kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2670
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

The Thirteenth Annual People's Choice Awards

Welcome to the Thirteenth Annual People's Choice Awards (also known as The Deadlies)!

This year saw a record number of ties results, with 4 awards categories have people tie for most votes. Fortunately, the tiebreaker stage produced a full set of clear winners. Let's take a look at the winners!


Best Custom Game Element
Burrito from Beethro Budkin's Big Burrito Butt Blast by kieranmillar
As we all know Beethro is a man of many talents, using any means necessary to achieve his goal. By harnessing the power of a spicy burrito, the talents on display are... shall we say... somewhat unorthodox, but they get the job done. From a gameplay perspective, the burrito is a simple mechanic, but one that allows for a lot of flexibilty.
(Runner up... Torus Roach from Torus by Insoluble)


Design Excellence in a Modification or Addition
More RPG HD Graphics by DezzTech
As if winning this award last year for his high definition RPG graphics wasn't enough, DezzTech does it again this year, providing a series of redraws of the wall graphics and rock obstacles, that were again officially implemented into the game.
(Runner up... Workshop Room Style by Chaco)


Technical Design Excellence in Scripting
Torus by Insoluble
Imagine living in a world where if you kept heading in one direction you would eventually end up back where you started. Crazy, right? But this hold isn't just wraparound rooms for the player, even the roaches understand that the shortest path to Beethro might involve taking advantage of this new behaviour.
(Runner up... Chance for Paradise by Crimson Moon)


Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics
Hold by blorx1
Hold's style of filling each quarter of a room with mostly a single type of element and extending this across room boundaries proves that simple yet bold design choices can create a striking visual style while complementing the type of imaginative puzzles we've all come to expect from blorx1.
(Runner up... Chance for Paradise by Crimson Moon)


Technical Design Excellence in Concept
Torus by Insoluble
Torus doesn't just implement wraparound rooms, but puts them to good use, and even demonstrates some mathematical concepts that arise from tori. Never before has math homework been such fun!
(Runner up... DRO by kieranmillar)


Creative Design Excellence in Storyline
Temporal Adventure by hyperme
Once again, mucking around with the fabric of time proves to be fraught with peril. You'd have thought that by now those pesky scientists would have looked at any science fiction media created in the last century, but fortunately for us, they didn't, so now we get to fix their mistakes! Hooray!
(Runner up... Chance for Paradise by Crimson Moon)


Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty
Secluded Sanctum by Doom
Having gained DROD fame with Beethro's Teacher and a host of AE and JtRH-era holds, Doom brings us a modern hold in the style of his old classics that helped put the modern lynchpin puzzle style of DROD room on the map a decade ago. If you enjoy easy to parse, but hard to solve rooms that centre around working out the right observations then you should give this a play right now.
(Runner up... Rodents of unusual size by Red-XIII)


Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment
DRO by kieranmillar
DRO is a hold that picks a theme and doesn't deviate from it. In practice it couldn't anyway even if it wanted to, what with the entire hold taking place on a single row of tiles. There's also some silly bonus content as a further reward for those who make it to the end.
(Runners up... A tie between Gardeviance by disoriented and Temporal Adventure by hyperme)


DROD Hold of the Year
Secluded Sanctum by Doom
What makes a good puzzle? Is it the feeling of befuddlement as all of your ideas get proven wrong one by one? The feeling of amazement in finally making a key observation that makes everything fall into place? The feeling of satisfaction in slowly working your way to a successful solution? Well if you can't decide, I have good news, because in this hold, you will feel all of these things! Doom returns with his trademark combination of simplicity and toughness. The puzzles in this hold are definitely ones to mull over and sleep on, but it's so worth it.
(Runner up... Temporal Adventure by hyperme)


DROD RPG Level Set of the Year
Fetch the Pie by Chaco
Fetch the Pie is unique in the history of the Deadlies, in that it is now the only hold, and probably always will be, to win the same award on two different occasions! Back during RPG's release in 2008, before any RPG holds could be published, this award was given to the best hold in production, and Fetch the Pie won. Now, 8 years later, it has finally been completed and published. If you're wondering if a production time of 8 years means that the hold is large, then yes, it's large. Really really large. At last, the internet finally has a legitimate and proper use for the word "epic".
(Runner up... Castle Repton by Nuntar)


Best Voice Artist in a Distinct Role
Chaco as Delvon in Chance for Paradise
Having made a number of DROD Let's Plays, Chaco's voice may already be familiar to some, but there's no mistaking his voice acting in this hold, both for the character Delvon, but also in narrating many of the entrance texts.
(Runner up... Leah Irwin as Little Girl in Chance for Paradise)

Novice Architect Award
Xindaris
Xindaris has charged into the DROD architectural community with not one, not two, but 3 new holds, as well as many contributions to contests, including hosting! And with more holds in the pipeline, Xindaris appears to show no signs of stopping any time soon. But it's not just about the amount of content, Xindaris has also shown a rapid improvement over a short space of time, combined with the ability to come up with cool and fresh ideas, a winning combination.
(Runner up... Crimson Moon)


Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement
Jeff_Ray...
It's about time! Jeff's been in the community for a long time, having released a whole host of quality holds for both DROD and DROD RPG over the last decade. And hey, when you take into consideration his humble beginnings with the cult classic An event #1, one could argue that Jeff is probably the most improved architect in the community! Congratulations Jeff, and we all hope you stick around and keep creating great content for at least another decade still!


