Quote:

Original post by Beige I wrote #7 :( knew I should have revised it again.

Visual descriptions would have helped set the mood. Personally I didn't like the choice of subject matter, but that's just a matter of taste, some people must have liked it because you tied with me for 3rd in the popular vote. [wink]

I liked #7, partly because it was set in Australia [grin]

Although I don't think we have premedicine here as a university degree, at least at the universities that I've been to. We just have "medicine".

I wrote #9, and I did it in an hour. XD

hahahaha My first time ever seeing this forum, and joining, was about 2 hours before the contest deadline. I smashed it out and PMed it, and I think due to time differences I was late by maybe 15 minutes. :| But TechnoGoth was merciful.

I'm pleased that it did marginally well for such short notice, and with such little knowledge of how to write in the desired format. Learned a lot from the winning entry and Estok. We'll see what happens.

Between fighting and school I'm gonna try and get together something for round 2. Can't wait to see what the rest of ya'll come up with, tattoos are hot. Let's see a lot of big boobs along with the tattoos. :D

Lara Croft - biker style.

Well I did Entry #5 - I can't believe that it won, I never win anything. Anyway I hope that as the competition roles on that all our skills will improve.

I wrote the entry in about 20 minutes and then refined it by rereading it about three or four times correcting spelling errors any grammer mistakes, only those that popped out at me, I'm sure there are a few sentences that have errors in them. I tried to weed out any inconsistencies after that anything that sounded corny or immature. I looked also for anything that I could add. I think I should have added at least another paragraph or so. Perhaps the beginning game tutorial or something but I couldn't think of anything until after I had submitted it which wasn't till the last day though I'm not exactly sure what time cause of the time zones but I hope you all enjoyed it.

I must say that I myself was not entirely captivated by the story but it does have potential for a heart moving game of a revengful mother and a conviction that everyone not just women should have.

I'm wondering on how many final votes there were, TechnoGoth? You said at one point that not everyone who entered voted. Oh and will there be public voting in other rounds cause I think we all would like the opinion of other people on GameDev.

Thanks all for Participating and I'll guess I'm just gonna have to win round 2 as well :-P (just kidding!) ;) oh and a lot of criticism of my work is always appreciated so feel free and tear it to sheds - Estok Especially.

Post-Evaluation:

Quote:

- please post the detailed critique for each entry (estok and sunandshadow) - the actual voting patterns (estok) - or at least the number of voters (5minutegaming) - reveal the author of each entry (sunandshadow)

Empirical Analysis:
If you sort TechnoGoth's evaluation without the popular vote, you get this:

Entry	      Sty Crt App Tot5.Revenge      9   9   9  9.03.Graduation   8   8   8  8.04.Prison       8   7   8  7.79.Rush 	       7   8   8  7.72.Scientist    8   6   8  7.37.Premed       8   6   8  7.36.Illusion     7   7   7  7.0 1.Wedding      5   4   4  4.38.Corn 	       2   5   5  4.0

If you don't find the evaluation rough and unbelievable, I don't see a reason for you to read the rest of this post.

TechnoGoth practically said this:
(excluding seemingly off-topic entries 1.Wedding and 8.Corn)

On style
- Revenge has the best style, clearly;
- Graduation, Prison, Scientist, Premed have same style Score, roughly;
- Illusion and Rush share the worst style

On Creativity:
- Revenge is the most creative, clearly;
- Graduation and Rush share the same Creativity, roughly;
- Prison and Illusion share the same Creativity, roughly;
- Scientist and Premed share the worst Creativity, roughly;

On Application:
- Revenge is the most applicable, clearly;
- Graduation, Prison, Rush, Scientist, Premed, share the same Applicability, roughly
- Illusion has the worst applicability, clearly;

You can't help but wonder how long TechnoGoth spent reading and what he understood before judging each entry. It is also unbelievable that there is no written explanation of the ratings. If you appoint yourself to be the sole judge of a competition, you would expect yourself to at least jog down the reasons why something is better than something else, so that you can conclude the competition meaningfully, by providing a reasonable well-written evaluation; not to mention the lack of an explanation of the best entry, but also a reasonable interpretation of the popular vote.

Due to the small number of votes and the fact that there were people who analyzed and voted like AdventureDesign did, it was reasonable to assume that the votes are not representative. But in the light of the quality of the official evaluation, it is reasonable that the evaluation is the one that is meaningless.

Official Evaluation:
Revenge > Graduation > Prison, Rush > Premed, Scientist > Illusion

Popular Evaluation:
Illusion > Graduation, Scientist > Premed, Prison, Revenge, Rush

The two are in reverse order. In light of this contradiction, you have to admire TechnoGoth to have the guts to post his evaluaion and not saying a word about or even to acknowledge the situation.

It doesn't seem that TechnoGoth planned to write any follow-up to explain the result or the votes. So I guess TechnoGoth thinks that this is all you get from competiting Round 1. To say it frankly the competition is disappointing and depriving.

The condition of the competition is miserable and irresponsible. If you don't see the impartialness of this conclusion, you don't have the objectivity to engage in a reasonable discussion. Unless at least one other person wants to actively involve (i.e. not just listening, but criticizing also) in a reasonable discussion, I don't see the need to discuss if the competition was designed and expected to be a child's play.

Quote:

Original post by sunandshadow And also, please reveal who wrote which entry. I wrote #3. :)

Sure,
Entry 1 - k0ns0l3
Entry 2 - Fournicolas
Entry 3 - sunandshadow
Entry 4 - Aedyr
Entry 5 - 5MinuteGaming
Entry 6 - Estok
Entry 7 - Beige
Entry 8 - Murcu
Entry 9 - GOR-GOR

As for a detailed breakdown of votes then where as follows:

E1     E2       E3      E4      E5      E6     E7       E8      E97	3	6	4	9	5	2	1	86	3	1	5	9	2	*	4	87	2	*	6	2	3	4	8	15	6	4	9	3	1	2	8	76	4	3	1	*	5	7	8	21	5	4	9	2	6	3	8	7

The popular vote was normalized against the most popular entry I posted the formula in an early message. But essentially if the most populart entry got a total votes of 20 it would have popular score of 10 if another entry had a total votes of 10 then it would have a popular score of 5.

The unnormalized scores looked like this:

Popularity
E1 5.2
E2 6.9
E3 7.5
E4 4.8
E5 6.0
E6 7.0
E7 7.5
E8 4.3
E9 5.0

For those who say the votes where unfair the average difference between the judes score and the popular rating was 1.2 points. With the majority of entries within .5 points of each other and 3 entries with more then 2 points in difference.

Estok, while I agree that the amount of criticism is lacking you are hardly helping. You haven't posted a single critique of an entry but merrily are ranting about the injustices and failings of a contest from independant writers that are attempting to learn. And furthermore you have no solution. If you have nothing constructive to say, "don't say anything at all". If you happen to think of a solution then by all means post your long winded technical dribble. I expect that you will follow this post up with your own evaluation of the entries and proceed to contact TechnoGoth about becoming a judge and working together with him. This is the same sort of thing that colapsed our Cooperative Game Story. If all you want to do is inflame distaste for this competition then you should be ignored.

Reply to Estoks Earlier post:
All this hype you made about a writer involving you in the game. When someone reads something the person reading it involves themselves in the writen work. The writer has no control over how much the reader will be engrossed or what they will imagine. The writer can only indirectly influence a readers feelings emotions and reactions to their writing. A game can be different since the computer can take on the persona of the writer and react and influence the story based on the reaction of the person playing thus attempt to create feelings in order to communicate the programmers or developers vision of the game. But this is WRITING for games not programming them, so the competition is to create writen storys, scripts, and characters for a game. The game logistics and how things work to involve the player is not a goal of this competition nor is "...induce[ing] the sense of involvement that makes the reader [feel] like an active player". So your so called difference in writing "...between a piece of writing that describes a scene and a piece that induces a scene" is imaginary there are no uniquely identifiable differences between writen work that can induce a scene or that describes a scene. The induction is in the complete control of the reader. If the person reading a description of a beautiful valley is able they might imagine actually being there or actually feeling the breeze or smelling the flowers. It does not matter how good the writer is or how well he/she can write it is who the reader is and what the reader can understand. Example Shakespeare some people have no idea what the hell he is saying does that mean that he did not induce the scene, no it means that he cannot induce the scene only the reader can.

