ErikH2000
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Well, b0rsuk isn't happy about the contests we're having. It's terrible, I know!

We always have in mind when planning contests that you can't please all the people all of the time. There's been a great deal of variety in the contests we've planned so that different people will find something that interests them.

Are there certain types of contests you'd like to see? Artistic? Creative writing? Hold design? Hold playing? Which contests did you enjoy the most?

Do you have specific ideas for contests? I probably won't commit for or against any idea posted here. And just so you know we've got March and April contests "booked" right now, so if we try anything based on what you post, it will be at least a few months.

-Erik

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stigant
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I'd like to see a contest to see who could create the largest ball of ear wax. (j/k)

How about a contest to design the best multi-room puzzle. This would be a puzzle in which you have to enter and leave rooms several times from different places to finally beat the hold (for example, the giant tar puzzle on level 24 KDD). You'll probably need a room limit (say 5).

I'd like to see some programming type contests. These would be tough to run and enter, though, and the only ideas I have are non-drod related. For example, there's a prisoner delima contest every year in which contestants implement algorithms that decide to dissent or cooperate. Each algorithm is run against the other ones, and the program with the best score is the winner. I frequently participate in white-elephant exchanges around xmas and have often wondered about winning strategies, so perhaps a contest that incorporates these two ideas... But low turn out would kill the whole thing.


One comment I have about contests is that if there are a large number of entries and I have to rate each one of them (ala predict the future contest, and the grand audition), that takes a lot of the fun out of it. Not because I don't like seeing the other entries, but because its quite tedious to rank them against each other, and also participants shouldn't be expected to be impartial. Perhaps the moderator in charge of the contest could pare down all the entries to a list of 10 finalists, and then all participants could vote from there.

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b0rsuk
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A contest I've been thinking about some time ago. The main difficulty are the rules which should prevent cheap abuse.
Time-Waster Challenge

- create a single room which takes the longest to conquer. As long as you can imagine.
- the number of moves needed to conquer has to be definite: no loops, no routes you can take over and over for infinite time. (go left go right go left go right...). I think it would be important to disallow entering a square you just left. Ideally there should be only one way to conquer it, and it should be recognizable at first.
- No sword rotating allowed for no apparent reason. You can rotate your sword only if it's absolutely needed to open something/survive. Architects would get extra points for planning only absolutely linear battles. In general, everything should be linear and foolproof. Trapdoors would seem best solution, but that would be limiting creativity. You can come up with some really nasty orb-door combo, right ?
- in case a room is slightly non-definite, the shortest way to conquer the room counts. In serious cases contest entry should be discarded.

[Edited by b0rsuk at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 09:19 PM]

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bibelot
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Here's a random idea. Since DROD began its life on a chessboard, how about an architecture contest for the best room that fits within an 8x8 square?

Here's another random idea. It's pretty clear that people here know a wide variety of puzzles. How about an architecture contest for the best DROD implementation of a non-DROD puzzle? For instance, if you could somehow implement a Rubik's cube in DROD, that would be incredible.

stigant
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This is more of a mini contest: I often like to slaughter roaches/eyeballs/spiders/tarbabies in the most efficient manner possible. This usually involves finding a niche with 2 entrances and qwing so that I kill one roach every turn. So I got to thinking, what's the largest horde of other creatures (goblins, ww's, roach queens, brains, snakes?) that I could slaughter without whiffing (or more generally, so that one monster dies each turn)?

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gamer_extreme_101
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stigant wrote:
How about a contest to design the best multi-room puzzle.

That sounds really interesting. Claythro Tower had a really good one, and it would be interesting to see some more of them.

I'd like to see some programming type contests. These would be tough to run and enter, though, and the only ideas I have are non-drod related.

The only problem with that is that you need to keep it on a equal-oppertunity. I don't know any programming (Aside from Qbasic and HTML), and I'm not sure how many people know. That's why contest's have to stay simple and quick (For the most part). Taking the two I've ran, they involve something that anyone can easily give a shot. While you can learn programming from websites, it is extremly complicated and you would need to be really good to create a decent entry.

One comment I have about contests is that if there are a large number of entries and I have to rate each one of them (ala predict the future contest, and the grand audition), that takes a lot of the fun out of it.

I agree. That's why March's contest gives people points for more than one entry, but are only allowed one in the final poll. Let me know if that works out well or not.

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cheese obsessive
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I would like to see a room art contest, just because I like room art. Claythro tower floor 5 owns many things. I made a rather rough drod-version of the united states on my computer with a broken monitor, but sadly, I can't show it to you, because I obviously can't get to it without a monitor. Eh. I might make it again someday. :/

LeForce
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See who can write the funniest joke in room art.

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TripleM
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I have no idea whether this is possible, but I've always wondered about a room that a) is unsolvable, and b) you must die after some number of moves. If someone could create a very clever room, then you could have a 'how many moves can you survive for' competition. Seems almost impossible to have one where a large range of moves is possible, but maybe..

[Edited by TripleM at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 11:55 PM]

eytanz
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File: Survival.hold (801 bytes)
Downloaded 127 times.
License: Other
From: Unspecified

TripleM wrote:
I have no idea whether this is possible, but I've always wondered about a room that a) is unsolvable, and b) you must die after some number of moves. If someone could create a very clever room, then you could have a 'how many moves can you survive for' competition. Seems almost impossible to have one where a large range of moves is possible, but maybe..

[Edited by TripleM at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 11:55 PM]

It's not that difficult. The attached room is A) unsolvable, and B) You can't survive past turn 999, but you can die any turn between 3-1000.

It would be trivially easy to extend the range of this room by much, much more - I actually found limiting the range to exactly 1000 to be the only (slightly) difficult thing about making the room.

[Edited by eytanz at Local Time:03-05-2005 at 05:24 AM]

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TripleM
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eytanz wrote:

TripleM wrote:
I have no idea whether this is possible, but I've always wondered about a room that a) is unsolvable, and b) you must die after some number of moves. If someone could create a very clever room, then you could have a 'how many moves can you survive for' competition. Seems almost impossible to have one where a large range of moves is possible, but maybe..

[Edited by TripleM at Local Time:03-04-2005 at 11:55 PM]

It's not that difficult. The attached room is A) unsolvable, and B) You can't survive past turn 999, but you can die any turn between 3-1000.

It would be trivially easy to extend the range of this room by much, much more - I actually found limiting the range to exactly 1000 to be the only (slightly) difficult thing about making the room.

[Edited by eytanz at Local Time:03-05-2005 at 05:24 AM]

Thats true, but it would be useless to have as the contest, as everyone would score the maximum number of moves. I meant something which actually makes it a harder and harder challenge to survive for more and more moves. (Thus it should be almost impossible to survive for the maximum, otherwise everyone would win.)

Malarame
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bibelot wrote:
Here's a random idea. Since DROD began its life on a chessboard, how about an architecture contest for the best room that fits within an 8x8 square?

That's a really good idea, and I think it'd make a great contest. It's along the same vein as The Unfortunate Architect contest, and that brought out a lot of creativity. I think we should do this one in a few months.

As for other contest ideas, how about something that isn't directly related to making a hold? This month's contest is a good example. How about a contest where, instead of just making a roach, you have to replicate a room from KDD using stuff you find around your house?

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b0rsuk
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How about
DROD-art Contest

Draw the prettiest image you can using DROD level editor. Image floors not allowed.

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gamer_extreme_101
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Malarame wrote:
As for other contest ideas, how about something that isn't directly related to making a hold?

While I favour that idea, I'm sure Erik and the rest of the mods would agree that hold-related contests have the highest participation rate of all the contests we've ever had. Tourist only got 3 participants and Songs of the Eighth only got 6 entries, but I Ching got around 8 and Unfortunate Architect got 14. When I made my first contest, I made it a hold one based around that principle. If Erik and other contest runners can get high participation in non-hold contests like this month's, there is a better chance there will be more of them in the future.

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ErikH2000
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We should keep in mind that the last two contests were non-hold-related and had very good participation. It might be that the interest level is up in general.

-Erik

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MeckMeck GRE
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Maybe some writing copetition. It should be Drodisch (what a word). Well. Make a poem about DROD ?! Or a story about Beethros Adventures ?

Or my second idea : DROD Modding Contest. I think Drod can be modded quite easy....

(This means graphic/sound or both mod but no new monsters or code or capture the roach Multiplayer or whatever)

[Edited by MeckMeck GRE at Local Time:03-06-2005 at 06:21 PM]

Malarame
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MeckMeck GRE wrote:
Or my second idea : DROD Modding Contest. I think Drod can be modded quite easy....

The biggest problem with that idea is it wouldn't be a very level playing field. I, for one, know almost no programming, and I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to mod DROD. I think we want these contests to be someting that everybody can do in their spare time.

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gamer_extreme_101
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Malarame wrote:
The biggest problem with that idea is it wouldn't be a very level playing field. I, for one, know almost no programming, and I wouldn't even know where to start if I had to mod DROD. I think we want these contests to be someting that everybody can do in their spare time.

DROD modding needs no coding knowledge at all. All of the graphics, sounds, music, and fonts can be replaced by simply adding or editing files and editing the drod.ini file. Well, at least for AE anyways.

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wackhead_uk
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However, adding a monster would be very cool if you could do it via the source code.

gamer_extreme_101
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From the little I've seen of the source code, it would take a heckuva lot of effort, time, and knowledge. Each monster has their own code and that code would have to be integrated in with graphics, sound, and the actual main program. Too much work for my liking.

