Right, final judgement has been passed (we all donned the black caps
) and we have winners. Firstly I'd like to thank all those who've entered and those who judged. Also a big thanks BiggAdd for the amazing banner and all those who are supplying prizes.
Anyway without further ado, here are the winners:
1st:
The castle Tomb by SamHH
* Printed & bound copy of the Community Guide by Nickydude
* Atmospheric Sounds Pack by Nickydude
* Pick of 1 from either Chainsaw Brute, Model Pack 17 or Model Pack 18 by Bond
* 2000 Store Points by TGC.
* Unreleased sound pack of Demon Voices by Nickydude
* Sci Fi segment pack by Henry Ham.
* Weather Pack by Rolfy.
* Model Pack 8 [Dark Egypt] + Bonus by Rosstradamus.
* Any 3 of Errant A.I's store models
* Inspire! Model Pack 1
* Any of the above prizes swapped for a pre-paid 60 day time card for City of Heroes [Requires City of Heroes to play].
2nd:
PMCDude's puzzle game by PMCDude
* Atmospheric Sounds Pack by Nickydude
* 1000 store points
* Pick of 1 from either Chainsaw Brute, Model Pack 17 or Model Pack 18 by Bond (after 1st place has picked)
* A $20 store voucher courtesy of Black Draco Games
* Exclusive texture pack by Henry Ham
* Any 2 of Errant A.I's store models
3rd:
Red Light by deca / Blazor X
* 1000 store points
* Whichever is left from the following Chainsaw Brute, Model Pack 17 or Model Pack 18 by Bond.
* Any 1 of Errant A.I's store models
and thanks to TGC, they've very generously supplied 500 store points to fourth and fifth place:
4th:
The Artifact by Robert F
* 500 Store Points.
5th:
SHG's Puzzle Entry by Screaming Head Games
* 500 Store Points.
Here's what some of the judges though about your entries...
Quote: "SHG Puzzle Entry
================
Puzzles in the first two rooms were ok but it took a while to discover that the bricks explode! The most I enjoyed was sliding the bricks down the ramp to the barrels, then exploding them! After 10 mins in the third room, jumping from platform to platform, constantly falling off and having my health decrease rapidly when on certain ones and given no clue, I quit the game as annoyance rapidly set in.
-Addendum: Playing this again I noticed the some eagle signs on the platforms in the third room are turned 90 degrees, presumably to show which way to go.
***** 5 out of 10.
SPD999 Puzzle Entry
===================
First puzzle was intriguing, I thought it was going to be another "guess where you're going while losing health for not going along the correct path with no hint to where you're going." but I was pleasantly surprised to discover a trail, on the ceiling no less! Following that lead me straight through.
Room 2 was predominantly harder, stacks of boxes and you had to shoot a 'path' through them but you only had the right amount of ammo making this particularly hard as you don't know which boxes to shoot.
- Addendum: After having read the accompanying clue sheet it seems like you need to shoot a diagonal path through the boxes, but no matter how I tried I never had enough ammo to get all the way through.
***** 5 out of 10
PMCDUDES Puzzle Entry
=====================
First puzzle, stacking boxes was fairly easy.
The second room was a bit more harder as part of the wall had to be destroyed but without any hint whatsoever, in the end I try punching everything, only then did a barrel explode and the exit become visible.
The third room I got completely stuck in, but this was FPSC's fault and not the fault of PMCDUDE; When I first got the weapon every time I fired it just produced a bullet hole where the weapon would of hit, you didn't see the weapon go and there was no explosion, it was only after I quit (as I was getting nowhere) and restarted that the weapon behaved normally and I could get the key from above.
The forth room had me spending ages stacking boxes to reach (as I found out) a false room lol! Took me a while to find the true way.
The fifth room was quite ingenious, pushing the coils off the platform so they made little 'stepping stones' between platforms.
I liked this one especially the fifth room.
******* 7 out of 10
Waterinfpsc - Christmas Challenge
=================================
First room consisted of killing 3 enemies and finding a key to open the door to the next room, it was only by wandering around that I managed to 'pick up' the key. In fact this seems more of entering a trigger zone to get a key rather than seeing one and picking it up.
Not sure how the 'rooms' were laid out from then in as there seems to be a lot of corridors (which entries were specifically told not to include. There were another couple of enemies to shot then entered a room with a lift which could only be opened by, you guessed it, a key, which again wasn't a pickup but a triggerzone. The last 'room' was a very simple maze, if you could call it that.
All in all one of the weaker entries.
*** 3 out of 10
The Artifact Puzzle
===================
Straight away the design struck me. A bit more thought had gone into this.
The first puzzle was solved fairly easily, pull the lever and stack boxes to reach the door.
