KungFuSquirrel

Following up vivi's response: 1: If you really want to do a two-parter, I'd still consider it a single entry. If you have a cool idea based around it, go for it. 2: The free version of Fraps or XFire should do the trick. If you absolutely can't get a video, you won't be disqualified, but I would highly recommend one in this challenge if you can manage it. 3: The idea is to share techniques, learn, and see how other people work. It'd be my personal preference that everyone entering includes the source file to demonstrate what methods they used to construct the puzzle, but you won't be disqualified if you choose not to.

Post-SDK, I say let's do it! We could line up a pretty beefy pack with the crew we've got here I like the idea of getting together a core-specific content pack - we could have some of our dudes work on that in the lead-up. Also, someone should paint hurg-themed murals to hide in secret areas. Any other votes for or against the speedmap challenges? If that's something people are interested in, I wouldn't mind compiling a list of some possible themes to have available after the Door Challenge wraps up.

To think you kiss your mother with that mouth! Terrible! Ask Biessman about the 1 unit brush carving if you haven't heard that story. It's a good one. (Also the "you're in hell" bug fix)

We'll roll the Door Challenge on Friday, so get ready Here's a general discussion question for you guys - we've been doing about 4 weeks between challenges. Who would be up to doing some smaller weekend speedmap stuff around the 2 week mark? Start Friday, end Sunday, quick vote, and then on to the next major challenge 2-3 weeks later? Could roll some old-school challenges, like HL1 DM, CS, Quake 1... run with set themes or styles... "Wilderness weekend" where you make an all-nature scene... a quick PQL-style everyone-gets-a-level SP campaign... any number of short-term possibilities! I know it runs the risk of overloading the people who are participating in each of the bigger challenges, but there's no shame in skipping and I think it might also be a good chance to snag some of our regulars who haven't been able to commit to the larger challenges, or just to keep fresh with a ludum dare/game jam-style palate cleanser. I've been hoping to keep the big challenges in the 15-20 entry range, but these could even be fun with just 4-5 people getting together and making stuff, and help make sure there's always something interesting on the horizon here. Yay/Nay? Maybe later?

I think as this particular challenge is concerned we'll stick with the door - but, as mentioned, there's no reason your puzzle can't be entering the building to open the door, or exiting the building instead of entering, or just using it as a gate between two rooms. It is limiting, but that's the point! The couple challenges we've run so far have been pretty open-ended within their limitations - it should be fun to see how people work around the same base. Absolutely! Your work is your own. Share it with the world, go back and re-build it, take it out back and carve 1 unit brushes through it... up to you!

In what ways do you envision that being different than just accessing the building through the door? Not to say that combination of gameplay you describe isn't a good idea, but I guess I'm not sure how the current rules would prevent you from doing this.

These actually still work, as they don't require PSN. Wife was able to load LBP for the first time and download all the launch to now updates with no trouble at all.

I think the fun in starting from the same base, much like some of the art pass contests floating around out there, is seeing how far people can go from a common origin point. This really kind of comes down to an "in the spirit of the competition" ruling. Use the starting point, and stick as close to it as you can in crafting your puzzle. These are pretty loose rules, too; there's no tangible prize, so just use your best judgment. If you find you're building a complex iris door into a sphere, you may have gone too far.

That is kind of confusing phrasing. A better way to put it would be that you should stick closely to the blockout, but you can modify it, build onto it, detail it, cut extra holes in it (like vivi's windows), etc. as needed provided that doesn't allow the player to get inside (or outside, if you choose to reverse the puzzle ) I'll amend the rules to try and phrase that more clearly.

It should go without saying, your first entry will be considered ineligible I would say no, I don't think we should stifle creativity. I mean, chances are if you create a puzzle to open the door and it just uses the normal portal mechanics, your puzzle wont be "Awesome" enough to win, just my take on it. Agreed; I think part of the fun of having multiple games represented is seeing the ways different games' mechanics might change the way one approaches the puzzle's design. I think it'd be a waste to make a Portal map where you didn't take full advantage of all the tools at your disposal - but like vivi said, just shooting a couple portals and walking through the door probably won't win you too many votes

Glad to see the excitement! I don't know if I'll have time for this one, but it should be a fun one. Exactly the kind of creativity to put into this one I expect to see a few zany ones

viewtopic.php?f=57&t=16155 Let's get discussing

Greetings! It's that time again - time to discuss the rules for our next challenge! For this round, we'll be rocking generalvivi's "Door Challenge," in which you'll be provided this prefab in Source, UDK, and OBJ formats for the engine/editor of your choice: example.jpg[/attachment] Now, our rules: THE TEMPLATE ---> Download <--- This thread will be available for ongoing rules discussion and WIP screenshots as the challenge progresses. Good luck!

Just talked to vivi; he had a draft of rules from when he put the prefab together... He'll get those together and we'll use those as the base of our own rules discussion. Sound good?

I'm actually a bit swamped myself, now - want to push it back to start May 6th? Unless there's any big objections, I think the door challenge is next on the list and should be a fun one. I'll message vivi about getting his template ready and we can start rules discussion next weekend or so

Watch the whole series in order. It's kind of great.

