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4-n Elements Contest

Started by mindrot Sep 26, 2007 at 1:05 PM 13 replies 4.8k views

Original Post

Sep 26, 2007 at 1:05 PM

a history of VI element rules 4E Elements - Earth, Fire, Wind, Water Rule - Entries missing ANY of the four elements will be immediately disqualified. 4E2 Elements - Earth, Fire, Wind, Water Rule - Entries missing ANY of the four elements will be immediately disqualified. 4E3 Elements - Water, Wind, Earth, Fire Rule - Entries missing ANY of the four elements will be immediately disqualified. 4E4 Elements - Robots, Pirates, Ninjas, Zombies Rule - Entries including less than two (2) of the four elements will be immediately disqualified. 4E5 Elements - Emotion, Economics, Emblem, Europe Rule - Entries that do not include all four elements will be disqualified. Each element must have a significant presence in the game. 4E6 Elements - ?,?,?,? Rule - Entries that do not include at least three of the four elements will be disqualified. An element must have a significant presence in the game to be considered as included. A note is that none of the two judging criteria listed for the contests allowing a reduced number of element inclusions, 4E4 and 4E6, have judging policies on said diminished inclusion. So using only 3 of the four elements in 4E6 gives you no disadvantage compared to someone using all 4. I personally liked requiring all, however 4eIV only required two and I thought that was too liberal. I like the 3/4 Theme requirement... but that makes me wonder, is it really a 4 elements contest if you only have to incorporate 3? Perhaps it’s "the 4 available elements contest". I'm wondering what other member's thoughts are on not requiring all 4 elements. I'm surprised this hasn't been brought up yet. Perhaps a justification would be since we are no longer using the standard earth, wind, water, fire elements; it becomes too awkward to include all the listed elements in a singular format w/out seeming a bit contrived. My statement to this idea is, if that is the case the criteria for element selection needs to be reworked. ps - But perhaps it was discussed during previous Element contest? I don’t know. Thoughts? [Edited by - mindrot on September 26, 2007 2:51:33 PM]

Avatar God

Sep 26, 2007 at 2:05 PM

I'm a stickler for semantics, but this causes me no pain whatsoever.

I did think that 2/4 was pushing it.

d000hg

Sep 26, 2007 at 2:15 PM

If the only elements you were allowed were the 4 listed...

Promit

Sep 26, 2007 at 2:27 PM

Personally I would like to see all elements required.

OrangyTang

Sep 26, 2007 at 2:36 PM

Does this years judging criteria include points for "use of elements"? IIRC last year you didn't get any points for use of elements, so a game which included the elements but totally ignored them was judged equal with one that made them a core part of the gameplay.

mindrot

Sep 26, 2007 at 2:50 PM

i think the idea for 'judging the elements' is executed by the rejection process.

if game qualifies - then thats your point - after that point, for the most part, elements are ignored.

i think the reasoning for this is.
lets say i made an rpg using 4 elements and its a great fun story based game with elements

then you made a sandbox game... and the 4 elements are all there are to work with...its an essential core element of your game...because thats all your game is...manipulation of those elements.

im not saying either game is better or worse than the other
which is exactly the point
the sandbox style game shouldnt get more credit for making the elements CORE
both games passed through the filter and thus are judged equally after that point.

now - the question i kinda asked above is ... should inclusion of ALL elements (regardless of how CORE they are) be rewarded... that i still dont know.

i think that its the reason past contests have varied...
at first they over compensated by allowing only 2 elements
then they went back to full restriction
now they are meeting in the middle.
well see how it works out

Avatar God

Sep 26, 2007 at 3:22 PM

Quote:
Original post by d000hg
If the only elements you were allowed were the 4 listed...

[lol]

JBourrie

Sep 26, 2007 at 3:40 PM

Quote:
Original post by Promit
Personally I would like to see all elements required.

I also think it's better to require all four elements, but those elements would have to be more flexible than the ones from last year in order to get any good results.

superpig

Sep 26, 2007 at 5:39 PM

Quote:
Original post by OrangyTang
Does this years judging criteria include points for "use of elements"? IIRC last year you didn't get any points for use of elements, so a game which included the elements but totally ignored them was judged equal with one that made them a core part of the gameplay.

No, it wasn't. Games that just "bolt on" the elements - just as if they "bolted on" any aspect of the design - suffered in the cohesiveness subcategory. The judging schema is the same this year.

Trapper Zoid

Sep 26, 2007 at 6:30 PM

In a way I'm a bit relieved there's a three element rule. Last year I had the beginnings of heaps of good ideas for workable contest entries, but I had to scrap them when I could only fully incorporate three elements with the fourth only able to be bolted on.

In 4E4 most people incorporated three or four elements even though they only required two, although many focused on two as "strong" elements with the others as extras. I expect something similar will happen this contest - most will attempt to have all four, but one mightn't be as well integrated as the other three.

But it all depends on the elements - we'll have an idea tomorrow how easy it will be to incorporate all four elements into a game idea!

OrangyTang

Sep 26, 2007 at 6:31 PM

Quote:
Original post by superpig
Quote:
Original post by OrangyTang
Does this years judging criteria include points for "use of elements"? IIRC last year you didn't get any points for use of elements, so a game which included the elements but totally ignored them was judged equal with one that made them a core part of the gameplay.
No, it wasn't. Games that just "bolt on" the elements - just as if they "bolted on" any aspect of the design - suffered in the cohesiveness subcategory. The judging schema is the same this year.

Ah, that makes sense. I didn't realise that cohesiveness also covered the elements as well.

JBourrie

Sep 26, 2007 at 6:44 PM

Quote:
Original post by Trapper Zoid
In a way I'm a bit relieved there's a three element rule. Last year I had the beginnings of heaps of good ideas for workable contest entries, but I had to scrap them when I could only fully incorporate three elements with the fourth only able to be bolted on.!

I see the 4E contest as being as much of a design contest as it is a programming contest. There are plenty of contests where you can just create your own game, but requiring all four elements brings an interesting design challenge into the mix. Sure, you might have to scrap a few ideas until you find the right one, but usually each idea you come up with will be better than the one before it.

superpig

Sep 27, 2007 at 3:48 AM

Quote:
Original post by OrangyTang
Quote:
Original post by superpig
Quote:
Original post by OrangyTang
Does this years judging criteria include points for "use of elements"? IIRC last year you didn't get any points for use of elements, so a game which included the elements but totally ignored them was judged equal with one that made them a core part of the gameplay.
No, it wasn't. Games that just "bolt on" the elements - just as if they "bolted on" any aspect of the design - suffered in the cohesiveness subcategory. The judging schema is the same this year.

Ah, that makes sense. I didn't realise that cohesiveness also covered the elements as well.

Well, it covers all parts of the design. If you crowbar the elements into your game, then it'll suffer for it just as much as if you'd crowbarred a painful pop culture reference or rickety gameplay mechanic in there. That is, if you just have Element X floating around in your level, it needs to make sense that it would be doing so.

WRT number of elements: Yeah. Originally the whole point of the elements was just to prevent people from submitting games that they've already created, but they can also serve to inspire designs and provide initial constraints to help guide people's brainstorming. From the first point of view a single obscure element would be enough to require that everyone do some work to modify their games, but that wouldn't help the second. You'll see some people who use all four elements rather than just three because they want to try and achieve that for their own satisfaction, or because they've simply been thinking about all four at the same time and had a design arise from that.

Trapper Zoid

Sep 27, 2007 at 3:59 AM

Quote:
Original post by JBourrie
I see the 4E contest as being as much of a design contest as it is a programming contest. There are plenty of contests where you can just create your own game, but requiring all four elements brings an interesting design challenge into the mix. Sure, you might have to scrap a few ideas until you find the right one, but usually each idea you come up with will be better than the one before it.

I agree, but it was more an issue with abstract nature of the elements last year. I wanted to strongly incorporate each element into the core of the game, but I'd always end up with one being a lot weaker than the others. Emblem was giving the most trouble if I recall; I'd end up tacking it on as some sort of vague symbol and not being very happy about it.

If I enter this year I'll almost certainly include all four elements, but I won't feel so bad if I've only got three "strong" elements and one "weak" one.

superpig

Sep 27, 2007 at 4:31 AM

The elements are definitely less abstract this year.

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