Armadillo Run forum

Snowlord's recent comment about having a contest that wasn't about the cheapest solution really resonated with me. Clearly there is some interest, and plenty of creative ideas that are making their way into contests.

Let's see some more discussion. Is this kind of thing competitive, or like an art show? Do people want to vote for the best design or designer or not? Do people all want to work on the same starting level, or is this headed for level design?

How often and how long would this run?

Here's what I think:

You could do one or both of these:

Same starting level

The 'design contest' aspect should be integrated into the 'B' levels. As well as getting an award for 'cheapest', the level designer should hand out awards such as:

Fastest Solution (quickest time to finish)
Best Work of Art
Most Ingenious Solution
The Mad Scientist Award

Guidelines would be produced outlining how these awards are earned, but the discretion is solely the level designer's. 'Best work of art' would not need to be within the budget, but the other awards would need to have a positive budget. And of course all of them would need to end with the armadillo escaping.

Ideally, these awards would be recorded in a 'database', and you could see people's awards by looking at their profiles (along with their light and dark medals).

Level Creation

For a level design competition, this should run every two weeks, and players submit levels on a 'theme'. There is a list of theme examples somewhere on the site. People could vote on their favourite level, and the designer of this level gets a medal. All of the levels should be spectator levels which end with the armadillo escaping.

Some great ideas there dudio!

dudiobugtron wrote:Fastest Solution (quickest time to finish)

We could call this one the no-life award

PeterT wrote:

dudiobugtron wrote:Fastest Solution (quickest time to finish)

We could call this one the no-life award

hehehe

but actually the fast solutions are the easiest to tweak, especially if you aren't restricted as much by cost. Because you don't have to watch for ages to see if they work!

Edit: ooooooh, I see what you meant now - like a 'who can submit a solution the fastest' competition - This works really well with a level set especially.

What I meant was the solution which made the armadillo get home fastest.

but actually the fast solutions are the easiest to tweak, especially if you aren't restricted as much by cost. Because you don't have to watch for ages to see if they work!

That's true, what I meant was that you'd need to lurk on the forums continously after each contest and have free time right then as soon is the level is posted (and quite a lot of time actually in the case of B contests) to win such an award.

[Edit]
Just read your edit, it all makes sense now! This type of "speed" competition is of course a far more interesting concept!

That's interesting, but how can you accurately determine speed, like something faster by 0.01 seconds?

kingofthespill wrote:That's interesting, but how can you accurately determine speed, like something faster by 0.01 seconds?

I think if it were that close it would be a tie!

It would only really work for B-levels where the fastest solution won't always just be a rubber cannon and catcher. Ideally there would be a good matchup between tension, rockets and the force - although gravity is the cheapest power source it isn't usually the fastest!

Yes, yes, yes!

The speed-contest is interesting!. But it would only work if someone put an internal clock into AR. Another really fun idea - and easy to get through with - is "one hour contests". Players get 1 hour to complete the test. Then there would be no time for winning due to endless tweaking..


Edit: With my CPU perhaps my dillo is moving slower than on real peoples machines So the dillotimeunit must be invented? A new time in the AR universe. Refering to it self Perhaps its easyer to travel in time in a 2D room ?

I have "invented" a way of creating what I think is a clockfunction that will be fair for everyone. It is simply numbers built in in the level with timers attached to it. I droped an example in the contest A forum but was suprised by lack of response (perhaps the release was bad timed - hoho ) but anywayz - here is the example - its a bit messy, but you will get the point!

?rjan Flatseth wrote:I have "invented" a way of creating what I think is a clockfunction that will be fair for everyone. It is simply numbers built in in the level with timers attached to it. I droped an example in the contest A forum but was suprised by lack of response (perhaps the release was bad timed - hoho ) but anywayz - here is the example - its a bit messy, but you will get the point!

I really like your idea; it's quite simple once you think about it (use a timer to measure time, duh)!!!

and here's a screenshot of my solution:

HAHA! Congratulations, dudiobugtron! That was a bad mf dark solution - but the first and best submitted yet. But one thing - you have used 6 og 12 sekonds and have 6 seconds left BTW - this is post nr 1000 in the Classic Contest Archive