I want you people to learn about Danforth Strout. He's an amazing man that is constantly overcoming adversity and facing new challenges--even while he's sleeping. Danforth has led an extraordinary life that we can all learn from. I've recently written a brief biography about the man:
The World's Greatest Salesman
Here is a picture of Danforth sitting in his office:
It is actually an early version of the exit screen that will appear in the upcoming release of
DROD: The City Beneath. You'll notice a poster behind Danforth on the wall extolling the virtues of teamwork. Danforth likes to surround himself with positive messages of motivation. I would actually like to have more than one poster that appears on Danforth's wall. If a player is paying attention, he'd see different posters when he exits the game, and each would have a subtle joke or something not quite right about it. So this contest is about creating a poster for Danforth. Possibly, you could come up with a poster that would actually show up in
DROD: The City Beneath. I'll talk about that more below.
Contest Rules
The challenge of this contest is that you have a limited amount of pixelspace to make a "
tiny joke"
. Specifically, you'll need to submit an image file with exact dimensions of 148 x 202. So it'll be hard to do something like tell a story about a farmer and his three daughters. You're probably going to want to stick with the 1-panel gag format. But really, your only limitations are the pixels you can put into a 148 x 202 box.
...well, and good taste too.
* Keep it clean. The same rules we have for forum posts regarding swearing, sexual themes, illegal activities, etc. apply to contest entries as well.
* The joke does not have to be DROD-related or fit into the theme of a motivational message. It can be any kind of joke you like.
* Your tiny joke should be posted as an attached bitmap in a reply to this topic before the deadline of:
Local Time:06-20-2006 at 01:00 AM
* Bitmaps are accepted in the following formats: GIF, JPG, PNG, and BMP. But only use BMP if you have trouble getting your image into one of the other formats. BMP files aren't compressed very well and take people longer to download.
* You can submit up to 3 tiny jokes. The limit is to avoid creating too large of a burden for voters who will rate the jokes. If you happen to submit more than 3 jokes, I'll just choose 3 of them for the poll in some quick and reckless way. Please remove any submissions beyond 3 to make it easier for me to put the poll together. If you want to post jokes that aren't for the contest, you can always start a different topic.
* Note that this is not a submission topic. Everyone will see your jokes as they're posted. Everyone should feel free to comment. It's alright to say which ones you like or don't like. Don't worry about influencing the vote.
* Try to make your joke original, but I understand it's hard to come up with a new joke, and easy to unintentionally copy something else. Originality isn't a requirement, but it will help you do better in the contest.
* Voters will be asked to rate the jokes based on funniness and penalize jokes they feel lack originality. Artistic skill isn't a factor, but undoubtedly it can contribute to how well a joke works. If you feel discouraged about your lack of drawing skill, you might look at some cartoons by Matt Groening or Don Hertzfeld to see what can be done with very simple drawings.
* The drawing and any text that appears in the image must be completely your own work. You can't copy and paste from other sources, even if you have permission. This means no DROD graphics from any of the games can be used for the contest. Just draw it yourself. Use of photographs are okay if you took them yourself. I'm being more restrictive about this than needed for two reasons: 1. I get tired of resolving legal and moral dilemmas like some third-rate King Solomon. 2. It's really quite interesting to see what people make entirely from scratch. Rough drawings people make are often really funny or charming.
* Be sure to specify accurately what you'd like the licensing on your attached image to be. There are options for public domain, Creative Commons, and all rights reserved. If you don't care at all how your image might be reused by others in the future, just leave the default licensing of "
public domain"
. If you don't understand what the different licensing terms mean and want to, we can definitely talk about it here on the forum. It is one of my ongoing goals to help people understand licensing and know how to use it for themselves.
Winning
After people vote, all the entries will have an average rating. Whoever has the entry with the highest rating will win 1st prize, a hundred rank points and any item of his choosing from the
Prize Pile. The second and third placers, will win 50 and 25 rank points, respectively.
Only each person's highest-rated entry will be considered for contest placement. In other words, one person can only win one prize no matter how screamingly wonderful his entries are.
Getting Your Image on Danforth's Wall
I'm not necessarily going to use any of the images from the contest in
DROD: The City Beneath. If you would like to simultaneously submit an entry for the contest and also to go on Danforth's office wall, then you should also follow these criteria:
* For licensing options on your attachment, either choose public domain or Creative Commons license with the option allowing commercial use. This is my cue as to whether or not the joke is available for me to use. It also cuts down on the substantial hassle of getting you to sign a release form. If you'd rather not have your image distributed in a Caravel Game (or elsewhere without your permission) then I recommend "
All Rights Reserved"
licensing. All images that are actually used will be attributed to their authors in the game credits.
* I'll reiterate this rule because it's doubly important for the case of distributing your work: the drawing and any text that appears in the image must be completely your own work.
* Although it isn't necessary for the contest, Danforth's wall needs a joke that looks like it might appear on a wall poster found in some overenthusiastic salesman's office. Parodies and exaggerations of business cliches work. Jokes themed around success, money, and self-absorbed quests for personal growth are great. A subtle joke that takes a few moments to get is what I really like.
* It's great if you can make some artwork that is ready-to-use, but if I really like the idea, I might end up using my own art to represent your joke.
* Use the 148 x 202 dimensions for your image even if you foresee a need to replace the art. Having the joke shown in a small image demonstrates if it can work at that size.
* If you have jokes that you don't want to enter in the contest, but think they work well for Danforth's wall, post those in a different topic so I don't get them confused with contest entries.
Alright, this should be good. I know we have some funny and creative people out there. Bring on the tiny jokes!
-Erik
____________________________
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[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 06-04-2006 11:26 PM]
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