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Randomised Scenario Contest

tridash

By tridash
in Blades of Avernum

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Dintiradan
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dintiradan

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I'm kinda wishing that I put in extra outdoor sections. It's not that I need them, but I have a few exits to the outdoors (the exit path, and two rivers) and it looks weird having them end in empty space (or deep water). I tried adding extra outdoor sections with the improved Editor, but this erases all the terrain I added.

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Dintiradan
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dintiradan

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This is just my opinion, but I don't see anything wrong with releasing your scenario to the public before the deadline (the only issue I could see arising would be plagiarism, but I don't think that would be a problem with the community nowadays, and we would spot it very quickly).

 

But you raise a good point: there's no mention of submission procedures in the rules. Uploading it to the web (Freewebs/Blogspot/whatever) and then posting the link here would work, but then that makes it difficult for designers who haven't set up a website. The simplest way would be for the judges to set up an e-mail account, and have all the entrants send a copy of their scenario before the deadline (this way, the judges also don't have to hunt down the most recent version of the scenario).

 

That all said, remember that you still have half a month left before the deadline. Remember to schedule time for beta-testing, if at all possible.

 

 

 

 

As for me... I've had a bunch of unexpected stuff come up this month, which has cut down on my designing time. Also don't plan on going all the way to the deadline, as there's a bunch of other stuff I want to do before school starts again (both related and un-related to Blades). I still plan on releasing a scenario, but prepare to be underwhelmed -- it will be smaller than I originally planned. Like, one outdoor section and maybe three towns. Yeah, I suck, but better a puny scenario than none at all.

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Dintiradan
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dintiradan

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First order of business: Whoo Duck!

 

Second order of business: SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS

 

So here's how it's going to go. Once you're done with your scenario and happy with it, here's what you should do:

  1. Get beta testers to test your scenario for bugs, plot holes, combat balance, etc. This isn't strictly necessary, especially for a smaller scenario, but is still very, very recommended.
  2. If your scenario has custom graphics, make sure you make a PC version and a Mac version of the scenario (because them Mac folks do graphics a totally different way than us cool PC people). Feel free to ask for help for this step.
  3. E-mail your compressed file(s) to blades.contest (at) gmail (dot) com. The version the judges will use for the contest will be the one attached to the last e-mail you send before the deadline.

Speaking of judges, now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their community. Post here if you want to be a judge, and you'll be sent the contest e-mail password and further instructions once the submission deadline passes.

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Niemand
Well-Actually War Trall

Niemand

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I, for one, will be happy to convert graphics for any PC user who needs this done, and can be contacted through niemandcw(at)gmail(dot)com.

 

There is one key point to be aware of (for those who haven't dealt with this before): The resulting file will be ruined if handled directed by basically any non-Mac OS.

 

The usual way to handle this is that the conversion is done as the final step, so the designer provides the person doing the conversion with a complete, finished copy of the scenario in the form usable by the Windows version of the game. The person doing the conversion makes a copy, replacing the loose bmp files with a single combined 'cmg' resource file, and packs up the copy, usually as a zip archive, and sends it back to the designer to be distributed.

 

A possible alternative is to place only the cmg file in an archive, but most designers prefer not to do this, as it would require players to unpack the graphics manually after unpacking the scenario directory to complete installation.

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Jerakeen
Easygoing Eyebeast

Jerakeen

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Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Speaking of judges, now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their community. Post here if you want to be a judge, and you'll be sent the contest e-mail password and further instructions once the submission deadline passes.


I'm willing to judge, if you can use a judge who's not a designer.
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Dantius
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dantius

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Originally Posted By: Dintiradan

Speaking of judges, now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their community. Post here if you want to be a judge, and you'll be sent the contest e-mail password and further instructions once the submission deadline passes.


Also willing to judge since I didn't submit an entry.
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Niemand
Well-Actually War Trall

Niemand

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Grrr. It looks like you win this time, Nikki and ES. I was looking somewhat seriously at working around your silly single outdoor section limit by overwriting the same outdoor section multiple times, and I'd have gotten away with it too, if not for Jeff's arbitrary token limit! It turns out that even with run length encoding it just isn't practical to generate floors, terrains, and heights for a realistic outdoor section in under 2^16-1 tokens, and for my scheme to work I would have needed it to fit it into few enough tokens to fit more than one overwrite into a single script. I think it could still be done using a host of unique terrain scripts (maybe just a flock, ~3 per overwrite) and the SDF array as a buffer, but between the level of complexity that would require and how late I've left this, I'll call off the attempt and come quietly. Curses, foiled again by the primitive script engine!

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Dintiradan
Easygoing Eyebeast

Dintiradan

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Under normal circumstances, I wouldn't finish this... thing... on my computer, but with this many DNFs, I simply must release it. It's going to come down to the wire, as I've been busy with other stuff, have company over today, pack tomorrow, and leave for vacation on Tuesday, but it will be released, no matter what horrible state it's in, by tomorrow night.

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Celtic Minstrel
Understated Ur-Drakon

Celtic Minstrel

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Yes. Yes there is. tongue

 

As for my scenario, I have the main town mapped (but no dialogue, people, or scripting yet) and the first of three dungeons nearly completed (including scripting and dialogue). I have two more dungeons to create, one of which is mostly mapped out already, so I think I should be able to make it by the deadline, though I might have to submit the beta for the actual contest.

 

Originally Posted By: Dintiradan
If your scenario has custom graphics, make sure you make a PC version and a Mac version of the scenario (because them Mac folks do graphics a totally different way than us cool PC people). Feel free to ask for help for this step.
If you're a Mac user yourself, you can just include the Mac and Windows graphics in the same archive. Niemand's Graphic Adjuster will even do it for you.
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Celtic Minstrel
Understated Ur-Drakon

Celtic Minstrel

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You're not the only one. I'm hoping I can finish it today, because if not, the chance of finishing it tomorrow is greatly reduced. Fortunately, I have 2 out of 3 dungeons complete except for some small details, so all I have to do is the plot-relevant (and non-plot-relevant) dialogue, create the shops, and write the cutscene(s). I think I can make it; however, it will be without having been beta-tested, which is obviously not great. Assuming I finish it on time, beta-testing would be occurring concurrently with judging.

 

An extension of even just one day might make all the difference, though.

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Niemand
Well-Actually War Trall

Niemand

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Yeah, I'm behind schedule as well. (I have my outdoors drawn, and the climactic dungeon, but I still have to create the two friendly towns, set up all of the fights, and (shudder) write dialogue.) I think I can finish before the deadline tomorrow, but there's sure not going to be time for full testing.

 

Should we extend the deadline to include Sunday as well? Originally I'd intended that time to be used to get the judging going, but maybe that isn't as important or as useful as I had imagined, particularly as compared to getting the actual entries ready and turned in. As far behind as I am myself, I still don't think we should allow the deadline to move any more than that, though.

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Niemand
Well-Actually War Trall

Niemand

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I assume the choice of PST was to correct for the fact that most designers are probably in the continental U.S. (I think this is roughly true for the current state of the contest, anyway), so the end of the day GMT falls well before the end of their local days. However, we've been using GMT before (not because it is less arbitrary, but because it is a standard arbitrary choice), so perhaps we should stick to that.

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