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Twine Competition Ideas
In honor of the new forums, or maybe in honor of Twine version 1.4 or version 1.4.1, or maybe "just because," I think it would be fun, interesting, educational and motivational to have a Twine competition.
We need a name and some guidelines, but most of all some participants.
Let's say we need ten participants to make this a go. To sign up, post in this thread that you're in like Flynn.
Like I say, we need a good name. So, good name-comer-upper-withers, think of something totally rad.
Next, we need guidelines toward a goal. Like, should there be a time limit? Should there be a game theme? Should this be a judged competition?
Here's what I propose, and I've given this as much thought as it took to so far type this post.
Let's say we select three judges. I say three and not more because it's going to be hard to even get ten people to participate at all and to me, it seems kinda silly to have half or more of the participants be judges.
Another suggestion, let's make it a 72-hour competition starting on some Thursday/Friday at midnight and ending Sunday/Monday at midnight. In other words, participants will have all Friday, Saturday and Sunday to work on their games.
If there's a theme, it could perhaps take the form of a genre such as contemporary fantasy, magical girl, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, paranormal romance, or space opera, to name some examples. Or, a theme could be something like, "A game about gender roles," or, "A game about bullies," or, "A game including space aliens," or "A work of fandom."
A theme would be open to wide interpretation by authors. For example, I would despise writing "a game about gender roles," but in an instant, I'd would write a pulp sci-fi about a spaceship captain crash-landed on a planet solely populated by man-hungry blue Amazons. I could never write a mopey high school drama against the evil of bullies, but I would gladly write about a switchblade-flicking greaser who's terrorizing the whole town and even has the local 70-year-old sheriff and his bungling deputy cowed. So, no theme should discourage any creative author from participating. Working around a theme is part of the fun!
Regardless if there's a theme, the judges will select and specify a unique game element that will take some consideration and effort to use effectively. For example, a game where the protagonist is blind or a game set entirely in a single roomon Pluto.
If there's a theme, it is announced early, like as soon as it's selected. However, the unique aspect isn't announced until the start of the competition. That way, participants are less likely to have started on the game early or created a game in the past that's eligible for submission.
If the competition has categories, it can't have as many as, say, the XYZZY Awards because we're just not going to have that many entries. Like I say, we'd be lucky to get ten games actually submitted (honestly, a half dozen is probably pushing it). Also, not all of the XYZZY Awards' categories are likely applicable to a Twine game.
Some examples:
All suggestions are welcome!
We need a name and some guidelines, but most of all some participants.
Let's say we need ten participants to make this a go. To sign up, post in this thread that you're in like Flynn.
Like I say, we need a good name. So, good name-comer-upper-withers, think of something totally rad.
Next, we need guidelines toward a goal. Like, should there be a time limit? Should there be a game theme? Should this be a judged competition?
Here's what I propose, and I've given this as much thought as it took to so far type this post.
Let's say we select three judges. I say three and not more because it's going to be hard to even get ten people to participate at all and to me, it seems kinda silly to have half or more of the participants be judges.
Another suggestion, let's make it a 72-hour competition starting on some Thursday/Friday at midnight and ending Sunday/Monday at midnight. In other words, participants will have all Friday, Saturday and Sunday to work on their games.
If there's a theme, it could perhaps take the form of a genre such as contemporary fantasy, magical girl, sword-and-sorcery fantasy, paranormal romance, or space opera, to name some examples. Or, a theme could be something like, "A game about gender roles," or, "A game about bullies," or, "A game including space aliens," or "A work of fandom."
A theme would be open to wide interpretation by authors. For example, I would despise writing "a game about gender roles," but in an instant, I'd would write a pulp sci-fi about a spaceship captain crash-landed on a planet solely populated by man-hungry blue Amazons. I could never write a mopey high school drama against the evil of bullies, but I would gladly write about a switchblade-flicking greaser who's terrorizing the whole town and even has the local 70-year-old sheriff and his bungling deputy cowed. So, no theme should discourage any creative author from participating. Working around a theme is part of the fun!
Regardless if there's a theme, the judges will select and specify a unique game element that will take some consideration and effort to use effectively. For example, a game where the protagonist is blind or a game set entirely in a single roomon Pluto.
If there's a theme, it is announced early, like as soon as it's selected. However, the unique aspect isn't announced until the start of the competition. That way, participants are less likely to have started on the game early or created a game in the past that's eligible for submission.
If the competition has categories, it can't have as many as, say, the XYZZY Awards because we're just not going to have that many entries. Like I say, we'd be lucky to get ten games actually submitted (honestly, a half dozen is probably pushing it). Also, not all of the XYZZY Awards' categories are likely applicable to a Twine game.
Some examples:
- Best Game
- Runner Up
- Second Runner Up
- Best Writing
- Best Character (any one character, for example the antagonist or protagonist)
- Best Use of Twine?
All suggestions are welcome!
Comments
Anyone else volunteer to be a judge or want to donate a prize?
I think 72 hours over a weekend is actually a great amount of time. It avoids common workdays and allows enough time to get something put together. So you have me sold on that.
