2007 Mini-Competition Ideas

OK, people, let's see what creative ideas we can come up with for a good short mini-competition!

-We want it short 'n sweet so that many people could join and submit an entry without a WHOLE lotta time involved. Of course, the simple nature of the beast (level design) is that it IS time consuming, so that should be understood for anyone participating.

-We need creative ideas in order to spark creative entries! We don't want to mimic what other sites have done in the past for competitions; we want to make it unique here!

-There is never a good time-of-year to host a level design competition. Most time-frames always benefit some and not others. My belief is if we hold multiple "mini competitions" throughout the year, everyone who wants to join one will get a chance to do so; just at different times. So, if you have an idea for a good time-frame, please mention!

-I understand that there are a few HL1 active mappers here, so I propose that we include both HL1 and HL2 categories. We will need at least two (2) contestants for a category to be official. Each category is stand-alone and will not be judged against the other.

-Because of the small group of active members on our site, You may use this thread to simply state that you're interested in joining. This will let us know how many people may join. If you're a member on other popular mapping sites, be sure to support our efforts by linking them here. The more entries, the better!

-Any "prize" ideas or just simple recognition opportunities for possible winners?

-Based on past readings of old competition threads, the idea of having a NOVICE and ADVANCED categories struck my fancy. I think of this as another tool to bring in more people who may be interested but just a little shy about posting their work for critique. Letting them know that others who aren't experienced either may comfort them a little enough to want to join. However, I'm sure those that are looking to win may be experienced enough and still post their maps under the NOVICE title. I would like to think that the monitor of this competition could switch that person's entry into the other category before voting.

-For Source engine entries, I wouldn't mind playing any version of the Source engine. I would however, like to limit it to a single-player game for Source (not mods). However, content from any Source game could be ported to the map entry, just as long as the person playing the map has everything they need to run the map and won't have to extract everything or copy their own files into the right places just to play. They should just need the game of choice and the download with the .bsp and that's it! We can limit whatever games you guys decide on.

-I believe the best way to judge entries is by community vote rather than a small panel of individuals deciding.

-Here are past classes that entries were judged upon:

• originality
• creativity
• attention to detail
• craftsmanship
• complexity

Feel free to take or add any more that might cross your mind.

-Gwil has kindly setup a channel in IRC titled: #competition_fetish. If that link doesn't work you can find the channel in th irc.quakenet.org server.

-I have recently purchased my own domain name and server with 300 Gb, so I have no problem hosting the files (and pictures?) for this competition. Anyone else interesting in hosting, speak up!

Well, there you have it! A few "guidelines" of sorts to get you guys' minds rolling! To help you further, here are a couple of links from older competition threads where new ideas were thrown around for other competitions that never happened.

• 2006 competition ideas
• Early 2007 competition ideas
• Early 2006 competition thread
• 2005 competition thread
• Even earlier 2006 competition thread ideas

Post away!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

-There is never a good time-of-year to host a level design competition.

Very good point IMHO. Waiting for the "perfect" time to start has always proven futile.

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Why snark works.

I've been giving this some serious thought. Up until reaper47 found me in IRC and we started chatting, I couldn't come up with any good ideas. Luckily our discussion sparked one:

He and I agree that the size of the competition entries should be relatively small. We will probably enact an actual measurement on the dimensions a map may be. The theory is that the scale of a project is proportional to the time spent on it, and if this were to remain a "mini-comp" of sorts, we will need to keep the maps themselves mini.

On to my idea: Simply put: "Obstacles!"

In single-player level design, a designer knows that the only way for the gamer to have fun is to include obstacles along a path. Without these, the entire adventure feels like a long hallway leading to the end. What's the point without obstacles? Obstacles range from anything like A gap in the floor to hop across like in Mario, all the way to balancing a piece of bridge in order to make a ramp for your car to jump over (ala EP2). Point is: Obstacles are what make games fun. For this idea, we would want to incorporate a complex obstacle that people would have to figure out and complete. The challenge: Besides figuring what kind of cool creative obstacle you invent, you must also figure a way to incorporate it into an environment fitting the dimensions we decide upon. So you will have to create a "mini" world believable enough to contain your obstacle, just as if you were building the entire level yourself, but only showing this section as a demo to promote your style and theme (and obstacle).

Theme can be whatever you want, so long as it's believable to a real-world theme or an art-style. This is a category that could fit any engine and mapper in my opinion. What do you guys think?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Wait, so is this idea for HL2 AND HL1?

yup

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I like the obstacles idea. Though i don't think you realize yet how hard its going to be think of a good fun obstacle. Should be fun to see what people can think of though.

I got one. We have a comp to see who create the most impressive visual. Periodically though out a Half Life series game Valve will reward you with a nice visual. Anyone who has listened to the developer commentary has herd them talk about this.
The goal, see who can create the most eye caching scenery. You would only have to make the scenery in one visual direction. Like were standing on the edge of a cliff look outwards. What your looking at doesn't have to be huge. Just as long as you could stare at it for a long time and not be board by it. Like the start up screen for HL2 Ep1 when the citadel had that crazy red cloud and green lighting. I never got tired of looking at that. Though i would never expect one of use to produce any close to that quality.

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Reality has become a commodity.

That's sort of interesting - who can make the most impressive background map, like the loading scenes from Halflife2. That keeps the scope simple, yet allows alot of freedom of theme.

Portal map.

Thats not exactly what i was getting at, but i was dead tired when i wrote that so, my fault.
A better example would be in the start of HL2 when get to the out door court yard for the first time and you see the strider walk by for the first time. or when your running around on top of the roof of that building and your looking down at the striders kill the rebels below. The idea is that it would be in game.

But honestly, I like Fingers interpretation better. It would be a much smaller project.

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Reality has become a commodity.

Personally, I like the obstacle course idea better. Mostly because it's the kind of thing I've never really mapped. Not sure if I'd be participating though, so I guess I don't really matter.

How about maze with death traps and timed stuff that can get activated accidentally and requires physics and thinking to solve them so I can live out my Indiana Jones fantasies.

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Reckless disregard for childrens well being, women and nothing but utter contempt for other cultures.

My Idea, as discussed on the IRC channel is a jungle competition. You have to make the most kick ass, awesome jungle themed multiplayer map ever. The comp will be for source and goldsource. There will be a 1st and runner up in each engine. For those of you who have played halo 3, the first level is a perfect jungle map. Ep2 has a strong foresty theme to it and a map similar to that would be a perfect entry as well. Typically, its a bumpy, hilly terrain with lots of vines, rocks, a stream with mossy logs, whatever.

Anyway, I just thought it would be awesome to see some jungle maps and what folks could do with the engine.

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Aaron's Stuff

Not to rain on your parade but, Source doesn't do trees well, or bushes, or grass, vines, leaves. The forest in EP2 wasn't that convincing. It looked good but it was bare. Doing a decent Jungle in Source would be imposable.
I like the idea but i don't think it can be done. Plus it seems like it be a huge project. (We could try it in the sandbox editor. That would work. :smile: :razz: )

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Reality has become a commodity.

Oh, I just came up with a neat trick that I could build an obstacle course map around. It involves func_buttons, trigger_pushes, masters and a bunch of custom shader textures. Perhaps hand grenades as well. It's too bad they totally botched hand grenade physics in HL1.

I even just came up with a neat way to include a clock, so people could screenshot their finishing time.

It's not impossible to build a jungle map in Source. However, it would take quite a bit of experience and time which may not be the optimal choice for a "mini" competition. Here's an example of a really nice jungle map released shortly before EP2: Interlopers page Talk about loads of custom models and textures. Really nicely done though. But of course, this is a forest map which is a far cry from a jungle map imo.

I like Finger's interpretation of RedWood's idea. Would the player be limited to a single camera to view the map like the menu screen maps? Or would they be allowed to run free through it? I already started thinking of some cool static visuals I could pull off, but I'm sure an impressive visual could be something that moves, like a building collapsing before you or an explosion of an entire city and the resulting devastation.

To clarify about the obstacle idea: I wasn't really thinking "obstacle course" but that would be totally acceptable. As an example, imagine you built a small map that fit an alley-way from Ravenholm in it. within the alley-way, the player comes across one of those spinning engine blade death traps that he has to crouch under or turn off in order to pass. That would be an example of an entry (although totally not original, and would probably recieve a low score). Something small that fit in a miniature world that was believable enough. But if you wished to actually create an obstacle course much like the famed HEV training course for HL1, then by all means go for it! It would be awesome if you added voices from scientists egging you on and such.

I was totally siding with campaignjunkie's suggestion when I first conceived the "obstacle" idea. (i.e. make a small Portal puzzle) I would totally do this if enough people could participate; meaning if enough people that own a copy of Portal could compete and vote legitimately, we could do it.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

My Idea, as discussed on the IRC channel is a jungle competition. You have to make the most kick ass, awesome jungle themed multiplayer map ever. The comp will be for source and goldsource. There will be a 1st and runner up in each engine. For those of you who have played halo 3, the first level is a perfect jungle map. Ep2 has a strong foresty theme to it and a map similar to that would be a perfect entry as well. Typically, its a bumpy, hilly terrain with lots of vines, rocks, a stream with mossy logs, whatever.

Anyway, I just thought it would be awesome to see some jungle maps and what folks could do with the engine.

Jungle theme...okay sure there are limitations to the source engine with plant foliage...but it could work...but as soon as you mentioned goldsource (or any mod) I lost interest. Then when you said halo 3....I shot myself and came back from the dead to write this message to you.

NO HALO <Insert Game # here> STYLE MAPS!!!!

Seriously... They're two different games/engines.....DROP IT! No no DROP IT!

/Goes back to being dead

To add to the discussion: Think a TF2 contest would be out of the question? We limit ourselves to some dimensions (like a 2024 x 2024 x 2024 cube).

Or just do a limitation to the cube in any game... aka: HL2: DM. I just mention TF2 because its pretty popular.

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Posting And You

Obstacles sound like a good idea.

Riven mentioned my concerns about the size of the map. I would set it to 512x512x512 Units excluding skyboxes... I think a strict limit would make sense here, mainly for two reasons (both come from personal experience):

1) You have to force yourself to keep your map in bounds and not start working on the huge, epic projects you always "just couldn't finish in time"

2) You don't have to be afraid of these super-efficient mappers out there that build an entire DM map in < 1 Week. (How do they do that?)

Basically, less concerns, less excuses. Also physical limits like this, from my experience, never limit creativity. Mostly even the opposite as you can better focus on what's important (and we all know size isn't).

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Why snark works.

Omega, my comp would be for both source and goldsource with a 1st place and 2nd place in each engine. Also, with mentioning halo3, I was trying to give an example of a jungle map.

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Aaron's Stuff

would evading the spam of the enemy team while entering their base to retrieve a flag back to your own base count as an obstacle? :smile:

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i eat paint

yuck, 512x512x512 would just not be big enough for what I have in mind. Given that size/situation, I think a better theme would be to call it a puzzle. Figure out how to complete the map and win. This could be fun as well.

fishy said:
would evading the spam of the enemy team while entering their base to retrieve a flag back to your own base count as an obstacle? :smile:

lol; good one, but no! That would be the player'(s) obstacles and not the mapper's created one. Besides, Don't you want it within an sp version of Source, so that you could have npcs and whatnot? We just need to pick which one. Should we stick with the original 2004 version of HL2 which at the most has buggy HDR effects? Or should we go with the EP1 version which more people probably have over the EP2 version?

While I do think that a small playing map would be in order, perhaps 512x512x512 is a bit too small. maybe double that to: 1024x1024x1024 for a good playing field? Keep in mind that the boundaries themselves can be invisible, just so long as the player can't pass through those dimensions. ReNo, having mapped for Mapcore's 1024 unit competition can tell us if that is bigger than I think it is :razz: .

BTW, Reaper47 is right on the money there IMO. It always seems like we have more contestants who join but never finish than those that do. All because they couldn't finish on time. I'm sure most would agree that any unfinished projects that started with a lot of enthusiasm, ended because it was just too ambitious. The same is true for competitions. People just get worn out and burned up about their entry not looking to spec like they first imagined. Keeping the project small ensures less content, but more quality, which is what we're looking for in a competition. If I remember right, none of the categories we have judged maps for in the past have anything to do with size.
I believe that the "obstacles" idea will guarantee the entries to be creative. Whereas in most other competitions, the ideal was a really nice looking map, the goal here is to commit to a innovative idea with no need for a fancy execution. Granted we want to stay away from a dev-texture coated maps, we're judging more on your creative logic rather than your skill at designing a pretty place! I expect people entering to spend more time on thinking up of a good obstacle rather than actually building it. An agenda of that nature is sure to win big for a competition like this and impress people by its innovative design rather than by its artistic style. Let's show people that level design is more than just pretty angles and color wheel selection, and let's use our Left side of the brain again! A portfolio piece with a winning entry from a competition like this is sure to give you another edge over the opposition!

