We have some BIG WINNERS of the
Fifth Annual People's Choice Awards!
This year, the voters chose highly polished holds that are very clever without being too difficult. That balance is oh so hard to achieve, and the winners deserve our warmest congratulations. Without further ado, here they are:
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1. Most Promising Hold
Porthole Demo by
RoboBob3000 wins!
Porthole Demo, a port of Portal to DROD, is an ambitious project that even includes a level editor! RoboBob3000 has managed to transform our top-down view of the DROD world into the side view of the Portal World, and has used scripting to create the Portal puzzle elements, including portholes, cubes, and more. This is very impressive work, RoboBob3000, and I hope you continue on to create a finished product.
2. Best Custom Game Element
Fireballs in Fireballs by
Chaco wins!
Chaco's Fireballs were the first in a series of custom monster creations that showcase the full potential of the DROD 3.0 scripting engine. Fireballs exhibit complex but easily predictable movement patterns: they travel in straight lines until encountering an obstacle, in which case they turn clockwise 90 degrees, and continue on. The short hold,
Fireballs, contains both easy and hard puzzles that demonstrate their fireballs' puzzle potential in blocking monsters and holding down pressure plates (if they are "
heavy"
fireballs). This very enjoyable hold inspired the creation of several other custom monsters on the ballot. Nice job, Chaco!
3. Technical Design Excellence in Scripting
RPG 3.0 by
Jason wins!
Despite its name,
RPG 3.0 is a hold for DROD:
The City Beneath. Jason created the RPG elements including quests, battles, various weapons, and helpful pets entirely with scripting. My favorite is the pirate gel baby pet, which is awesome! A quick tutorial at the beginning orients the player to the scripted RPG user interface. Then you plunge into a fun, fast-moving story, where you experience being a thief, a merchant, and a wizard, in whatever order you choose. It seems that Jason thought of everything; for those who like to optimize, there's even a scripted score at the end. Well done, Jason!
4. Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics
Castle Steele by
Elfstone wins!
Just as in Elfstone's first hold, the puzzles in
Castle Steele are gorgeous hold art. This time, the hold art helps tell the story, and we are treated to both indoor and outdoor scenes depicting the gardens and interior of an elegant castle and an old keep. My personal favorite is the cyanozamia tree. Hold art isn't the only thing that makes this hold beautiful. The final postmastery room features an extra special custom music treat. This hold is exquisite, Elfstone!
5. Technical Design Excellence in Concept
Advanced Concepts compiled by
jbluestein wins!
Grand Construction #1, otherwise known as
Advanced Concepts, was conceived by jbluestein, then Director of the Department of Grand Constructions, to fulfill a need. While many of the currently popular holds feature lynchpin puzzles, none of the available tutorial holds explain the advanced interactions between game elements needed to solve those puzzles. So he assembled a team of the forum's best architects to create levels of informative rooms and application rooms centered around various game elements. The result was not only educational, but lots of fun to play, too. This was a terrific idea, jbluestein!
6. Creative Design Excellence in Storyline
Imperial Wandering by
Chaco wins!
The ability to use non-Beethro player roles has added a wide range of storyline possibilities to DROD. And so Chaco brings us
Imperial Wandering, the uplifting story of 53rd Tar Technician, who takes a wrong turn on the way to a meeting, winds up in a certain someone's death avoidance case study, and finally escapes to a new world of possibilities. This was a great story, Chaco, and we're eagerly awaiting the sequel!
7. Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty
Museum of Ooze by
LarryMurk wins!
Museum of Ooze is a set of "
clearly impossible"
lynchpin puzzles based on all the fun tarstuff tricks, including growing tarstuff, cutting tarstuff, having someone else cut tarstuff, switching tarstuff, making lots of babies, making no babies, trapping babies, playing with baby movement order, playing with baby movement rules, playing with brained baby pathmaps, and more. Who would have thought that a tarstuff-only hold would have such a variety of puzzles! This is a wonderful hold, Larry!
8. Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment
Beethro's Brain by
Dischorran wins!
Beethro's Brain is a delicious blend of highly original but not too challenging variety. The Dreams and Nightmares level is particularly impressive; in addition to seven DROD puzzles where you have to look at the monsters, it also works as a larger puzzle where you have to look back at the room layouts. Overall, this entire hold is very well conceived. It's amazing that this was Dischorran's first hold!
9. Hold of the Year
Advanced Concepts, including instructional levels by
Chaco,
Jacob,
LarryMurk,
Rheb,
TFMurphy, and
Tim, wins!