What I am a little dicey on is voting and/or winning. Do we have the ability to do this with a poll? Obviously the concern with that approach is going to be cheating. If that's all on lockdown through, it seems like a good idea. (And then, hey, you encourage people to say 'vote for my game' which is free publicity.) I'm not gonna pretend I know the answer, but it's something to consider.
Themes would be cool. If I can throw in a couple suggestions that highlight Twine's functionality, "Impossible Choice," "Labyrinth," and "Old School" are pretty good. But I think there's just as much merit to letting people surprise us.
I know I'm not being super helpful this early in the morning as far as decisions go, but I am behind the idea of a contest.
As for the judges and votingif we go that routethe judge's scores would be public so the only form of possible cheating would be bias in that regard. The issue I foresee with allowing anyone to vote is that it might turn into a popularity contest. People who want to vote on such-and-such game or so-and-so's game may not give more than a few other games a fair shake. For example, some people might vote on a game never having played it or any of the others. I think that scenario is quite likely, actually. That's in no way a knock on the Twine community; I think any contest is vulnerable to that.
This forum does have polls, tough. I've not used them yet, but I know SMF has that option, stock, if I remember correctly.
Something like this was tried before (http://forums.adventurecow.com/index.php?topic=71.0), but hopefully with a bigger community like Twine it will get more participants.
I think there should be a time limit (72 hours works for me) and I'm liking the idea of a theme, but I don't think the themes should be plot or genre-related. I agree that part of the challenge is working around the theme, but I think it helps to allow that theme to be broader in the first place to encourage the greatest amount of variation between games. I'd prefer the one-word style themes that Ludum Dare has (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludum_Dare)--they're not always literally one word, but I think they're more up to interpretation. I also agree that there should be a unique game element. That'll be sure to spice things up.
I'm not sure about judges versus general readers voting. I'd actually prefer a system more like Ludum Dare where the participants vote on games, but I'm not sure how feasible this is at this point. If there were some way of guaranteeing that voters have read the story and perhaps incentivising participants to read/review others' games, this might be possible. For the first compo, though, it's probably best to have judges.
The categories are good. Can games win more than one? Also, are teams allowed to participate?
Great link. I really don't have any experience with this sort of thing, so it's cool to see what other competitions do. Here's the heart of the conversation (note: quote links won't work):
Do you have a link to the results, dacharya64?
I liked the theme for the Mini Ludum Dare competition mentioned: "The Earth will be Destroyed!"
Links from that thread also led to this page to help us plan our little event, if we manage to find enough competitors: http://compohub.net/
Having all participants vote doesn't sound like a bad idea, but like you say, there are issues to overcome in that regard. If we have ten participants, can we really get all ten of them to review every one of the other games submitted? Some people like reviewing games more than making them; others hate doing so. Expecting everyone involved to play and vote on all other games might be too much to ask.
I just think having three judges is simple and has the least drawbacks.
As for teams, if that's what people want to do, then I'd be willing, but that will cut down on game submissions (at least halve them). On the other hand, it might make the games better! So, it's up to you all!
I agree that judges would probably be best. Also, as far as the team thing goes I'm thinking we go the Script Frenzy route and allow people to be on teams if they wish, but not make it mandatory. In some ways its easier to be on a team, but in other ways there are drawbacks (planning, having to be online at the same time, etc) so overall I think it's fair.
Should we promote this any?
http://www.intfiction.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=10509&start=10
To add the ideas already discussed. Here in my country (New Zealand) each year there is a 48 hour film competition. Each year there different several things all of the films must include, this is announced just before the actual start of the competition. Like a specific character name, a specific prop and a specific phrase. It was up to the film makers how they will place those into their films. The teams were randomly handed a theme (which would not fit with this competition because having one theme for all would be best). But I think it might be interesting to have a phrase, the more weird the better perhaps and maybe an object/prop that everyone has to include in their game somehow, and maybe a weird character name to make it a little harder.
I think it will be interesting to see how other people incorporate those things differently into their game as well as the chosen theme. I think it would make it slightly more interesting than just having a single theme on its own.
It might curb some people submitting a game have already been working on. Sure they could insert those things into an establish game late but it might be more obvious than a game that might use those things pivotal to their plot. I also hope, how well those things are used in a game will go towards the total score as well.
The community could offer up ideas for those three things, then the judges (or polling vote) decide which ones they will be and be announced right on the starting time of the competition.
Right. My suggestion is a theme that everyone knows ahead of time, plus announcing one unique aspect at the competition's start. So, we agree.
I think we could take a general vote on the theme. However, I think participation is going to be so low that the nucleus we have right now in this thread should probably just decide it ourselves for this first (and perhaps only) competition. This thread has less than 60 views. If one out of ten participated (an astounding percentage), we'd only have five or six entrants total. ;D
By the way, has anyone thought about a name? We need a name before we can promote this.
Here's our participants so far:
[list type=decimal]
CoraBlue
dacharya64
Dazakiwi38
Sharpe
Let's all do two things:
[list type=decimal]
Come up with a name.
Come up with a single solid clearly-defined theme (e.g., "World War II").
