I have some comments on the individual entries, and on how the contest turned out more generally. A large part of this contest's reason for existence is to look at the DROD community's take on the subject matter (my foray into the social sciences, if you will), so please vote before reading - I don't want to influence the results, but if there's going to be discussion, I see no reason to force a delay by enforcing this with a timestamp.
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×General comments on the contest: I honestly didn't have any clear idea going into this of what my own take on a 10-ranked hold would be, and was particularly interested in seeing what sort of consensus would develop for what an ugly room was. We won't know entirely before everyone weighs in with the votes, but from the entries, the predominant idea was that ugly rooms are cluttered rooms. Certainly, that's where ugliness seems to crop up in normal holds: rooms in which the architect just slaps a bunch of stuff down randomly and calls it a day. Use of color was less frequent in the entries, but to my own eye, was the more effective strategy and a fundamental component of the aggregate effect of even the massively cluttered rooms. However, while I've discovered this to be my own primary criterion for ugliness, I'm more interested in the community response.
Surprises: Probably the biggest surprise was the quality of all of the entries! But there were others. Unless I'm mistaken (and I very well may be), eliminating the need for aesthetics seems to have opened up a new type of puzzle in VIPCOOL's and The Stew Boy's entries, in which one needs to pick through a horrendously complicated room to try to figure out where the path lies and what needs to happen next. It's not necessarily something I'd want to see frequently, of course, but it's an interesting experience. Personally, I was expecting more use of custom images, but I'm not too sorry to see entries going for the more creative approach. And I'm glad no joker decided to take a picture I posted in the pics thread and make it a (disqualified) entry.
Individual rooms: I gather this isn't standard for contests, but I'm voting too. Hey, it's an unofficial contest, I can do what I like! As far as ratings go, I usually find myself giving a fairly even distribution. Here, in contrast, entries (to me, at least) sorted themselves into two distinct categories: run-of-the-mill "plunk some random stuff down", and outright *ugly*. Maybe that's accurate, maybe it's because I've been watching this contest more closely than most and formed my opinions early on, maybe it's the result of an unfamiliar ranking metric, maybe it's an artifact of my instructions. At any rate, this is my own take on this, and NOT the official contest rankings!
Chaco's Profoundly Ugly Room: Props go to Chaco for breaking the seal on the contest, and for making one of the best puzzles of the lot. However, while the layout is certainly obnoxious, in a way it hangs together oddly well as a modern art sort of work. Maybe it's my overemphasis on color scheme speaking, but the colors actually go together fairly well.
noma's Renovations Completed: Props also go to noma for her first attempt at architecture from scratch! However, it's a relatively weak entry, and isn't even all that ugly (but see below!). Note that the NPC can be killed, which isn't good - this should probably be fixed for the compilation, but didn't affect the score.
Eyeminator by skell: This was the first entry to really hit hard - something about the massive yellow grid on a clashing background. A simple idea, but very effective.
VIPCOOL's pRetTy uGly hoLd: From a technical standpoint, this may be *the* outstanding room of the contest - a new room design, breathtakingly ugly in aggregate, and makes the most of its ugliness by forcing the player to examine each area in detail. Very, very well done!
Tahnan's Beauty Under Brains: I suspect that this entry may represent the limit of what one might create with a standard architectural approach. It's haphazard, asymmetric, and made with no eye whatsoever to design, but it also lacks the touch of brilliance that some of the other entries have.
12th Archivist's Total Ugli: Hmm. Here's the thing. While the basic elements are there, and obscuring the difference between water and floor with lighting was a particularly nice touch, the layout is symmetric, which makes a surprisingly big difference between a room with random elements that hangs together and one that doesn't.
The Stew Boy's Bleach Stew: Follows basically a similar idea to VIPCOOL's first entry; it has a different take on the puzzle, but gains fewer points from me primarily for being second.
noma's More Reno's: The only room to make full use of custom backgrounds (and perhaps gets an overly high ranking from me for occupying an unused niche), and used to very, very good effect! Also horrendous to look at, and has a surprisingly good puzzle for a novice architect. The "grocer's apostrophe" is ugly too.
VIPCOOL's PrTty UgLyh Old 3: Yes, I'm docking this for being a repeat. That said, the lighting works quite well; the other decorations, less so.
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