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b0rsuk
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Quick Learner Contest

This one is simple. Release JTRH, and see who can develop deadliest and most original puzzles with elements he didn't play with before.For this contest to make any sense it would have to be announced as first JTRH contest. So no one except those pesky beta-testers have time to prepare.

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eytanz
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b0rsuk wrote:
Quick Learner Contest

This one is simple. Release JTRH, and see who can develop deadliest and most original puzzles with elements he didn't play with before.For this contest to make any sense it would have to be announced as first JTRH contest. So no one except those pesky beta-testers have time to prepare.

Probably not going to happen - I think everyone on the dev team really prefers that the emphasis would be on the new hold, not the level editor. The level editor's great but we put a lot of hard work into making a great hold and don't want to push people away from playing it.

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Rabscuttle
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Hold competitions are good because they create holds that are still fun to play months after the competition is over. I guess the problem is coming up with new themes, to make the contests different from one another.

But for a non-hold idea, how about Curses of the Eighth. The object is to come up with an Eighth-themed exclamation of surprise, dismay, shock, or whatever. What a smitemaster says when he surveys an almost completed room, only to discover a tar baby trapped in a corner. Or what an architect cries out when a delver ruins his carefully constructed room with a mimic in just the wrong place.
Obviously naughty words wouldn't be allowed, but it should be perfectly possible to convey one's frustration with the words that remain.
I'm thinking of long descriptive things like "By the eight translucent legs of the spider queen"
Only better.

MeckMeck GRE
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My new contest idea is : DROD makes fun !

This is an hold makeing competition but this time it releys more on fun than on difficulty. However rules are about that :

- Everybody is allowed to do 1 hold.
- The hold size should be between 8 and 88 rooms.
- You dont need victory demos
- Post the hold attached to your post.
- After some time, a poll will be made where every hold get rated
by 3 various important criterias

Fun Factor (counts 3x) : Has to hold made fun ? 10 means you was really delightet about the hold, 1 means it was annoying

Creativity (counts 2x) : Creativity is about the style of the
puzzles, room style, mimimap art, story, scrolls, bonus
rooms, name of levels.... ending/level
descriptions

Difficulty (counts 2x) : The difficulty you aim for should equal
about 5 or 4 brains. Try to make it not
too easy/difficult





;-)

So.... 7000th Post here.


[Edited by MeckMeck GRE at Local Time:03-08-2005 at 07:14 PM]

Maurog
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How about a contest for writing a script for JtRH trailer? Kinda like what Matt wrote there, one entry per patricipant. It involves creativity, everyone can participate, and the winner will be obliged to hire some actors, rent a recording studio and shoot the trailer he created. OK, maybe without that last part.

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Malarame
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Maurog wrote:
How about a contest for writing a script for JtRH trailer? Kinda like what Matt wrote there, one entry per patricipant. It involves creativity, everyone can participate, and the winner will be obliged to hire some actors, rent a recording studio and shoot the trailer he created. OK, maybe without that last part.

This contest probably wouldn't work because JtRH will (hopefully) be out pretty soon. I know that there's already a contest lined up for next month and there might be one for the month after, so by the time this contest could be done, a trailer probably won't be needed. It is a good idea, though. Maybe when they announce the sequel to JtRH we can make trailers for that!

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b0rsuk
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Evil Laugh Contest

A contest to to produce most evil, maniacal and/or pervert laugh ever.
I wouldn't participate because my laugh is nothing special, but I would surely monitor all entries with great interest.

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Mikko
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Here are some ideas I've had for DROD contests:

An architecture contest, where you make a one level hold, but are not allowed to use any gates (of any colour). Might be a bit too similar to the Unfortunate Architect contest.

A KDD playing contest, where a copy of levels 1-24 of Dugan's dungeon is released with a secret password at the end, and warp rooms blocked. The first one to get to the password wins of course. Because of time zone issues, it might be a good idea to split the hold into three parts (levels 1-8, 9-16 and 17-24) and release them at 8 or 16 hour intervals. This would allow people to compete in a particular part as well as having a total time contest, where the times for each section are added together. The latter part would of course favour people who can play at odd times, but IMO anyone who gets up at 4AM to compete in a DROD competition is worthy of some extra advantage.

A KDD knowledge contest. A selection of screenshots, or rather small parts of them, from KDD are posted. The contest is simply for people to find out which rooms the images are from. This would of course work much better if all levels use the same tiles, as I believe is the case in JTRH. Or it could just be arranged in the editor. I'm not sure what the best scoring system for this contest would be.

wackhead_uk
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How about choosing one room from KDD (chosen by contest-setter) and then having a contest to see who can make that room harder by adding just one square of something new. Eg, a roach, a yellow door, a wall, etc.