I have the votes from all the entrants now. Others can continue to submit votes through sunday night.

A – I thoroughly enjoyed the basic elements of the story.The way it was described really caught my imagination. The only major issue I have is the introduction of the support characters, The Lady and Id. I get the sense they play an important role in this characters development (and from the name I assume Id is somehow part of Tessa) but the background provides very little information on either. I understand this may be down to the word limit but expanding on these two characters and their relation to Tessa would have really improved the piece for me.

B – The setting wasn’t one of my favourites but the development of the character more than makes up for that. The dialog seems to really match the character described. I do feel the dialog still has room for improvement for. More information could be supplied as to the characters mannerisms when they talk, similar to what was done in the fourth example, and there are times it does lack the flow of someone talking, instead feeling very “written”. I suspect I notice this more because of the contrast between those pieces and the more fluid ones.

C – This was an odd one. I enjoyed the character and the themes of the dialog, but have to admit I got a bit lost when reading the last half of the dialog. The character also leans more towards that of a protagonist than a NPC.I think maybe more focus her interaction with the player would have solved both those issues.

D – The development of the character is really extensive and gave me a very vivid image of the Cara in my head. Considering this I didn’t feel very sympathetic of the character considering its current situation. I think this may be down to the dialogue more than anything; it lacked personality and made the character feel more wooden than she needed to be. The inclusion of the characters body language/mannerisms or even an accent (since she’s from another place entirely) would improve the dialog a lot.



I have tried to keep the reviews as short and simple as possible so they may come across as somewhat blunt. That isn’t my intention so sorry if it comes across that way. If you have any issues with what I said feel free to ask me in the thread or PM me. Good luck to those that entered .

OK here are the voting results:
First place with 17 points is Wai's Entry C - Skyle! Congrats Wai!
Second Place with 16 points JoeCooper's Entry B - Molly, a very close second!
Third place with 14 points is TechnoGoth's Entry A - Tessa
Fourth place with 13 points is my entry D - Cara


Ok, critiques and discussion now please! Also if you all want to do another contest feel free to make suggestions for the next one's topic and I'd like opinions on whether one week is long enough for entries or two would be better.

I personally had quite a difficult time voting because I could see all the entries as functional responses to the prompt who could be implemented as game characters without much difficulty. I don't have time to do a detailed critique now but I'll try to get to it later because I don have things to say. Oh, maybe I should comment that I don't feel too bad about coming in last because the minimum possible number of points would have been 9, none of the entries were given a true 'vote of no confidence'. Max number of points would have been 21 so no one got an overwhelming vote of awesomeness either, lol.

Congrats Wai! Apparently I'm not the only one who thought it was a winner.

"[color="#1C2837"]I'd like opinions on whether one week is long enough for entries"

[color="#1c2837"]I think we're getting all the inputs we might from the connections here, but maybe if it was on the front page of the sight and there was more time? If a "wider net" is cast, it might be a winner to offer more time.

21-9 that must be the oddest scoring system I’ve heard ofbut congrats to everyone.

I’m definitely up for doing another round but considering the low number of entries maybe we should allow people to submit 2 entries thatway they can try out two different styles. For the next type of contest Ijotted down a few ideas:

• Write an introduction inspired by this photo http://favim.com/ori...m.com-21537.jpg
• Write a bookended scene. For a given opening and ending line write the scene that occurred between the two.
• Write a conversation where the player convinces an npc to give them access to something they shouldn’t.
• A conversation with survivor of town the player failed to save.
  
  Now since these contests are as much about giving everyone feedback as they are writing I’ll give my reviews of the other 3 entries:
  
  
  
  B –Molly
  
  Technical:
  
  I found this is a difficult piece to read. There seemed to a lot of sentences with confused word choices, which really broke up the flow making it a rather halted read. Also the dialog makes a lot reference to her being paranoid about Tosserton but her bio makes it sound like she thinks they’re a bit thick.
  
  Theme:
  
  This didn’t really seem like a female character me. There wasn’t really an indication that character was female from their history, bio, or dialog it seemed very much like a typical old grizzled fantasy style engineer. That being said it was a well-developed character. There were numerous details on her past, and few references to some of her more colourful moments.
  