The second puzzle was again stacking boxes to reach up above to flick another switch. The wall coming down when the camera was shot was an interesting idea.
****** 6 out of 10
Lost In Space
=============
Game started with a maze. I just used the old technique of following the left-hand wall until I came to the next 'room' (I'm not sure where one room ends and another begins!) The "Follow Me!" in blood was a nice touch, but I ended up in a pit with no visible means of escape apart from quiting the game, definitely not good. Restarting I found either using a table from the previous room or taking a running just helped. As with a few other entries you had to enter a zone rather than pick something up. The next puzzle came under the 'annoying factor', a large room with a door on the other side but with most of the floor collision turned off so you fell through, with absolutely no idea which part of the floor was solid and which wasn't.
*** 3 out of 10
MAD PUZZLES
===========
After wandering around a maze, there was a large room filled with boxes which you had to shoot certain ones to make a path through them, a bit like bomberman. Then there was teleport hopping, then 'go into this room to activate a switch to open a door to another room, then go into that room to activate a switch to open a door to another room, then go into that room to activate a switch to open a door to another room..' which wasn't so much a puzzle as having to go from one room to another to flick switches. The corridor of traps was a neat idea but there seemed to be invisible obstacle I had to jump, and half way down there seemed to be an invisible wall that blocked my way and I couldn't get any further.
**** 4 out of 10
Panda Puzzles
=============
Starting off, I had no idea how to get out of the first room. There was an opening in the ceiling with a stack of boxes underneath and the puzzle seemed obvious, stack the boxes to get to the door, but the boxes couldn't be moved, only destroyed and they had no physics, shooting a box left the box above it floating in the air. Even when I thought I did it right, I couldn't get to the door as there was no floor in front of it.
** 1 out of 10
RedLight
========
I liked this one, the overall concept was put together and using the level itself was a novel idea. This was a different twist on the puzzle idea that did away with 'stacking boxes' and 'flicking switches. It reminded me on the level inside the Citadel in Half Life 2 and would have been better if it was longer and had an 'Inside Citadel' type skybox to make it look as though you were actually inside somewhere. Overall a well thought out idea.
******* 7 out of 10
The Castle Tomb
===============
This puzzle element and the overall look reminded me slightly of the Tomb Raiders, especially shooting the key from the eye and having to hack open tombs to find a key which I though was a nice touch. I never got past the open pit with the zombie in, I did shoot the ceiling above the pit, from which boxes then fell but I couldn't stack them enough to climb out (if indeed that's what you do).
******* 7 out of 10
The White Rooms
===============
This was not my cup of tea. Having white rooms, completely devoid of texture for the walls and floor seemed lacking in the though department. Add to this white obstacles, it ended up like trying to navigate a maze with your eyes closed. I managed to get to the second room, after that I gave up. Thankfully the author had the common sense to include a video of the solution.
** 2 out of 10
Overall
Overall the standard of puzzles was good. I would have like to see more diverse puzzles than the standard 'stack these boxes, flick those switches' but there were a few surprises and a few of you did put a bit of effort into the overall design. Here are a few things to think about when creating your puzzles...
1/. Try not to annoy the player, there's nothing worst than the player spending quite a lot of time getting through a particular puzzle, only to make a mess of it at the end and having to struggle through the entire puzzle again. If it's a long / difficult puzzle perhaps place way points so the player doesn't feel frustrated.
2/. GET YOUR PUZZLES BETA TESTED. You know exactly what you need to do for your puzzles and it might seem blatantly obvious, but those who've never played it before will struggle.
3/. Never let you player into a situation when the only option is to restart the entire game. Getting your player stuck in a pit because he needed to something before he jumped in, or having the player run out of bullets before he needed to shoot something in order to continue, again will get the player frustrated, especially when they've got quite for and didn't think they needed to save the game at that point.
4/. Don't let the puzzles get repetitive, stacking boxes and flicking switches is fun for only so long.
5/. 'Trial and Error' puzzles will, again, annoy the player. Being killed time and again because the player has to test every little thing might soon have the player reaching for the quit button."
Quote: "The Artifact by Robert F
The first thing that struck me about this game was that it looks good. It was obvious that alot of effort had been put into layout of the game too, the whole game flowed really well from room to room. The use of the flashlight was also a nice touch.
I did feel, however, that the puzzles were all very similar. Pull a lever, stack some boxes... stack some boxes, pull a lever. What I would have liked to see more of was a puzzle like in the 4th room, it had me genuinely stumped, Nickydude had to tell me how to
solve it .
A solid game which was good fun 7/10
Christmas Challenge by Water in FPSC
I had some fun running around in this game but for a puzzle competition there didn't really seem to be many puzzles. There was a maze as the last puzzle which was a good idea, if it had been made harder to find your way around maybe with subtle clues providing which way to go it would have been more challenging.
