Announcement: Be excellent to each other.


Caravel Forum : Caravel Boards : Contests : DROD Film Festival (Scrapped) (Our contest for August.)
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Poster Message
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon DROD Film Festival (Scrapped) (+1)  
Edit: These are the original rules that I abandoned. Look for a newer topic with updated rules.

In 1989, when I was a junior in high school, I took a computer programming class. We had a teacher, Larry Welch, who would frequently tell us that school was not the real world, and what we did there only occasionally rose above complete meaninglessness. "Life isn't fair," he would say when I whined about my program assignment running perfectly at home, but not on the school's computers. And then, when I presented an irrelevant argument about why Microsoft BASIC was in some ways superior to Borland Pascal, he changed my C+ to a B- because "debating is a valuable skill which is quite useful in some situations, like when you are in a debate club, for example." The man ruled his classroom with the decadent detachment of a Caesar. I once watched him dismantle an overhead speaker because he hated having his lectures interrupted.

One of the more valuable lessons I got from Larry Welch's unique style of teaching, was the way that groups of people are rewarded or punished in the real world. Larry was a big fan of making us choose people to work with on a project, and then giving us all the same grade for the project. So if you are the only solid member of your team, then you might end up doing all the work--a situation to be avoided! Or if you couldn't write one error-free line of code, then you still had a chance to buddy up to the right people and let them carry you. Just like real life, right? An important thing was getting good people on your team quickly before they were snatched up. These team exercises were my first introduction to the ruthless and unfair politics that frequently come up in software projects.

Contest Rules

For our August contest, things won't get terribly ruthless and unfair, but the Welchian standard of one-team-one-grade will be observed. Each team will be responsible for creating a film, which is actually a hold that presents a skit, monologue, musical number, or similar theatrical presentation. Teams must have exactly three members, and no member can be on multiple teams.

The film will meet these criteria:

- The film should be no longer than 15 minutes.
- The film can be Eighth-related, but doesn't need to be. The same rules of conduct for forum posting (i.e. no swearing, discussion of illegal activity, copyright infringement) apply to the presentation.
- No puzzle-solving or interactive elements. Player movements can't affect the presentation other than perhaps to make it pause or progress.
- Characters will have recorded speech.
- The completed film (hold file) must be e-mailed to me by Local Time:08-20-2005 at 01:00 AM. You can't make multiple submissions. Avoid sending updates or multiple versions of the same hold.

The Film Festival

We will "screen" everyone's productions in our own little festival. Your film will actually get a distribution beyond the forum-going crowd! I'll tell you more about that later.

Prizes

After the screening, we'll have a rating poll for the films. Each member of the team with the top-rated film will get 100 rank points and an item of his choosing from the Prize Pile. (Yeah, that's right--we're tripling the prize count for this one.) Second-place winners get 50 rank points apiece, and third-place get 25 rank points. If the team has one or more members that have never participated in a Caravel contest before, then everyone gets +10 for each rookie on the team. That's how Larry Welch would do it.

Team-Forming Strategy

How can you get a team together? Well, you might pick some roles and try to fill them. For example:

- Writer (writes the script for the characters)
- Audio engineer (edits voice recording samples into clips that can be used)
- Hold scripter (assembles everything together in a hold)

If you have an idea for the type of production you want to make, then you're probably going to be the writer and team leader. You can post here with your idea or a first draft of your script, and recruit for two other people to help. If you don't have a project idea, you could also post here saying what kinds of things you'd like to do, and someone may invite you onto their team. Or you could handle it all by contacting people privately--the old shoulder-tapping method. It's up to you!

So let's get some teams going! This contest is definitely very experimental. A year ago I wouldn't have even attempted to do something this tricky, but I think you guys can pull it off. We just need some bold people to start things moving.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)

[Last edited by ErikH2000 at 08-06-2005 08:35 PM]
08-05-2005 at 10:31 PM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
agaricus5
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 1838
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (+2)  
I'm no writer, and I don't have any sound experience above recording music, but I'd be happy to build and script a hold, if anyone's interested and I am allowed to participate (I am part of the web team, so I'm not sure if I'm eligible). Just e-mail me or send me a PM if you need my help.

____________________________
Resident Medic/Mycologist
08-05-2005 at 11:18 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (+1)  
agaricus5 wrote:
(I am part of the web team, so I'm not sure if I'm eligible).
Everyone is eligible except me and Larry Welch.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)
08-05-2005 at 11:59 PM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
gamer_extreme_101
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1939
Registered: 03-07-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
Well, there go all my plans for working on DROD.net this month.


____________________________
--That guy with a million different aliases since he doesn't like this name anymore.
08-06-2005 at 05:58 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
You know, I think I might have made this one too hard to enter. I'm thinking of scaling it back. Like take out the audio recording stuff and have just one person per entry. I'll sleep on it.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)
08-06-2005 at 07:21 AM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Tablesaw
Level: Delver
Avatar
Rank Points: 33
Registered: 05-14-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
Instead of trying to limit character movement, could we create a hold, then record demos of rooms to create the scenes of a film? That would allow teams to get timing to flow better, and make the best use of the time limit.

Also, do team members have to be current forum members?

____________________________
It's the saw of the table!
08-06-2005 at 10:37 AM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Visit Homepage Show all user's posts Quote Reply
MeckMeck GRE
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 594
Registered: 01-03-2005
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
WOW ! Cool idea ! :yes

However I dont like the "exact 3 people thing. Of course a team is always better but some may want to do it in a group of 2 (or four or alone...). A limit would be better (like not more than 3 guys).



[Last edited by MeckMeck GRE at 08-06-2005 01:22 PM]
08-06-2005 at 01:21 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Sim
Level: Delver
Avatar
Rank Points: 90
Registered: 04-04-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
If anyone wants me for writing or scripting, you can PM or e-mail me. I could do some voice acting too, but I've never done that before. Bear in mind that I don't know too much about the Eighth, but I could write to a basic idea.
As far as the competition goes, it seems quite confusing to me. Is the player meant to walk through the level and have the characters speaking, or is the player uncontrollable? If the player is controlling, are we meant to use doors and the like that open at certain points in the dialogue? Can we use custom graphics - floor tiles or character portraits?
Sorry it's a lot of questions, but I'm sure other people would ask similar things too.
08-06-2005 at 02:39 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
Banjooie
Level: Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 1645
Registered: 12-12-2004
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
I am mildly opposed to you folk and your 'cooperation'. :( Would I be able to do it alone?
08-06-2005 at 08:18 PM
View Profile Send Private Message to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
ErikH2000
Level: Legendary Smitemaster
Avatar
Rank Points: 2794
Registered: 02-04-2003
IP: Logged
icon Re: DROD Film Festival (0)  
Okay, I'm revamping the rules to simplify this. Look for a brand new post in the next 15 minutes.

-Erik

____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals | twitch stream | youtube archive (NSFW)
08-06-2005 at 08:34 PM
View Profile Send Email to User Show all user's posts This architect's holds Quote Reply
New Topic New Poll Post Reply
Caravel Forum : Caravel Boards : Contests : DROD Film Festival (Scrapped) (Our contest for August.)
Surf To:


Forum Rules:
Can I post a new topic? No
Can I reply? No
Can I read? Yes
HTML Enabled? No
UBBC Enabled? Yes
Words Filter Enable? No

Contact Us | CaravelGames.com

Powered by: tForum tForumHacks Edition b0.98.8
Originally created by Toan Huynh (Copyright © 2000)
Enhanced by the tForumHacks team and the Caravel team.