Today I decided to check back in on the One Page Dungeon contest webpage to see how many entries had been submitted. I was very surprised to see a total of 63 entires were accepted, and there is one late entry mentioned as well. That is a lot of dungeon action! I then downloaded the packet that contains all the entries and began browsing. Let me say this, the judges have their hands full! Not only are there a ton of entries in this year's contest, but there are a ton of good entries in this year's contest!
It is amazing to see the variety of what was submitted. That is one of the cool things about the One Page Dungeon (OPD) concept -- everyone has their own interpretation as to what epitomizes an OPD. Just browsing through the various submissions it was interesting to see just how radically different so many of them were.
Personally, when I decided I wanted to design an OPD and enter it into the contest I came up with a short list of goals to help guide me along the way. I knew I wanted to capture the spirit of Swords Against the Outer Dark with my entry -- a dark fantasy adventure that contained strong Lovecraftian elements while at the same time maintaining a real traditional old school fantasy gaming approach. As such, I decided that this OPD would work best as a small sandbox, and only supply the framework required to run the adventure. The replayability factor had to be high, and I did my best to leave some loose ends that would allow for open ended play. To help root it in a traditional fantasy gaming mindset I chose monsters from Dungeons & Dragons to populate this adventure that have obvious Lovecraftian overtones (a gibbering mouther to stand-in for a shoggoth, a grick in place of a chthonian, etc.). Charts for rumors and random encounters round off the old school approach. The map was purposely kept simple and straight forward, and the outside area was left unmapped to allow for open interpretation.
All in all I feel I achieved what I set out to do. Will I win the contest? I hope so -- the prize list is very sweet! I think I have a strong entry, and I have received some good feedback from those around me. Who knows? Only time will tell who will be on the winner's list this year. As I stated earlier, there are so many good entries I do not envy anyone on the judges committee their job...
4 comments:
Hey Shane,
Thanks for pointing out the packet. I've been having a hard time crawling through the list at random ;-).
I'm looking forward to hearing the judging too. I think you definitely have a shot of scooping up one of the prizes--yours is one of the most polished in there. I'm not counting on it, but I wouldn't mind winning in some wonky category, either (if I'm being totally honest). However, I'm disappointed to see that the Time 4 Tea entry had almost the exact same ideas that I did (even down to fonts). That can't help my chances.
Good luck!
Brenton
PS- Love the new banner. I need to design one!
Brenton,
I think your entry is a strong one. I know I like it. I plan to use... er, cough**steal**cough... it for a game sometime. It is going to be tough as hell for the judges to pick winners! Good luck to you as well!
As for the banner, I am always experimenting with new ones. It is good Photoshop practice for me. I have learned more from making banners for this blog than any tutorial out there. I agree, you should make a banner for your blog.
Later man,
Shane
Hi Shane,
I share your opinion too, there's a lot of excellent entries. This year's standard is pretty high and the judges will have a hard time for sure. I've read the whole 63 too, and I'm still undecided about which I like best — mine out of my mind and consideration, of course —. I've liked to read you telling about the way you've put yourself at work and started to design, we should all have done something like this.
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