2014, 05:06:11 PM
My second and third vote would go to "less than 5 lix" and "1 of each skill", but I fear that both of these choices will result in (some) extremely hard levels.
I have some doubts that fixing the terrain is a good idea: First of all it would make backroute fixes very hard (at least without tons of hidden traps). Secondly the terrain layout would reflect the style of its creator, which may suit some of us and not others. And thirdly (and most importantly) we would need some very very good terrain template to allow for many different and interesting solutions. Except for Rubix's "Aftermath" stage with 8 such levels, I can't remember having ever seen one terrain layout used more than three times (with different solutions).
Post by: chaos_defrost on September 23, 2014, 06:55:51 PM
Post by: mobius on September 23, 2014, 10:37:01 PM
If it could be just a straight up puzzle build challenge where maps were anonymously submitted to you (only you know the person who submitted the map) and voted on after people all played them, that would be pretty sweet for revealing who designed which map after the results are in.
I really like the idea of having the levels be anonymous. I think regardless of the theme or scoring method we will do this; everyone will submit their levels to me, don't post. Then I will reveal them anonymously. This will also prevent people's votes from being effected by knowing who designed it. All in favor holler aye. [don't worry I will make much more detailed rules when it begins]
I haven't decided if I myself will make a level yet.
Post by: Clam on September 24, 2014, 07:46:53 AM
to the idea of making the levels anonymous.I like geoo's idea but I think for a contest it could be made a bit more restrictive (eg. state which skills you have to substitute to/from). As it is, it feels too open.
Post by: Proxima on September 24, 2014, 12:31:46 PM
Post by: Clam on September 25, 2014, 10:44:29 AM
. But I can imagine why it might not be a good idea in this case - it could lead to entries being too similar, or it could be frustrating if your idea doesn't quite work but would if you could choose a different skill as your substitute.Also...
Quote from: IRC
[10:59:51] <geoo> Also I really like the idea of anonymous submissions. I wouldn't be surprised if it was possible to still match them to the author just by looking at the style
[11:00:43] <Clam> there could be a separate competition where you guess who made which level
[11:00:49] <geoo> yes
Post by: mobius on September 25, 2014, 09:32:05 PM
Could everyone who posted about/agreeing with geoo's idea please vote "other" so it's easier for me to tell exactly how many people are really voting here.
Post by: NaOH on September 26, 2014, 08:26:22 AM
Here's an idea I had in IRC: make a level out of a set number of terrain pieces, say five. They can be any five terrain pieces, but already that severely constrains a level. I don't think it would be too hard to come up with a puzzle, and it's a very approachable challenge for potential participants.
Post by: RubiX on September 27, 2014, 04:36:39 AM
How about a set number of Lix from say 5-8 only
Each lix must have his own hatch, and 100% needs saving.
Width/Height is pre-determined and everyone builds that size of a map.