I've already mentioned jbluestein's important role in the conception and organization of the
Advanced Concepts project. Due to the outstanding efforts of its team of architects, there has been an overwhelming positive response to Advanced Concepts, and it wins the prestigious Hold of the Year award. Players are having a great time learning new things about the DROD game elements, solving puzzles where they have to apply what they've learned, and optimizing even the simplest rooms. Tim made Simple Sword Tricks; Rheb made Speed Potions and Disarmed Mimics; Chaco made Seep, Roach Queens, and Rock Golems; Jacob made Eyes and Potions, Fegundos, and Goblins; LarryMurk made Brained vs Unbrained Roaches; and TFMurphy made Advanced Brain Movement, a huge level packed with as much information as all the other levels combined. These levels are awesome, gentlemen!
10. Graphics Design Excellence in a Modification
Basalt by
Jutt wins!
Congratulations to Jutt, who has utterly dominated this category. This year, Jutt has given us two beautiful new outdoorsy styles,
Basalt (the cooler, greener winner of this award) and
Sandstone (a warmer, redder style). Both feature interesting textures and meticulous attention to detail. Very nice work, Jutt!
11. Best Actor in a Leading Role
Abbyzzmal as
Tendry in Tendry's Tale wins!
Abbyzzmal has done a fabulous job infusing warmth and heart into the personality of Tendry, the Stalwart hero of Tendry's Tale, the official DROD RPG hold. His candor, bravado, and vulnerability make him instantly likeable, so there just
has to be a sequel to Tendry's Tale so we can
see hear him take on another challenge. Bravo, Abbyzzmal!
12. Best DROD RPG Hold
Fetch the Pie by
Chaco wins!
A couple months ago, in a discussion on what makes a good RPG hold, Chaco said,
"The trick seems to be giving the player a lot of choices and rewarding him for good choices, not punishing him for bad ones." This has become known as "
Chaco's Rule,"
and is a pleasantly accurate description of Chaco's RPG hold,
Fetch the Pie. Interlude levels that feature DROD-like puzzles also distinguish Chaco's offering from other RPG holds. So far, this is a fun and intriguing project, Chaco, it's well worth finishing!
13. Novice Architect Award
Dischorran, architect of Beethro's Brain and Entropy, wins!
Congratulations to Dischorran, who wins the Novice Architect Award by a landslide.
Beethro's Brain, his first hold, won this year's award for Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment.
Entropy, which is my personal favorite,
Washed Ashore, an RPG hold, were also nominated for awards this year. Excellent writing, clever puzzles, and an eye for aesthetics are characteristic of all Dischorran's work thus far. Dischorran, you are a prodigy!
14. Most Promising Young Architect
mxvladi, who has seven published holds already, wins!
It's hard to believe that mxvladi has been here only 9 months. He's been an active builder in architecture, and has 7 DROD holds published, 1 DROD RPG hold published, and a couple others in the works. His holds,
Dungeon of souls,
46th Slayer adventure,
89th Slayer,
Imperial palace,
Door master,
Cludo's arena,
Evil miners' fortress, are filled with a variety of new ideas and his own adaptations of old ideas. We're glad you're here, mxvladi, keep building!
15. Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement
Jacob wins!
Over the past four years, Jacob has given us 12 high quality holds of remarkable diversity, including
Labyrinthitis Expanded,
The Domain of The Grinfidel,
The Hunt for The Grinfidel,
The Final Confrontation,
Beethro's Bad Dream,
Labyrinthitis (JtRH edition),
Figure or Ground,
Beethro and the Secret Society (SmS),
Beethro's Generic Quest,
Smitemastery 101 (SmS),
The Goblin, and
Choose Your Adventure. These include story-based holds, interesting mazes, theme and variation rooms, complex rooms that the player must traverse several times before solving, as well as sets of deceptively simple-looking lynchpin puzzles... oh, and cheap tricks too. It seems that Jacob has a never-ending supply of creativity. This year, he joins the elite group of winners of the Erik Hermansen Award. Congratulations, Jacob! We love you!
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Let's have a big round of applause for all the winners!
Congratulations once again to RoboBob3000, Chaco, Jason, Elfstone, jbluestein, LarryMurk, Dischorran, Rheb, TFMurphy, Tim, Jutt, Abbyzzmal, and mxvladi! While traditionally, the biggest prize here is being able to say that you won in the Fifth Annual People's Choice Awards, I've also got some mod points for all the winners. Please post here to receive them.
- ing deeply! Praise from you is high praise indeed.
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