  
  
  C –Skyle
  
  Technical:
  
  I had trouble getting into this piece, it just didn’t grab me and I had to go back to reading it a few times. The highlight of the piece is the well done dialog and the different conversations. Of all the characters Ithought this one had the best name. A character’s name reflects a lot about them and of all 4 pieces I thought Skyle’s personality best came through in their name.
  
  Theme:
  
  It would have been nice to have more details about the character. A longer back story or description would have helped a lot to flesh out the character in more detail. Even after reading I still don’t much about Skyle. Why does she want the player to find her? What are her motivations? What does she want to achieve and why can she do the things she does? But again as I said above some well written and developed dialog.
  
  
  
  D –Cara
  
  Technical:
  
  There was lot of detail packed into a few short paragraphs in this bio. It’s a well written and comprehensive piece. But it comes across in a few places like you don’t know what you want to do with the character or how you want to development them. It seems like you have clear idea in mind for a character you want to have but you’re not sure what you want to do with them or how they fit into the story yet.
  
  Theme:
  
  When I read this bio even through it doesn’t mention it I couldn’t help but feel Iwas reading about a catgirl. I don’t know if that was your intention or not butthat was defiantly the impression I got. Very well visualized character, and fleshed outbut I couldn’t empathise with the character at all. I felt like should care about the fact she is trapped and a little scared in a world that’s alien to her. But I didn’t.
  
  
  
  We’ll that’s my short critique of the other entries. Hopefully everyone who voted can find a bit of time to give some feedback to everyone. After all how else can we all get,better?

Congratulation Wai and everyone else who entered!

A week seems OK for tasks similar to the one set this time round. Maybe extending it so it covers two weekends would help get more people interested/give ample time to complete it (i.e. set the task on a Friday evening and ask for it to be done for Sunday evening the next weekend). Like JoeCooper said promoting the contest on the main site or through some other means wouldn't be a bad thing, this forum feels a bit out of the way. If it becomes popular the time given could vary more, maybe have a weekend where the contestants are given only 24hrs to complete the task or another where they are given two weeks to come up with something more comprehensive.

I love the idea behind the contest though and certainly think there should be more of them, even make them a semi regular event.

As for ideas for other contests:

• I saw this today and thought the idea of multi person dialogs would be something interesting to attempt.
• Write an intro narration for a game with the goal of providing the player the back-story to the game (similar to
  )
• Write the back story of a small town and then tell key parts of that story to the player through interaction with object (e.g. statues)
• Design a support character that follows/does not follow specific tropes.If this becomes a regular thing i think alternating between a very specific task (i.e. create an elderly priest character for a high fantasy setting his goal should be to guide the player through the early stages of the game) and a more open ended one (i.e. create a character whose purpose is to mentor a player early on).
  
  
  
  
  

[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]"I [color="#1c2837"]found this is a difficult piece to read ..."
[color="#1C2837"] [/font]
[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"][color="#1C2837"]Now that's funny.
[color="#1C2837"] [/font]
[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"][color="#1C2837"]I had the same thought about A; that it seemed difficult to read and way too off-the-shelf. I actually had a comment about it but [/font][color="#1C2837"]decided not to post.
[font="arial, verdana, tahoma, sans-serif"]
This has me thinking.

Anyway, I like the multiple person dialog idea.[/font]

I would probably not participate in a backstory contest. I hate backstory. I was on a project where there was supposed to be something like that, so I convinced them to use a one-sentence "establishing shot", treat the city as a character then try to develop the character with every mini-story in the game. The results worked and received unsolicited compliments from players.

/joy
Thank you for voting and the comments

* * *

When we could start voting, I sent my reasons to sunandshadow. Right now I feel that people just want to move on so I am posting a shorter version.
When I was asked to vote, I recognized three ways to rank the entries: 1) By their writing, 2) by their design, 3) by personal liking. The following is an
explanation and my ranking for each category.

