kieranmillar
Level: Smitemaster
Rank Points: 2868
Registered: 07-11-2014
IP: Logged

The Eleventh Annual People's Choice Awards

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

The people have spoken. The votes have been cast and counted. The results are in. What were the best holds published in 2014? Here comes the most entertaining part of The Eleventh Annual People's Choice Awards, the part where we all celebrate!


Best Custom Game Element
Ordvan from Ordvan by Someone Else
Someone Else proves that custom elements don't have to be particularly complex to have a large impact on the game. In Ordvan, every time the player stabs a monster he immediately faces the opposite direction, which can turn the simplest of encounters into a tricky tactical situation. Even a single roach queen can strike fear into your heart, and the less said of aumtlich the better...
(Runner up... Hookshot from Lavender Levels by Dischorran)


Technical Design Excellence in Scripting
Lavender Levels by Dischorran
In a result that surprised absolutely nobody, Lavender Levels ran away with the scripting award by a huge margin, winning 2/3rds of the votes. And it's a result that is highly deserved. Lavender Levels is a scripting tour de force with a large selection of innovative and solidly-coded scripted elements that are great fun to play with.
(Runner up... jfflpnk by Dischorran)


Technical Design Excellence in Layout and Aesthetics
A Day at the Beach by blorx1
While everyone appreciates a hold with well constructed puzzles there's a certain joy in exploring the rooms of a hold where the rooms fit together in a smart and aesthetically pleasing way. Fortunately, A Day at the Beach has both, combining blorx1's knack for puzzle design with a wonderful and very pretty layout and visual design. Seriously, if you haven't done so already, check out this hold in map.php.
(Runner up... Curiosity by kieranmillar)


Technical Design Excellence in Concept
3 in 1 by kieranmillar
3 in 1 combines the new TSS features of seeding beacons and challenges to make a hold where each room is actually multiple puzzles. While this in and of itself is not new to DROD, the hold also contains an extra challenge which is probably best left unspoiled.
(Runner up... jfflpnk by Dischorran)


Creative Design Excellence in Storyline
Curiosity by kieranmillar
You don't have to include long dramatic cutscenes in your hold in order to string it all together in a cohesive manner, as proved by this year's winner which contains no cutscenes at all and explains the story entirely through level entrance text and scrolls.
(Runner up... Granny's Secret by BlueFlower)


Creative Design Excellence in Difficulty
Lavender Levels by Dischorran
Our winner of the scripting award isn't just a showcase for scripting wizardry. It also uses those new elements in a variety of challenging but excellent puzzles ensuring that there is no doubt that the elements aren't just a silly gimmick but a genuine puzzle tool. Except in the cases where they are both a silly gimmick AND an excellent puzzle tool of course. Who knew there was so much potential for a potion that makes roach eggs fly out of your butt?
(Runner up... A Day at the Beach by blorx1)


Creative Design Excellence in Entertainment
Curiosity by kieranmillar
Puzzles don't have to be super challenging to be fun, as this award demonstrates every year. This year the award goes to Curiosity, where each level focuses on a small combination of elements and opens with a demonstration room to make sure the only thing standing in your way is not confusing and possibly unknown interactions but straightforward puzzle solving with a bit of tactical combat thrown in for good measure.
(Runner up... 3 in 1 by kieranmillar)


DROD Hold of the Year
Lavender Levels by Dischorran
The only problem with one hold cleaning up on numerous awards is that eventually I start to run out of things to say about it. So instead I'll just say this: Lavender Levels is a truly excellent hold. It is well polished and brings to the table a very unique experience that is a joy to play and it totally deserves the most prestigious of awards. Go and play it! Congratulations Dischorran!
(Runner up... Curiosity by kieranmillar)


DROD RPG Level Set of the Year
Nameless Fortress by Nuntar (collaboration)
Following the same community-built forum-game construction approach as Hold Anonymous, Nameless Fortress offers a unique design while avoiding the pitfalls of the original community RPG hold. By utilising a clever Easy/Hard mode toggle switch at the start this hold manages to make the quite punishing traditional RPG style much more approachable while smoothing out the rough edges of its collaborative design aporoach while still catering to the hardcore RPG crowd. Congratulations to all involved, particularly Nuntar who took on the not insignificant task of managing the whole thing.
(Runner up... Deadly Choices of Death by Red-XIII)


Best Voice Artist in a Distinct Role
Erik Hermansen (ErikH2000) as Arky
What better way to celebrate the conclusion of Beethro's story than to have the original DROD creator himself voice a character who is completely terrible at room design? Joking aside, Erik's excellent voice work as Arky is a joy to listen to. I loved listening to Arky explain the logic of how his rooms were totally impossible to solve and it's no wonder that the character is a fan favourite.
(Runners up... Sten Ryason as Beethro, Tony Porter as A1)


