Well here they are the entries for round 1!! Read them over and then PM with your rankings of them from 1 to 9 with 1 being your favorite and 9 your least. >Writing Competition 2005, Round 1 Voting ends Friday 23rd at 12:01 GMT Feel free to leave your comments on the entries in this thread.

Heh, you can sort of tell whose entry is whose by their writing style.

People who didn't enter can rank all the entries from 1-9, but what about people who did enter, do we skip ours and rank the rest 1-8, or what?

And yeah, I can tell whose some of them are lol. Maybe we should have a little secondary "guess who wrote what" contest? [wink]

[Edited by - sunandshadow on September 16, 2005 11:21:21 AM]

hahahaha!

He didn't edit out the begining of the PM.

So much for being anonymous. ;)

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow People who didn't enter can rank all the entries from 1-9, but what about people who did enter, do we skip ours and rank the rest 1-8, or what? And yeah, I can tell whose some of them are lol. Maybe we should have a little secondary "guess who wrote what" contest? [wink]

Hmm, that all depends on whether or not be people like their own entries.
But I suppose it's best if people don't rank their own entries, so if you entered, then rank the entries 1-8.

Quote:

Original post by GOR-GOR hahahaha! He didn't edit out the begining of the PM. So much for being anonymous. ;)

Oh, insulting a judge. I think warrants a lifetime ban.
[wink]

just kidding.

Quote:

Original post by TechnoGoth Quote: Original post by GOR-GOR hahahaha! He didn't edit out the begining of the PM. So much for being anonymous. ;) Oh, insulting a judge. I think warrants a lifetime ban. [wink] just kidding.

SNAFU. But I suppose it doesn't matter - the point of the anonymnity is to prevent favoritism, but a new gamedev member hasn't had time to become anyone's favorite yet. [wink]

GRARR! :( Be nice, Techno. In certain circles I'm also known as Captain Awesome. Being nice and not life-banning Captain Awesome grants special priveledges.... grr..

Thanks for the edit. ;) I didn't mind, it was just funny, and made the entry look sloppy.

Hi , i haven't gone through all the entries , but here is what i think about the ones i have read.

Entry 1 : This pretty much sounds like the part which tarantino missed out on kill-will-bill :). The language is straight forward and lucid , but i would pefer a higher command over vocab.

Entry 2: Unfortunately i feel this just might be a little over the top.

Entry 3: I found the opening fails to hold my interest , but it ends on a good mysterious note.

Entry 4: The backdrop itself sets up for a game, it lacks structure ie even though there is a flow , i would have prefered to see this one in paragraphs :/

Entry 5: Sounds pretty much like a epic , i am looking forward to further developments on this one.

Entry 6 : Woh , its not the stuff i can read at 4 am , i ll give it another shot tommrrow.

Goodluck to all the participants ,
Cheers.

[Edited by - Nokturnal on September 17, 2005 6:04:26 AM]

Commenting on specific entries might give away which one's mine, so instead I'll comment on what my voting criteria were, because maybe that would be a helpful guideline to people who in future wanted to self-edit their own game writing.

Probably everyone is already thinking about two basic technical criteria: "Is it coherent?" and "Is it a game intro?"

Coherence - IMHO any piece of writing fails if it does not clearly communicate something. Clear communication is by definition that which:
1) Obeys the rules of grammar and spelling, and
2) Follows a logical progression of introducing a topic, developing that topic, and coming to a conclusion/transition to the next topic.

And a game intro in particular should communicate:
1) What the player is seeing and hearing during the intro (i.e. can we gameify this?),
2) Some vivid emotion, to draw the player into the gaming experience,
3) A mystery, clue, or question, such that the player feels suspense and wants to play the game to see what happens next.

Above these basic technical issues is the matter of artistry/entertainingness. Okay, it's a game intro, but is it an interesting/fun/cool game intro?
1) At the lowest level, are the word choice and sentence structure dramatic and effective at orienting me within the game world, teaching me about the current situation, and manipulating my emotions? Do they have personality and create a vivid atmosphere?
3) At a higher level, are the character development and plot development ditto ditto?
2) Does the content avoid boring the audience with cliches?
3) Does the content promise players that the game will be fun, or repel players by indicating that the game will be unpleasant?


These are largely the same criteria I use when critiquing the intro to a novel or play (as I frequently do in my writers' group). Since my writers' group members feel that this type of evaluation improves their pieces of writing, maybe you will find that it improves yours too.

Entry 4, by a mile. Hooked me with tight driving description of an exotic and tightly contextualized initial setting. Vivid and characterized gameworld description backdropped right after the initial setting with reasons why both the initial setting and the gameworld were there and why. Strong authority figure character introduced with prowess equal to the demands of the setting and gameworld polit. Conflict introduced early in well personalized characteristic antagonist introduction and description next. Complication of the conflict balance set well and early, allowing good walk on by the young Authority Police Officer who is clearly the protagonist in nascent character arc which allows the oscillation effect of audience sway to commence.

Bravo! I have to also say that I am way over partial to sci fi, so the other entries all had their merits, this one simply did all the right things well and I was ready to buy this game.

/me applauds entrant # 4