Writing
This is important if you separate "design" skill and "writing" skill. "Writing" skill is the skill to convey regardless how good or how bad the character is.
In this category, you view the entries as a sample of the contestant's writing skill. If a contest is created specifically for this, usually everyone will write
about the same predefined character. My evaluation for this category is:

Sunandshadow (Cara) > JoeCooper (Molly) > TechnoGoth (Tessa) > Wai (Skyle)

I ranked Sunandshadow first because her entry was the only one that concisely addressed the prompt with no extra information. I ranked myself last
because none of the other entries need the type of editing mine needed. I placed Joe before TechnoGoth because it was easier for me to follow
Molly than Tessa. in Tessa's backstory, some characters seemed to pop out for no reason, when that happens, I can't tell if I skipped reading something.
When that happens a few times, I might as well skip to the dialogs because I couldn't tell what I read. The dialogs were good.

Design
This is the category where you skip how the writing is done and just evaluate the facts about the character, to check if the character is self-coherent and
fits the overall design of the game. Normally, if a contest is created specifically for this, the game design would be given, and everyone would create a
character within the same context. In our case this is particularly hard to evaluate because we have no clue what the intended game is. If you give too much
liberty to assume that "there must be a reason that this description is necessary for the overall game" then every character would be the best fit for their
individually imaginable but unknown game. I wrote something explaining what I did, but to keep it short this is my ranking. For this category I can't rank
my own because I know my game design.

Sunandshadow (Cara) > TechnoGoth (Tessa) > JoeCooper (Molly)

I ranked Sunandshadow first because her entry is flexible enough that leaves little hurdle for anyone to adopt and use. In my opinion, if you are asked to
design a character for a game that you can't control, the best proposal isn't the one with elaborated details, but the one that has a defined shape but flexible
enough to accommodate other characters designed by other writers. Compared to her entry, Tessa comes with a handful of other characters, and Molly
comes with not only other characters but two sections of territories and cultures. Sunandshadow's entry is bounded and gives a better chance to know
the effort and risk to include the character.

Personal Liking
In Writing, I use the entries to rank the Writer. In Design, I use the entries to rank the Designer. In this category, I am only looking at the character itself and
rank the entries based on how much I would want to play a game with the character. If enough people rank the entries this way, the contestants would
know how popular their character is. This is my ranking:

Skyle (Wai) > Tessa (TechnoGoth) > Cara (sunandshadow) > Molly (JoeCooper)

I like Skyle the best probably because I already know her. But to give some possibly false sense of objectivity, here are some possibly fabricated
reasons and related ranking:

Reason 1) She is philosophical
I like her because she comes with philosophical questions. This is different from characters that only talk about what they need or how to get something done.
For this aspect my ranking is:

Skyle > Cara > Tessa > Molly

I ranked Cara second because her situation is also somewhat philosophically interesting: How do you pick a husband? How do you evaluate the candidates?
How do you know who the candidates really are?

Reason 2) She is fun to watch
Imagine that you collect everything that the character does and just watch. Is there something fun the character does? Or does the character just stand and speak?
For this aspect my ranking is:

Skyle > Molly > Tessa > Cara

When I was viewing the entries, it occurred to me strongly that the other characters were quest givers. I don't have a strong association that an "NPC" is a "quest giver".
My concept of an NPC is some sort of comrade that isn't the player's character. This is what you get when you play campaign mode in an RTS, when there are
other squad leaders that talk and fight but aren't controlled by you. They are NPC and they are not just quest givers. For Molly I was referring to the contract scene with
the queen. That scene seemed like something I would see in Shrek. However the dialogs seem forced and took some fun away.

Reason 3) She stays
I like a character more when I know that they are there to stay, and I get to see them over and over. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Molly > Cara

Reason 4) She listens
I like characters that don't just tell me what to do, but listen to what I tell them to do. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Cara > Molly

Reason 5) She changes
I like characters that develop as the game goes on, especially when the development is relevant to the player character. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Cara > Molly


Overall

1: Skyle - Main reason: She makes things fun.
2: Tessa - Main reason: Her dialogs have the most personality.
3: Cara - Main reason: She looks flat but has an interesting problem.
4: Molly - Main reason: She curses.

