While good puzzle design is nice and all, one of the great features of the later versions of DROD is the ability to design a room that is not only enjoyable to play, but enjoyable to look at as well.
There are many ways in which to do this. One can use the new lighting system to great advantage, as seen in cheese obsessive's
Cheese's Hodgepodge; one can use DROD elements and custom images to create fantastic "
hold art"
in the map screen or in the playing field itself, as seen in Elfstone's
Castle Steele; or one can go the opposite direction entirely and make simple, elegant rooms with carefully chosen floor decorations, as seen in Jutt's
Artful Architecture. Even just a few minutes spent changing floor styles and walls of each room can add a point or two to the average rating of an otherwise mediocre hold.
However, what can be used for good can also be used for evil, turning a perfectly good puzzle into an aesthetic nightmare. Decorations can overwhelm, lighting and weather effects can obscure, color choices can clash or even blind, symmetry and clean lines can be broken just enough to be horribly distracting. This has been done by accident plenty of times; we've all seen these rooms and holds, and have complained about them in Holds or Architecture (and no, I'm not going to call architects out by name here). But what atrocities could be produced were the collective efforts of the architects of DROD to be concentrated on making a room that is not merely accidentally ugly, but deliberately so?
Thus, the goal of this unofficial contest: make the ugliest DROD 3.1 room that you can! Anyone can custom tile a floor pink and green and call it a day, but only the best (or worst?) architects will be able to produce a perfectly functional room that nonetheless defiles the very name of DROD. In the best case, the results of this contest could serve as a guide for novice architects to how NOT to decorate a hold!
The official rules:
* Submission guidelines:
1. Submissions should be a TCB hold containing exactly one room. Each must have a level entrance and a set of stairs to end the hold, and must be solvable. Submissions must stay inside community guidelines - anything obscene will be disallowed with prejudice, no copyrighted content, that sort of thing.
2. If you choose to use image walls, pits, or floors, they must be entirely your own creation. Not only would there be inevitable copyright issues, we're looking for creativity here, not for who can use Google to find the ugliest picture to put on the floor.
3. Aside from being ugly as sin, the room should be one that you would enjoy playing in a hold; while a "
bad room"
contest is not a bad idea, this is an "
ugly room"
contest instead. The quality of the room as a puzzle will be considered, but only as a minor part of the voting - so make it good if you can, but don't let this scare you off if you're new to the architecture business! If all else fails, one could design a room and then drop a couple of roach queens in appropriate places to make a puzzle out of it.
4. Submissions are to be posted in this thread - this means that they're public, and sharing of ideas and revising one's submissions up until the deadline are permitted and encouraged. 2 entries are allowed per person.
5. A compilation will be made if there are enough entries. Please submit entries as "
Anyone Edit"
and indicate if permission is granted for inclusion in the compilation.
* End date: You have three weeks from the time of posting, ending at
Local Time:06-28-2009 at 11:00 PM. Voting will occur immediately afterward.
* Prizes: A token 5 points for first, 3 points for second, 1 point for third, and the accolades of the community.
* Voting guidelines: Voting will be run as a traditional 1-10 ranking after the deadline passes. Voters should take into consideration overall "
ugliness"
and the creativity of design. Quality of the room as a puzzle should also be considered, but should modify the score by no more than a point in either direction.
Questions? Comments? Promises to make a room later? Put 'em in the thread!
TIME UNTIL DEADLINE:
negative 807 weeks, 5 days
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