hmm, well most essays I've written have been 3000 word essays it doesn't strike me as being overly long. Its about 9 pages double spaced and in my experince it takes about an hour to write a 1000 words. Also 3000 words would be the upper limit I expect most entries to be around a 1000 to 1500 words. I set the limit to 3000 words in case someone has a particularly long entry but I think I'll drop requirement to a 500-1500 word entry. Since the more I think about the more its seems unlikly that a games intro would be longer then that.

How is a introduction different from a scene script? Well an introduction can take the form of either a narrative description or a scene script.

As for the concept I was thinking of "the coming storm". So people would have to write a 500 to 1500 word introduction about the comming storm for a game. They are free to interperate what the comming storm referers to.

But if people think that that is to vague a concept then how about : " A game set in the modern day about a female protaganist who through the course of her job or because of it, some how becomes drawn into the secert world of the paranormal which coexists within our world."



[Edited by - TechnoGoth on September 6, 2005 2:29:53 PM]

I like the whole "The Coming Storm" idea. Gives the writer freedom while at the same time limiting the differint kinds of writing judges would have to judge.

I like "the coming storm".
It's specific enough that we can all have an idea, yet it can be interpreted in many different ways (especially if you use it as a metaphor).

Also an introduction sequence sort of thing would be just fine, I assume.
Although maybe what we write (an intro, an example script of an action sequence, a plot outline, a character's background story...) isn't so important, really.

SnS: ah my apologies, I was mentioning San Andreas because I have been playing it for the last few weeks, and it just popped up as a natural example of something that is quite definite (you knew which game I was referring to), yet is so vast that it can be interpreted in many ways. But you got my point despite my example, so it's all good :)

Shall we do this over the coming weekend ? (cos although I only have internet access during the week, I don't think I'd have much time to actually write)

I agree with ahw about the weekend being a bad time, since I am only able to access the net during the week. That and I think that 500-1500 words sounds more reasonable. I would also be interested if there was also an additional submittion for formatting notes in the Scene Script round or the Plot sketch perhaps even the introduction. That way you could come up with a prefered format for those who have never published or completed any of those and have no idea what the format should be, would be, or even could be.

I think that we should host a few competition as trials and get feedback on how things are organized and the response time from the judges and voters.

I agree with the AP that there should be outside voters in the more formal contest once we things are rolling.

There are a few questions that are coming to mind at this moment and those are: how will submissions / registration be done, how will the voting be done, and where will the submissions be posted. Is this all to be done by threads and stickies in this Forum or is someone willing to setup a webpage for this endeavour.

Well I think we have sorted out the details and people seem happy so I think we should go ahead and run the competition this weekend. As some people have stated that weekends are not good for them we will instead run it from noon sunday to noon tuesday BST, that should give people plenty of time to create their entries and submit them. Judgine and voting will take be completed by the sunday after that.

For the first round all submissions should be made by posting a link to your entry in the contest thread, which one of the moderators will hopefully close after the deadline. Acceptable formats will be word documents and rich text documents. Hopefully if it is succesfully we can later on think about setting up a webpage or might even try and set one before hand if time allows.

Lastly the subject of formatting was brought up. We people find it helpful to see a few examples of different styles of presenting each type of entry. If so I could look around for a couple or those of you who have already done the research can post of examples.

Sunday to tuesday??? If you meant just sunday-monday-tuesday that's definitely not enough time. Why don't you make it orderly and have a week (including a full weekend so everybody's happy) for entries to be submitted, a week for entries to be voted on, and then we can start the next contest with the winning entry of the first the week after that. Also, I would strongly suggest that if we're going to have a series of these, each building on that last, that we start with a 500-1000 word game concept.

Entries should be PM-ed to the person running the contest who will post them all in one contest thread (In the thread itself, not as links), anonymous and numbered for voting purposes. Instead of closing the contest thread at the deadline, I want to leave it open so posters can respond with comments and critiques of the entries. Votes will also be PMed to the contest manager.

Quote:

Original post by 5MinuteGaming Well, as an idea those categories I mentioned were critized as the end all be all of a competition criteria for judging. Mr. Baggaley, surely you did not have to counter each of them in turn treating them as the sections of a highly significant charter.

I do apologise. I had no idea there was a "Posting Standards" document for GameDev.net's discussion forums. I shall endeavour to locate and read it forthwith. I hope any future posts I make will meet your high standards.

I shall also attempt to improve my telepathy skills, which are clearly sorely lacking.

--
Sean Timarco Baggaley

Okay, maybe sunday to tuesday is a bit odd. So instead we will make it a one week competition. The first round will run from 12:01am BST september 9th-15th.

submissions will be handled as sunandshadow suggested.

Quote:

Entries should be PM-ed to the person running the contest who will post them all in one contest thread (In the thread itself, not as links), anonymous and numbered for voting purposes. Instead of closing the contest thread at the deadline, I want to leave it open so posters can respond with comments and critiques of the entries. Votes will also be PMed to the contest manager.

I don't think there needs to be a concept round since each round will effectivly fleshout the concept as the contest goes along. It might turn out to be a mistake not having a concept round but that can always be changed in future competitions.

Well, if nobody besides me particularly wants to do a concept round then I won't complain if you skip it. Personally I love that part of the design phase because the sky's the limit, you can come up with something really new and creative rather than just figure out how to implement someone else's idea, but by the same token it might be too open-ended for some people's taste.

Well, I look forward to a little competitive writing will hone my skills and help me gain those skills which I lack which would be, oh so many.

S&S: A concept round would be nice but I don't think that it will be to bad without it. Perhaps later we could have a round for the concept to the next competition.

stimarco: Ha! :P