Sunandshadow asked me to explain (4). Up to the dialogs, I thought Molly cares about machines but not people, however, the way she ranted in the dialogs
didn't seem to fit. It didn't occur to me that Molly would be using profanity the way she would use in the dialogs. I was expecting Molly to have a more stoic
personality and a more subtle / nerdy sense of humor. It felt as if the character design of the Queen, who was just described as foul-mouthed, leaked through
and corrupted the design of Molly, who was silent and felt asleep when the Queen was doing all the talking. However, in the dialog, it seemed that Molly
became the foul-mouthed and was like the Queen instead. The unaffected, cool personality in the previous scene seemed to be erased.


* * *

About contests:

I don't have a suggestion on contests. I am just writing this to acknowledge that I read this question. My overall comment is that 2500 word limit is way
too much. For character design, perhaps 800 is enough.

Could we simply have more critiques without contest? Otherwise I would want a cast contest. A cast contest is where instead of posting the design for a
single character, you post the design for a group of characters (the cast), and describe their relations and they work together for the story.

* * *

What I learned:

1) Self-contained dialogs
The dialogs of the other entries are self-contained. They give good context even when nothing else is said, and they did it without sounding forced.

2) Character Expression / Body Language Sheet
I can't remember what I wrote. I only remember what I actually see. This makes me vulnerable to character corruption. I need some kind of visual aid
so that what I write about a character belongs to that character. However, if I draw just one expression for a character, the writing about the character
would turn out flat. Therefore, it would be better if I have a sheet of concept art showing the same character in different body languages and expressions,
so that when I do the writing, I have a more consistent sense of how the character behaves.

3) Writing checklist
I want some kind of checklist so that if I write something every month, the writing would still be consistent. After doing this contest I created a checklist
for myself. Here are some items on the checklist that aren't too specific about my design:

o Surprise for the characters - There must be something surprising for the characters in the story.
o No unnecessary detail or descriptions - Every description should be there for a reason beyond "painting a picture".
o Fun -Something fun must happen for the characters
o Pun-free - So that nothing is lost when the text is translated into another language.

What I want to do:

I want to learn how to keep writing consistent. For this contest, I wrote Skyle two times (and also another character two times). The first time was a lot worse.
I scraped it and rewrote it entirely. I want to learn what people actually do to make their writing consistent. Although I know that this is not an issue if you write
regularly. But is inconsistency a real issue? Or is it better not to look back and just write something new, so that your creativity is not limited by your own past
writing? I suppose on my checklist I could add, "Before you write, read what you wrote last time."

I guess I might as well talk about mine.

There were a few subtle screw ups here that ruined the whole affect.

I had actually went for "strung out, maybe a bit mad" from the start, hence passages like:

[color="#1C2837"]“What if”, she asked herself, out loud and while pacing back in forth in her room alone waving her arms, “we had pipes going this way and that ... away from us and upon our enemies?!”[/quote]

[color="#1C2837"]I had intended that she fell asleep through the long winded queen's ceremony because she doesn't sleep.

[color="#1C2837"]And mostly amused myself with an effort to not make any direct assertions about the personality. There is exactly one:

[color="#1c2837"]

"a slight preference for dealing with machines rather than people"[/quote]

[color="#1c2837"]I thought someone might dislike it due to cursing, and so I added more cursing, cause when I made that decision, it made me laugh. Most decisions were made along these lines. *shrug* But I had fun.

I'm very interested in the fact that everyone seems to agree that Cara was difficult to sympathize with or care about despite having an interesting problem. I had a similar problem last time I posted a story synopsis with a female main character. In my mind she was quite a nice person, who cared deeply about things and tried to be a good person. But that didn't seem to come through to the readers at all. Instead the fact that her actions in the plot were rather conniving and manipulative was what readers reacted to, and made them dislike her and wonder why I was setting her up as the heroine of a romance. Fortunately I don't seem to have this problem with the actual fiction, otherwise I'd be more worried. It only seems to be a problem with "paperwork" type things where I am trying to objectively describe a character and their role in a plot. Still very puzzling though.

Could we simply have more critiques without contest?

It has always been allowed to post stuff here asking for critiques, it's just rare that anyone does. I don't even care if what people post is game-related, as long as it's not fanfiction, since gamedev's policy is not to allow that. Me personally, I normally don't write very much and what I do write is usually erotica, which I can't post here.