I did like how it had the rooms inside other rooms, at least that was how it seemed to me.
A good start but needed more puzzles 4/10
The White Rooms by Game Maker
The first time I loaded this game up I actually quit straight out because I thought there had been an error while it loaded up! To say this was disorientating is an understatement.
I really like the concept for this game but also found it incredibly frustrating. I did manage to finish it without using the included walkthrough but it more from trial and error than actually having any "ahhh, that's what I need to do" moments. For example in the first room the last door I checked was the door I needed to use to escape the room, but there was no visual clue (that I could see) which indicated it was the door I needed.
The fact that some of the obstacles in the game were 'invisible' because they blend in with wall made the game artificially hard. I think there is a solid concept here but it needs a bit more refining.
Truly a unique FPSC experience 5/10
Red Light by deca / Blazor X
I think this was one of the easiest puzzle games entered and finished it very quickly. What it lacked in difficulty it certainly made up for in presentation. This was definitely the best presented game. It had a theme which ran though all the menus and was even applied to the menu cursor. It has an excellent atmosphere and is enjoyable even if it is over quickly.
Excellent presentation makes up for lack of difficulty 7/10
Lost Space by Forza Inter
I found this game quite frustrating as there didn't seem to be any clues on how to solve the puzzles. For the maze I didn't mind too much but maybe some subtle clues that let you know the correct way, or even some 'landmarks' so I know if I've been this way before.
The room where you keep falling through the floor also didn't have any sort of way to solve it apart from trial and error.
With a little more work this would be a more enjoyable puzzle game. 4/10
PMCDude's puzzle game by PMCDude
One of my favourite entries. The first 3 puzzle rooms were fairly simple to work out and I thought room 4 was going to be the same. I was wrong, I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played it yet but PMCDude got me good.
I thought I was never going to solve room 4 and then I had a moment where I thought 'I wonder if...' and I solved it
I enjoyed the idea behind room 5 and would have liked to have seen more stuff like this in the competition.
Great puzzle fun 8/10
PandaPuzzle by Panda games
There is no way to leave the first room. Even if you manage to destroy the boxes in what I assume is the correct way the door doesn't open when you press enter as prompted by the game.
Needs work 1/10
Mad Puzzles by ozzi mad boy
I quite enjoyed this but did feel hard done by in room 2. I don't mind having to shoot a path through the boxes but the very limited ammo and the fact that I had to use 3 bullets before knowing if I was shooting the correct box meant I had to restart the level about 100 times before find the correct path. Again if there had been some clue as to which boxes were the correct boxes to shoot it would havemade this more fun and less frustrating.
The final room was a very nice idea and was enjoyable.
Frustrating fun 5/10
SHG's Puzzle Entry by Screaming Head Games
There was lots of fun to be had in this game but some of the puzzles didn't really feel logical. How am I supposed to know a brick will explode when shot? Why did I have to kill the cut outs to stop dieing? There was a lot of trial and error solving but I did enjoy playing through this one.
Good fun 6/10
Sps999's Puzzles by sps999
This game started off very promisingly, the first puzzle was good. At first I thought 'oh I hate these find the correct route by dieing until you know the right way'. Then I realised there was clue staring me in the face and I was one puzzle down.
Unfortunately I couldn't make it through the second room even using the included hint file. If you are going to punish a player with death in a puzzle game, please give them more than 3 lives. After re-starting the game numerous times I gave up due to frustration
Excellent start but needs 'fixing' to make it playable 3/10
The castle Tomb by SamHH
This is my personal favourite entry. If you ask me why, though, I couldn't really tell you. It just has that 'X-Factor' for me. I like the setting, I like most of the puzzles and as a whole it just clicked for me.
BUT even though this was my favourite there two things that really bugged me. First was the second puzzle. I worked it out easily enough but the first 3 times I tried to do it I missed the key even though the gunshot looked like it was hitting it. Because I couldn't save the game (even though it had a load option on the main menu) I had to restart as I only had 12 bullets and once they were gone I couldn't get the key anymore.
The second part that drove me insane was building the tower of blocks. The stone zombie thing at the bottom kept knocking it over while I was climbing it meaning I had to start building it again. Then he killed me before I completed it and I only had 3 lives before having to restart the whole game
If those 2 things were fixed and fully customised menus had been used I would have given this a perfect score.
I love raiding tombs 9/10"
SamHH, please send me your email and your address where you wish the printed copy of the guide to go.
PMCDude, please send me your email and your address.
deca, please send me your email address.
Robert F, please send me your email address.
Screaming Head Games, please send me your email address.
Thanks again to all who took part and contributed, without you there would be no competition.