Best Community Contributor
Nuntar
Over the years Nuntar has dedicated a lot of time and effort in making the DROD community a better place, not just with his ever pleasant presence, but with his willingness to help out and take control of a number of tasks. This year Nuntar took over running the contests forum to ensure things run more smoothly, and he has again continued the extremely large and under-appreciated task of managing the large in-development Entry Point project. So here's the opportunity for all of us in the community to let it be known that we really do appreciate all that you do for us. Thanks Nuntar!
(Runner up... kieranmillar)


Best DROD Let's Player
ThemsAllTook (a.k.a. Alex Diener)
Alex wins this award for the second year in a row. Having finally completed all of the Smitemaster selections, Alex has not stopped and continues to release more quality DROD videos. With his high puzzle solving skills and excellent commentary, Alex continues to be highly entertaining.
(Runner up... Chaco)


Unfortunately that is all for this year. A big congratulations to all this year's winners and runners up. What will 2017 have in store for us? Personally I can't wait to find out!

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Links
History of the People's Choice Awards
The First Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Tiebreaker
The Second Annual People’s Choice Awards | Voting
The Third Annual People’s Choice Awards | Voting | Final Round | Tiebreaker
The Fourth Annual People’s Choice Awards | Voting | Tiebreaker | Winners
The Fifth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Tiebreaker | Winners
The Sixth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Tiebreaker | Winners
The Seventh Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners
The Eighth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners
The Ninth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners
The Tenth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners
The Eleventh Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners
The Twelfth Annual People's Choice Awards | Voting | Winners

Jeff_Ray...
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 962
Registered: 05-16-2005
IP: Logged

(Apparently people don't make acceptance speeches for the Deadlies anymore. Time for me to break the mold! )

Someone in the chatroom told me that it was obvious to everyone but me that I had the award in the bag. And I guess they were right! I didn't think I had even a chance, given that I was up against kieranmillar and bomber50, two people that I felt had accomplished far more in even less time than I had. So you can't believe how surprised I was after seeing the results that I had passed them both by almost 10 votes!

I'm really thankful for everyone who did end up voting for me. For the longest time I assumed I didn't really "have what it takes" to be considered part of that elite. I always kind of felt my work wasn't quite up to par with what other great architects had made. Heck, I must admit that even my "magnum opus" to date, "Homeward Adventure", felt a bit messy since it was a mish-mash of leftover rooms from years ago, along with some newer rooms that I felt stood out.

But in the end, it really was quite a journey. And I will agree with kieran that I'm probably one of the "most improved" architects on this site! And not even just in architecture; as most of you probably know, I used to be a bit hard to put up with in my younger days. I was quick to provoke, and quick to be provoked. But this community stood by my side even then. They were always kind, if sometimes a bit stern. I became a better person thanks to this place. And I also learned to be open to criticism. I'll admit, I still struggle very greatly with having too many projects running concurrently (how many DROD holds do I have in Architecture now? 5? ), but part of the journey is that you never stop growing, in a way. You always strive to improve yourself and you strive to be the best person you can be, even if it turns out you never make it. Because trying is still better than giving up. And I aim to not give up, even if it becomes hard sometimes.

And as for my holds, I will agree I've come far from my humble debuts where I wanted to make a 60 level hold on my own without having the skills to really back it up. And I've come far from the days where I asked for only two comments before posting a hold to the Holds board (back when HAs weren't a thing). I remember the story of how I published my first "legit" hold to the boards, too. I had been stuck trying to make too many projects without any ever getting finished. Someone recommended that I try to start with something small to publish. And from that suggestion, I made Jeffrey's Hold, a small 1-level (+ 1 secret) hold with some hack and slash rooms. I later made Tardustrial Park, which followed a similar vein but with a tarstuff theme, and then after that came "Smart Brain Sanctum", where I actually tried to make some clever puzzles. Then came Mysteries of the Deep, where my ambitions of making a large hold returned. But this time, I was ready. I had some successes under my belt and I felt confident that this project would succeed. And it did! And from that point, I've been taking on steadily larger and larger projects, such as the well-loved "Homeward Adventure". Fun fact about that hold, it was mainly thanks to larrymurk, among others, who told me he wanted to see the hold finished someday, that I even decided to get back to working on this hold after the release of The Second Sky. It was quite humbling to see larrymurk, of all people, tell me that he wanted this particular project to be released.

So that puts me here today, with two large projects in production (Riddles Within the Below and Plague of Poxipon), a smaller one (An event #2), and another short 1-level hold that I've started work on recently (more on that soon! ). I've also taken up playing through holds on YouTube, which people have taken a liking to! Again, I'm really thankful for everyone who's believed in me from the start, and even for those who didn't at first! Being on the Caravel Forums has been an experience like no other, and I can't imagine living a life without having been on this forum. It's done so much for my growth from an impatient 10 year old to the 22 year old that I am now, and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Thank you all for everything. I hope that I can continue to make you all proud!

In the meantime, I want to give a shoutout to my opponents, who are all definitely worthy of praise! kieranmillar has made some wonderful holds from the very beginning up to this day, and bomber50's collection is nothing to scoff at: all holds that are interesting while still not being overly difficult! I'm not as familiar with Red-XIII's work, but a little bird told me his work is definitely worth checking out! So do that!

And with that, I'll see you all around!
-Jeff_Ray ===

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I make Let's Plays too!
Click here to find out my LPs' progress, and find out what I plan to tackle next!

Currently playing:


My Holds:
-Completed:

-Work in Progress: