Trickster
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 662
Registered: 07-03-2007
IP: Logged

Congratulations to the winners of The Eighth Annual People's Choice Awards (the Deadlies)!

Without further ado, it's time for the awards! Our awesome winners for 2011 are as follows:

1. Best Custom Game Element
And the Deadly goes to.........
Nobody! The only entrant in this category was disqualified.
So, get to work on those custom game elements for 2012!


2. Design Excellence in a Modification or Addition
And the Deadly goes to.........
Nobody! There were no entrants for this category.
Let's see what sorts of cool tilesets, mods, programs, or tweaks we can come up with in 2012!


3. Technical Design Excellence in Scripting
And the Deadly goes to.........
Finding the First Truth (Smitemaster's Selection), by Chaco!


4. Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics
And the Deadly goes to.........
Archipelago , by Penwielder!
(Aurora's Palace by Jacob finished a close second.)


5. Technical Design Excellence in Concept
And the Deadly goes to.........
Advanced Concepts 2 (compilation), by Jacob!


6. Creative Design Excellence in Storyline
And the Deadly goes to.........
Finding the First Truth (Smitemaster's Selection), by Chaco!


7. Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty
And the Deadly goes to.........
Archipelago , by Penwielder!


8. Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment
And the Deadly goes to.........
Finding the First Truth (Smitemaster's Selection), by Chaco!
(Aurora's Palace by Jacob finished a close second.)


9. Most Promising Hold or Level Set
And the Deadly goes to.........
The Plague Within (RPG), by Trickster!
Well, damn. Now I guess I have to finish it...
(Conspiracy by Neather2 and Perplexing Puzzles by rogu3/da rogu3 both finished a close second.)


10. DROD Hold of the Year
And the Deadly goes to.........
Finding the First Truth (Smitemaster's Selection), by Chaco!
(Advanced Concepts 2 by Jacob finished a close second.)


11. DROD RPG Level Set of the Year
And the Deadly goes to.........
Nobody! We fully expect to see RPG holds popping up in 2012, however!
(I plan to, at least!)


12. Best Voice Artist in a Distinct Role
And the Deadly goes to.........
Snacko, for Beethro Budkin in Finding the First Truth!


13. Novice Architect Award
And the Deadly goes to.........
da Rogu3 (rogu3)! Ever since I personally experienced da Rogu3's entry in the Riddle of the Bar competition, I hungered to see more. Both da Rogu3's recent hold (Mystical Palace) and his current project (Perplexing Puzzles) are amazingly well-designed for a newcomer to the Caravel community, and he has quickly gained a reputation for tricky and novel puzzles. We're lucky and grateful to have him on board. Congratulations da Rogu3!


14. Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement
And the Deadly goes to.........
Chaco (George Wanfried)! It should be no surprise that Chaco takes the award, given the fact his Smitemaster's Selection won nearly half the Deadlies this time around! In addition to two compilation holds, Chaco produced four top-notch holds in 2007 to early 2008: Chaco's Hold, Terrakempt Resonant, Imperial Wandering, and Fireballs. His return in 2011, with Finding the First Truth, has the highest honor of being chosen as a Smitemaster's Selection. Chaco also has an RPG hold (Fetch the Pie) he's been working on for over a year now that many of us are itching to play. The DROD community is far better off for having known him, so we proudly welcome him to the halls of our most esteemed architects, sharing a place with Doom (2006), LarryMurk (2007), Jacob (2008), BoyBlue (2009), and Rheb (2010) as recipient of the Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement. Congratulations Chaco!


Thanks to everyone who contributed to the community in 2011 and voted in the poll this month! Even being nominated is an honor, and those of you who devote time and energy into making something that the rest of us can enjoy and appreciate are deserving of our kudos.

See you next year for 2012, and keep building!

P.S. I don't know if TPTB can give Rank Points to the winners (other than me), but that would be a nice contribution.

Also, feel free to use this thread for long victory speeches where you imitate Sally Field or Kanye West. (Now Chaco, I'm real happy for you an Imma let you finish, but Saul Glasman is one of the best architects of all time...)