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

Well, 256x256 already is the size of a 4-floor building. If we don't set the borders there, then it makes little sense to have any borders at all. It's supposed to restrict the mapper and make him scrap ideas because they wouldn't fit the size. That's the whole idea. Again, creativity and physical limitations are two entirely different things that I have often seen inspire each other.

I must admit that the idea of dev-textured physics-constraint-loaden maps scares me quite a lot. It's easy to use the dev-textures as an excuse for something even conceptually unfinished. Just think about all these odd-shaped buildings in SP games that are so obviously just an unimaginative place holder for jumping platforms. Think of all the lame machinery that just doesn't make any sense at all and totally distracts from the game (even the ridiculous "operating machine" in Questionable Ethics was interwoven into the HL1 story quite hilariously).

I'm mostly talking about atmosphere here. It's a huge motivation for me in HL-style games. I don't need it in Tetris, but for real-world themed games it's an essential part of map (and obstacle) creation. I mean we could go on and say we don't need the map to be lit. Or even properly compiled. It's just an idea, isn't it? Well, I dunno, but I'd draw the line much higher here. Smart maps mostly look good automatically because they use the looks to guide the player.

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Why snark works.

As for the obstacles idea. 512x512 is a little cramped. 1024x1024 is vary large. This might be a good compromise.

512+128=640
640+128=768

640x768x768
Textures should fit easily enough.

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Reality has become a commodity.

Best Portal concept map.

We all know thinking of a good puzzle for Portal is hard.
How about we see who can turn (or is it churn) out the best puzzle idea. It doesn't have to be a full section, just one part. Like the first time you had to double fling yourself over the glass wall. Thats all, one little idea.
I would prefer to leave lighting and texturing out of the deciding factor in order to concentrate on the quality of the puzzle idea it self.

How many people hear don't have the orange box yet?

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Reality has become a commodity.

768x768x768 would sound reasonable.

And I never bothered getting the orange box as I neither would have got to play as much as I would like to nor do I have a PC that is any fun to play newer games on.

But don't let people not having the OB hold you back from doing this competition. I'd love to see some quality portal maps. I love everything about portals.

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Why snark works.

Well, 256x256 already is the size of a 4-floor building. If we don't set the borders there, then it makes little sense to have any borders at all. It's supposed to restrict the mapper and make him scrap ideas because they wouldn't fit the size.

I haven't mapped HL2, but in HL1, 256x256x128 is the size of my bathroom.

I'm in favor of a 768x768x768 grid as well; that would work out just fine I think.

Hey it would be great if we have enough people for a Portal competition! here's a good example of a Portal map over at TWHL. Tell us how long it takes you to figure that one out!

By show of posts, how many people will want to participate in a Portal design competition?

-I will

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

I'm in.

@ Reaper,
I running a socket 462 Amd Sempron 2400+ (1.6 ghz), a x1600 pro, and 1 gig of slow ram. I run Portal with the setting cranked all the way up and i am running more than 30 frames. On Ep2 everything is high except for anti analyzing. TF2 is a different story though (everything as low as it can go :sad: ).
I don't know what your running but i think you can run the Orange Box.

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Reality has become a commodity.

But the idea is simultaneous HL1 and HL2 contests? So if we're doing a Portal map, perhaps HL1'rs create an 'escape the room' challenge?

Well, if it's a Portal Map challenge we're deciding upon, then It will need to be just for Portal. Any HL1 involvement will require a completely different rule set. Did you want to apply the "obstacle" idea for HL1 entries? Or are you proposing a different idea with the "escape the room" challenge?

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

? quote:Well, 256x256 already is the size of a 4-floor building. If we don't set the borders there, then it makes little sense to have any borders at all. It's supposed to restrict the mapper and make him scrap ideas because they wouldn't fit the size.
I haven't mapped HL2, but in HL1, 256x256x128 is the size of my bathroom.

Of course I meant 512x512, silly me.

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Why snark works.