The quicker we get those two things, the quicker we can start promoting this.
As for Cora's "Impossible Choice" suggestion, I'm not sure exactly what that is, and all three of the games I'm currently making could be considered "Old School," so I'm not into that for the competition.
However, I'll be very happy if any of those are the chosen theme.
That all said, here's my suggestions:
Name: Twine Comp
Theme: Choices.
I'm the worst sort to come up with a good name for a competition. I'm terrible with names.
Since a majority of Twine "choose your own adventures" are sorely lacking in the "choose" department, my suggestion for a theme is "Choices."
If we are going to have the competition set to run for 72 hours..
Name ideas:
>Twine-72
>1472
>The Twinery Brew
>Seventy Two Twinery Comp
>The Seventy Two Hour Twine
>72Entwine
>Twine-Yarn-72
>The 259200 seconds of Twine
>Fist full of Twine Comp
Theme ideas: (I like the WW2 suggestion already given.)
Some of these are a bit general..
>B-Movie (eg. this could be coming up with the most cliche B-Movie plot)
>Disaster
>Survival
>Discovery (eg. The protagonist makes an amazing discovery of some kind)
>Diplomacy
>Passage of time (eg. a story to span a life time, highlights)
>Sentenced to...
That's all I have for now. Will update if I have some more ideas.
[quote]Right. My suggestion is a theme that everyone knows ahead of time, plus announcing one unique aspect at the competition's start. So, we agree.
Are we going to come up with the unique aspect idea after a theme is picked and then one is chosen randomly at the start? If we have enough good ones we could have two unique aspects..?
We could bill it at first as Twine 72: The Seventy-Two-Hour Twine Competition. It's horribly redundant, but no one's going to know what T72 is at first.
As for the unique aspect, which I think I should start calling the secret element, the judges in my suggestion would pick it. If it's meant to help curb the chances of submitting a previous game, then it can't be chosen publicly. If the participants are in favor and the judges want to pick more than one secret element, that's up to them. However, we already have a theme and a secret element, some participants might find that adding more will be restrictive. Just saying.
In addition to a best use of Twine award, we could add best use of theme and best use of secret element. At that point, though, we might have more awards than entries.
Sounds like you'd be willing to volunteer as our second judge, Kiwi! I would personally consider it very helpful and considerate of you to volunteer.
I think that would be fine for first billing on a page promoting it and the rules and then refer to it as Twine 72 wherever else.
[quote]As for the unique aspect, which I think I should start calling the secret element, the judges in my suggestion would pick it. If it's meant to help curb the chances of submitting a previous game, then it can't be chosen publicly. If the participants are in favor and the judges want to pick more than one secret element, that's up to them. However, we already have a theme and a secret element, some participants might find that adding more will be restrictive. Just saying.
In addition to a best use of Twine award, we could add best use of theme and best use of secret element. At that point, though, we might have more awards than entries.
That is a good idea, rewards creativity where its due. The fact that there might not be many participants first time round doesn't mean we can't lay the ground work expecting more entries next time round. The secret element will have to be a good one to stand out from just a run of the mill 72 hour comp. I hope in future we could add another element. I don't think it restricts, but rather challenges the imagination to take advantage of those secret elements rather seeing them as hurdles. What will be interesting is playing those games and seeing how creatively they applied them. But anyway we can start with one and see how that goes.
[quote]
Sounds like you'd be willing to volunteer as our second judge, Kiwi! I would personally consider it very helpful and considerate of you to volunteer.
Does this mean as judges we will not be able to enter a game? unless perhaps the the judge's games do not go into the final running of the 'best game' but can be judged by the community in the category of best use of theme and best use of secret element? via polls. Or judges cannot enter a game full-stop? How does it normally work?
http://pathofnowandforever.tumblr.com/post/73212956786/naked-twine-jam-wrap-up-46-games-at-bottom-of-post
I like the creator's ideas of having a "naked" jam without any fancy CSS, etc. We don't have to do this ourselves, but it's nice to see that there's interest in the community.
I also think that implementing a restriction (maybe capping number of passages or the total length of one story thread) would increase the challenge of this compo and kind of give a leg up to those of us who might not have as much time on their hands to write a 3-day epic. A word-count goal could do the same, but to me would be harder to plan going into the writing/production.
Let's just chill on this for a while. There's little sense in having two Twine jams so close together anyway. I'll e-mail some people and get some advice in the meantime.
Until then, maybe someone can link to a bunch of Twine-related pages/blogs. Without such pages' publicity, we'll never get any participation. Obviously.
That being said, since a lot of game jams only run for a day or two, it's not like you need a lot of build-up -- no reason to not just push this to next weekend.
Other than the Twitter thing? Other than the forum? If those two things aren't enough . . .
I agree. I think this shows that people would be far more interested in doing a jam than far less interested in doing /another/ jam.
[quote]A central community announcements thing of the main Twine page would be cool.
I think something like Planet IF (http://planet-if.com/) for others' twine blogs/tuts/announcements would be pretty useful.
Also, Chris might be open to other stuff on the front page, like a blog type of a thing or whatever. He's pretty responsive to e-mail.