____________________________
Trickster

Official Hold Progress
Favorite Unofficial Holds (I need to play more!)
My Holds

Jatopian
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1842
Registered: 07-31-2005
IP: Logged

Trickster wrote:
(Now Chaco, I'm real happy for you an Imma let you finish, but Saul Glasman is one of the best architects of all time...)

Hey, The Oversight was a great hold! :V

____________________________
DROD has some really great music.
Make your pressure plates 3.0 style!
DROD architecture idea generator

Chaco
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 3612
Registered: 10-06-2005
IP: Logged

Well, to echo something I said three years ago (wow, has it really been that long?): I must be doing something right.

As you all know, making DROD holds at all is a lot of work, and debugging them is even tougher. As many people can independently attest, the big four holds spent a lot of time in development and had to go through many, many revisions before they were done. Finding the First Truth was no exception - I built the hold in 2008, around the time the holds that would eventually become Suit Pursuit and Elusive Exhibitions were also first built. Suffice to say the hold took a while to reach its final form, for many good reasons.

I suppose what I'm trying to get at here is that it took a lot of hard work for me to get this far. Six years is an awfully long time to devote to any sport or hobby, let alone a puzzle game. And it definitely wasn't six years spent coasting - I've been solving tricky puzzles, arranging pixels, writing down tons of ideas, throwing out rooms, scrambling to fix unintended solutions, and losing important arguments about the viscosity of tar. But it's been a fun ride the whole time and I feel like I got a lot out of it too.

Here's to six more years!

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Quick links to my stuff (in case you forgot where it was):

west.logan
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 608
Registered: 03-09-2011
IP: Logged

Congratulations Chaco, you really do deserve this. Lots of promising stuff from others, Penwielder and da rogu3 especially.

____________________________
-Logan

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[Last edited by west.logan at 03-26-2012 02:22 AM]

mrimer
Level: Legendary Smitemaster

Rank Points: 5043
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged

Congratulations to all of this year's winners!

Chaco, congratulations on receiving your lifetime achievement award. I've set you up with lifetime CaravelNet service.

____________________________
Gandalf? Yes... That's what they used to call me.
Gandalf the Grey. That was my name.
I am Gandalf the White.
And I come back to you now at the turn of the tide.

Neather2
Level: Smiter

Rank Points: 406
Registered: 07-18-2006
IP: Logged

I'd like to say Congrats! to all winners too. It is the first time I have joined this, and I hope I'll be here again next time.

____________________________
Nothing to say. I just play the game. And you, sir, should play it too.

Conspiracy, my new hold, has just been released.

Suwako
Level: Master Delver
Rank Points: 145
Registered: 04-29-2011
IP: Logged

Congratulations Chaco, you are a very nice person, helping me and as i saw, others in architecture board, I think the most friendly I've ever know.

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A moment last forever, an eternity passes in an instant, the time I spent here was inevitable...

Penwielder
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 628
Registered: 09-12-2009
IP: Logged

"Hm, that's three years in a row I've won awards at this here People's Choice Awards. I must be doing something right," said Chaco, three years ago. Today, I'm thinking much the same thing.

I'm a little more surprised at the results this year than in previous years, though, since the only hold I published this time around is inaccessible to all but the most determined. Only four users with CaravelNet have conquered the hold, and that includes both myself and one other beta tester who never uploaded his scores--so I could really say there are only two conquerors on CaravelNet. This doesn't necessarily make the award for difficulty surprising, but the award for aesthetics? Really, how many people have seen the last three islands, even with map.php?

As for this next year, well, I don't really know what I'll do, but I'm excited anyway. I have two projects in good standing right now, either of which could be ready for Architecture in a week's time if I got motivated. Each has special reasons for not being particularly affected by the release of GatEB, so I'm not in a hurry.

Anyway, thanks to all who voted. Special thanks to Trickster for taking up the responsibility of running the awards.

Also, mrimer, I know you're quite busy lately, but don't forget the rank point awards, even if you don't get to it for a while.

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Penwielder's Palace, Detention Complex, Archipelago, Cube of Memories