About the Competition:
As far as this competition goes I would like to see more than one judge and some critical analysis of the winning entry including a comparison. Perhaps a top 3 or top 5 entries and a comparison between those. Just things to think about for further rounds.

Quote:

Original post by 5MinuteGamingReply to Estoks Earlier post: All this hype you made about a writer involving you in the game. When someone reads something the person reading it involves themselves in the writen work. The writer has no control over how much the reader will be engrossed or what they will imagine. The writer can only indirectly influence a readers feelings emotions and reactions to their writing. A game can be different since the computer can take on the persona of the writer and react and influence the story based on the reaction of the person playing thus attempt to create feelings in order to communicate the programmers or developers vision of the game. But this is WRITING for games not programming them, so the competition is to create writen storys, scripts, and characters for a game. The game logistics and how things work to involve the player is not a goal of this competition nor is "...induce[ing] the sense of involvement that makes the reader [feel] like an active player". So your so called difference in writing "...between a piece of writing that describes a scene and a piece that induces a scene" is imaginary there are no uniquely identifiable differences between writen work that can induce a scene or that describes a scene. The induction is in the complete control of the reader. If the person reading a description of a beautiful valley is able they might imagine actually being there or actually feeling the breeze or smelling the flowers. It does not matter how good the writer is or how well he/she can write it is who the reader is and what the reader can understand. Example Shakespeare some people have no idea what the hell he is saying does that mean that he did not induce the scene, no it means that he cannot induce the scene only the reader can.

I agree with Estok's aesthetic. You say this is writing for games, not designing them and not programming them, but when it comes to generating a vivid atmosphere and style as a whole, are they really so easily seperated?

Quote:

About the Competition: As far as this competition goes I would like to see more than one judge and some critical analysis of the winning entry including a comparison. Perhaps a top 3 or top 5 entries and a comparison between those. Just things to think about for further rounds.

I agree, and I think the entries for each round should undergo additional analysis.

Re:

Do you know how long I have been waiting to criticize the entries? I already said that the format of the competition inhibits discussions. I do have solution, but before you talk about solution, you need to at least acknowledge that there is a problem. I have no reason to believe that anyone even saw a problem. Why would I present a solution when no one cared about a solution. Your expectation is correct, that I plan to follow up with my critiques. But preferably after TechnoGoth has a chance to present his critiques first. As far as you can infer from the resolution from the scoring, such critiques didn't exist.

I don't see any reason to be working with TechnoGoth as a judge. This isn't like a formal competition. Any coherent at all from any viewer already enhance the educational value of the competition. As long as people are discussing, there is no real reason to select a winner.

* In the collaborative game story, I was the one giving the most examples and methods of evaluating the different designs and concepts.


Re: Demonstrative Introduction
When someone read a story, they get involved in the story. In a Demonstrative Introduction, the purpose is to involved the reader into the gameplay. A Demonstrative Introduction presents the gameplay experience through writing. Take your entry for example, after reading, the reader has no reason to infer that the gameplay is fun to play. In fact, the reader is left with nothing to infer the experience of gameplay.

The motivation of this quite simple. If you read a demonstrative introduction of an MMORPG (in general), the odds are it won't convince you to play the game, because the actual experience of MMORPG is very boring. The designers can advertise the features, but not the experience. An demonstrative introduction advertises the experience, by communicating the context, choices and decision that a player will make in the game. A game that can be advertised through experience brings more honest confidence to the potential player. The related demonstrative introduction provides the mean to communicate this confidence.

You misinterpreted the purpose of a demonstrative introduction. It is not a review that documents the emotion and the interest of a hypothetical player. It is a writing that induces the emotion and interest in the viewer by presenting the actual events and choices in the game. The writing itself does not assume that the player has a certain attitude. It is up to the viewer to judge whether the set of situations is fun to play and to strategise.

Quote:

A game can be different since the computer can take on the persona of the writer and react and influence the story based on the reaction of the person playing thus attempt to create feelings in order to communicate the programmers or developers vision of the game.

