THE RESULTS
Finally, the long-awaited outcome of months of hard work are about to be displayed for all to see. I tabulated the results three times and had an unbiased, non-judging friend who hadn't played the games calculate the results three times as well to double-check my math. Surprisingly, all of the games entered this year came extremely close in scoring, and all of the entries were absolutely terrific. What is also, equally odd, all three judges submitted their picks for the kudos awards, and the games with the most votes in each category were also the games that scored the best in those categories. So, without further adieu, here are the results of the 2007 Text Adventure Competition!
GRAND PRIZE WINNER
Duality
Kudos Awards:
Originality: Reality Bend
Story Development: Duality
Writing Ability: Duality
Technical Design: Duality
Best Media: *** Explained below ***
Most Addictive Game: Daring Dash
Best GUI: Reality Bend
Retail Award: Duality
Best Media Issue:
As you're all more than likely aware of, Tha_Rami's entry
Wartorn: Jarod's Fall was ineligible for this year's competition, as he's one of our artists at MISoft Studios. But the problem presented to us while judging the games is that
Jarod's Fall was the only game submitted this year with proper media, and thus it's the only game eligible for this award. So I leave it to the TGC public whether (A) his entry wins the award, (B) we give the award to the game with the most legible text, or (C) we simply don't give out a Best Media Kudos reward this year. So please let me know what you all think about this issue and how we should take care of it. Everyone won a kudos award already and is getting a free copy of
Eternal Equinox already (and Duality won a free copy of Playbasic for winning in the Technical Design category), and Rami already has a copy of EE, so I didn't see anyone really being upset by this, but I wanted to ask just to be safe.
Here are the final scores of all the games, in case you're wondering how your games scored in each category, as I'm sure you are
. Please note that all scores were rounded up (so 7.3334 becomes a 7.4), the same as last year's competition. Also, I added some notes for each game so you understand why we scored them in certain ways:
Duality
Originality = 4.9
Story Dev = 9.0
Writing Ab = 9.0
Technical = 8.4
TOTAL = 7.9
Notes: This game definitely took everyone by surprise. It's
extremely well designed and the story had us all captivated.
And when it came down to voting for the Most Addictive Game kudos
award, one judge voted for Duality and the other two judges were
in a toss-up over this and Daring Dash. It won unanimously in a
number of categories, and I seriously think this game could very
easily be retailed with some media and a proper GUI. Very good
game overall.
Reality Bend
Originality = 8.0
Story Dev = 6.5
Writing Ab = 6.3
Technical = 8.1
TOTAL = 7.3
Notes: The concept of this game's story and general premise are
extremely original, and I'd love to see more of this game in the
future. This game came extremely close to winning this year's
competition and I strongly encourage you to enter with a new game
next year, as I think with more time you might have been able to
win this year's grand prize.
Daring Dash
Originality = 7.5
Story Dev = 5.4
Writing Ab = 7.5
Technical = 7.7
TOTAL = 7.1
Notes: This game had the most unique gameplay of all the entries
this year, and two of the three judges were quick to vote it as the
most addictive game this year. Being that you were last year's
competition winner, it was no surprise that with more time to fully
implement your ideas, you would have been a serious contender for
this year's crown. Again this year, you had a very awesome title
and while I can't speak for the other judges, I for one was left
wanting to play more.
Wartorn
Originality = 8.4
Story Dev = 7.7
Writing Ab = 6.9
Technical = 7.7
TOTAL = 7.7
Notes: If you were eligible for this year's competition, you would
have won the Originality award, no question about it. I'd love to
see this full trilogy play out in Text Adventure format. MISoft
has the infrastructure for it, lol. On a serious, non-company
note, I very much liked this game and I personally think this game
has strong retail value... possibly stronger than Eternal Equinox.
The discussions we've had in the past about Halo, when I said the
story could have been more original? Well, you did that with this
game.
Thank you to everyone who participated in this year's Text Adventure Competition! Next year we're going to dramatically simplify the rules and open the doors so more people can get involved. I see how the rules were far too complex this year and that it kept some people from submitting games, so I promise that next year's competition will be much easier to comply with.
PRIZE COLLECTION!
Everyone who entered this year won a prize, which is awesome. I'll collect your email addresses after I post this thread and contact you through the email addy you have on TGC (unless you supplied an email address with your entry). If you don't have an email address posted here, please email me as soon as you can, either with the email button down below or by sending it to:
mattrock {at} misoftstudios {dot} com
For Duality, I'll need your name, address, and phone number so they can get your prizes to you. For all other entries, go to
The Eternal Equinox Website, download the game, and use the registration code I email to you to unlock the full version of the game. Again, to all of our winners this year, congratulations!