How do people feel about kicking off a new challenge on the 22nd? Too soon? Just right? Oh! Also, check out our snazzy new Challenges subforum viewforum.php?f=62

Absolutely. CJ, I love the style you've got in that level. Glad to see you've looked at resurrecting it

Great idea! Some of mine: Part of ns_eclipse made in Doom III: d3_terraform_003.jpg[/attachment] In-editor shot of a stab at an Insurgency map: kfs4dm1_003.jpg[/attachment] Half-Life DM map I fell short on right before getting hired at Raven (it's in my Open Source pack): nwc1a0a_3.jpg[/attachment]

Gameplay!

I just switched to http://apisnetworks.com/ after having a comped Speakeasy account for years that I didn't have any real control over. I'm pleased with it so far; Lunaran's been on it for quite a while (which is where I got the recommendation). Also, they do referrals, so, uh, put in kungfusquirrel.net if you sign up ...actually, you can also sign up from this link: http://apisnetworks.com/r?aweldon and hook me up with some referral love

I've split this thread into the most recent discussion for easier browsing and tweeting All right, lengthier musing. I've seen mention from at least 3 people who didn't end up making it to the poll in time; I felt like the poll last time was open too long but I think that was probably a mistake. I did like waiting a couple days to open voting to try and encourage some time to check out the entries, but I think waiting as long as I did also made it easier to forget. I think ending the vote about a week after the challenge deadline is still a good target. Maybe open the polls Tuesday or Wednesday instead of Friday like I did this time? I'm glad the voting system seems to have gone over well. I think it helped break our tie stalemate that we had last time, and not having to worry about so many categories also helped a lot. There's a great points here made about participation, many of which echo my suspicions which were: People are busy, the challenge has been done here before, and it's a big undertaking - not that there was a sudden lack of interest in continuing these. I think we should definitely be careful to keep things bite-sized to maximize participation and minimize stress. Also, I'm super excited every time I see someone with <5 posts show up in a challenge thread. That was great in the 20 Brush challenge and it was great in this one. It's just a few people, but I'm glad we've been able to draw some people in that hopefully will stick around. I'm also relieved you guys have found the Twitter updates to be in the "just right" range. I felt like I was maybe a bit on the heavy side, but I'll try to stay at about this frequency of updating in the future. I think 3-4 weeks will remain the sweet spot for the duration of the challenge, and I'm personally still a fan of how I've started both of these on Friday and ended on Sunday to maximize the available weekend time for all of us. Three weeks is probably ideal, really, since then we can use the 4th week for voting and package things nicely within about a month for each challenge. But, occasionally a more involved challenge will probably warrant 4-5 weeks; we'll just play that by ear. I'd also be open to some even shorter-term challenges down the road, in the 1-2 week range or maybe even occasional weekend challenges to kill some time in between the larger ones. Yay/Nay? If you guys agree that 4-6 weeks is the ideal range in between, I could see us start up again either April 22nd or 29th. Gives everyone a few weeks to recover and gives us a nice window to decide what our next challenge will be (though as mentioned, I'm also completely ok with the order we voted on previously, with the door challenge coming up next followed by the texture-limited challenge) Also, I love the idea of an old-school challenge; those might be good fodder for the shorter-term challenges since they're so much simpler than what we're used to working with today. We could easily do an all HL1 w/ stock content challenge, or open things up to the game of your choice from that era like HL, Quake, Quake 2, Duke 3D, etc. Please keep the suggestions coming!

Great feedback, guys! I'll have more commentary when I get back from work, but I wanted to pop in a reminder that in the vote we held to select the 1024/Cube challenge, the runner-up was the Door challenge and the third place finisher was the 3x 512x512 (or otherwise texture-limited) challenge. It's a little soon to start talking specifics of the next one, but I'm content to continue in that order if popular opinion here supports it.

So, quick update: We just wrapped up the Cube Challenge, as many of you may have noticed. Participation was a bit down from the 20-Brush Challenge, but we still had some good entries and I think the voting situation has been greatly improved from last time. I'm curious to get as much feedback as I can on how these couple challenges have gone so that the next one(s) can also be improved. What thoughts do you have? Do you also think the voting was improved from last time? Was the time between challenges ok, or did you not enter this one because you felt it was too soon? Was the schedule adequate? Are the Twitter reminders useful or do they cross the line into annoying? How much time is appropriate before rolling out the next one?

Thanks everyone for participating and voting in the latest challenge! The poll just closed and the results are in... Here are the winners: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FIRST PLACE: tlovemark_secretTemple.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=1]vfig_escherisch.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=4]SamCom_Waystation.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=3]sargemat_cubeX3.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=0]wookash_b_turm.jpg[/attachment] ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks again to everyone who entered and voted, and we'll see you with another challenge as soon as people feel up to it again (probably 4-8 weeks). Also, I'm interested in any feedback you have on this challenge. Was the new voting an improvement? If you didn't submit an entry, what prevented you from doing so? Did we leave enough time between challenges? Was the Twitter feed useful? I've re-purposed the thread we used to settle upon this challenge into a general MapCore Challenge discussion, so drop your thoughts and any suggestions for future challenges here: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=15883&start=30