Novice Architect Award
kieranmillar
It's a bit embarrassing trying to write an award blurb about myself, so instead I'll take this opportunity to say thanks to everyone for being such a friendly and welcoming community and I hope to stick around for years to come. It's a pleasure to be with you all, thank you.
(Runner up... bomber50)


Erik Hermansen Award for Lifetime Architectural Achievement
blorx1
It's about time blorx1 joined the ranks of other great architectural elites in winning the lifetime award. As demonstrated by both his excellent puzzle crafting skills and ability to spot unintended solutions in testing other people's holds, few command such a thorough mastery of DROD puzzle design than blorx1. While his puzzles are usually on the high end of the difficulty scale, they are always smart and satisfying to solve. Congratulations blorx1!


Best Community Contributor
Nuntar
Another runaway award, with the winner scoring three times as many votes as second place. In 2014 Nuntar went above and beyond by not only updating the entirety of King Dugan's Dungeon for the new TSS engine with a ton of challenges, but by also taking the reigns behind a number of community holds. While this year's award-winning Nameless Fortress is an obvious example, what less people will be aware of is the work Nuntar has put into organising and managing the extremely large and ambitious Entry Point hold that is still in development. Nuntar has put in incredible amounts of effort in making everyone's DROD experience that much better, and the community would like to repay that with the acknowledgement that it has not gone by unnoticed. Thanks Nuntar for all that you have done, and are continuing to do well into 2015.
(Runner up... skell)


Unfortunately that is all for this year. Tune in next year where we will have a whole host of other great holds to celebrate. We're not even halfway through 2015 and there has already been a number of very good published holds so it will be one to watch for sure!

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

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[Last edited by kieranmillar at 05-23-2015 08:47 PM]

Dischorran
Level: Smitemaster

Rank Points: 3414
Registered: 09-10-2005
IP: Logged

So that's not really how I expected this to turn out. I guess I can live with losing the concept category.

If one counts having ideas for weird scripting effects, work on Lavender Levels dates back to when Beethro's Brain was under construction and continued until TSS made it possible to do most of what I wanted.

Chromatic goo was from Pearls and TFMurphy's TSS trailer; I seem to remember having thrown the idea around in chat beforehand.

The briar layer was a new idea, pretty much just looking at the idea of something that would leave a built trail behind it and settling on something pushable that left briar as the most versatile option.

Entropic aumtlich are basically Abbott's Minotaur; I really wanted to see something that moved faster than Beethro in TSS, which didn't happen. So I made it myself, with more difficulty than I expected.

The grappling hook was easily my favorite feature of the RPG. So I took it and made it even more awesome as a hookshot to start the architecture process on the hold.

Unstable projections were my original idea for the Holds al Dente 2 contest. I couldn't make them work then, so I did guardians instead, and now the projections explode which is nice.

The dervish tokens come from jfflpnk, and are actually useful in TSS now that there's a way to force an attack on the sword's tile after moving it. Not useful enough, of course, since pushing can't be scripted and turning Beethro as a move takes an additional turn.

Conways are what happens when I have ideas under the influence. Implementation was tricky due to a sort of tight cutoff for DROD deciding that a script's in an infinite loop; a script can't do more than one or two calculations when scanning an entire room, so I broke it up. Unrelatedly, I hear that RAM sales have gone up.

I originally wanted Beethro's Brain to have a bit where Beethro was a roach queen and had to land every 30 turns on yellow doors or something so he wouldn't pop out a bunch of roaches that would eat him. I couldn't do that then. But once I had tokens working, adapting the script for potions and discovering the _MyScript option for spawning roach eggs made this a hopefully entertaining adaptation.

The hold's You and Conquerors edit, and anyone with editing privileges is free to use any of these in their holds.

Not developed in time for Lavender Levels: a moving bomb that leaves a fuse trail behind it like a pseudosnake, a transmogrifier that turns a monster on its target square into the monster on its template square, and a robotic guardish thing that's pushable and moves directly forward when possible, reading tokens to change its weapon and rotate its path. Maybe sometime else.

____________________________

adS
Level: Master Delver

Rank Points: 214
Registered: 05-02-2010
IP: Logged

Dear Dischorran,

I just noticed that I have registered to Drod exactly five years ago on 2.May.2010. During these 5 years I gave 10 points to one hold only.

I think that says it all.

Congratulations and keep on with your good work

Most respectfully,

adS


____________________________
pauca sed matura

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[Last edited by adS at 05-02-2015 09:33 PM]