This is correct, and in a demonstrative introduction, the viewer will see how the engine is reacting to the choices of the player. The player can judge whether such adaptation is relevant to the game and desirable. When you simply say that, "The conversations in this game will be branching and takes the player's response into account", it almost says nothing about how it feels like to be playing such dialogues. While a demonstrative introduction does not describe the experience of playing it, it shows a sample sequence of such dialogue, so that the viewer can judge whether the implementation is fun.

This has nothing to do with programming. However, it has a lot to do with the design of the game. A demonstrative introduction shows the viewer that both story and design are well-considered. If you are just a story writer and have no clue about the design, you cannot write a demonstrative introduction. This is why this kind of writing brings confidence, and serves well to introduce a game. It proves to the viewer that the design and story are well-thought, coherent, and relevant, and gives the viewer a concrete basis to evaluate the overall gaming experience.

I stated that it was not a judging criteria. However, it is related to the goal of this competition. Demonstrative Introduction is a better form of written introduction.

Quote:

The game logistics and how things work to involve the player is not a goal of this competition nor is "...induce[ing] the sense of involvement that makes the reader [feel] like an active player".

You are incorrect. The entries need to convey the fact that the game is fun. That is the criterion of Applicability. A demonstrative introduction does this. The entries also need to convey the facts through style, and demonstrative introduction is a choice on style--it is the difference between whether the writer just try to hammer information into the viewer, or that the writer concerns more on delivering the actual experience.

This makes a demonstrative introduction a legitimate entry. Although the competition itself cannot require the contestants to write such writing, because a demonstrative introduction implies the design of the actual game. If you don't understand this, you can have a mental competition in your head:

In this competition, the host will provide a detailed description of the gameplay, theme, and characters. The purpose of the competition is to write an introduction that is informative, and attractive to a potential player. The entries are evaluated on how much the viewers can understand about the game and the experience of playing it. In other words, the introduction will be evalated on how much it helps the potential player to make a decision in buying the game.

Quote:

So your so called difference in writing "...between a piece of writing that describes a scene and a piece that induces a scene" is imaginary there are no uniquely identifiable differences between writen work that can induce a scene or that describes a scene.

You might be reading too much into what I said. I said something simple this time:

1. The market is crowded and noisy.

2.
"Lv35 Bow, Dex+13, 23000g"
"Selling Assorted blacksmithing Material"
"Selling Warrior foods all day, everyday"
"Cheap bone arrows, Dmg35-45, 350g a stack"
"..."

Example 2 induces noise and crowdedness without describing it. You may not see an obvious advantage here because if you are familiar with the gaming experience, by simply saying that, "you went to the bazaars", already implies that there are many balloons set by the players. You are not correct that induction is in the complete control of the reader.

Quote:

If the person reading a description of a beautiful valley is able they might imagine actually being there or actually feeling the breeze or smelling the flowers. It does not matter how good the writer is or how well he/she can write it is who the reader is and what the reader can understand.

This is incorrect. In a demonstrative writing, the purpose is to deliver the experience of gameplay. Using your analogy, the purpose of the line is to let the reader feel the breeze, not to allow some reader to imagine the breeze while some don't. It is a matter of how good the writer is, if the breeze is an important point to deliver.



The Voting Patterns
The votes in a more readable form:

V1:    Corn > Premed > Scientist > Prison > Illusion > Graduation > Wedding > Rush > RevengeV2:    Illusion > Premed > Revenge > Graduation > Wedding > Scientist > Rush > Corn > PrisonV3:    Wedding > Revenge > Premed > Graduation > Scientist > Illusion > Rush > Corn > Prison5MG:   Prison > Rush > Graduation > Scientist > Illusion > Wedding > Premed > CornBiege: Graduation > Illusion > Scientist > Corn > Prison > Wedding > Rush > RevengeS/S:   Rush > Scientist, Revenge > Illusion > Premed > Prison > Wedding > Corn

Comparisons in the next post

Quote:

Original post by Beige I agree, and I think the entries for each round should undergo additional analysis.

If the entry authors request it, I will post my analysis of the entries (skipping mine and the corn one which I consider to be a troll) according to the rubric I posted earlier in this thread.