Topic: Castlevania Dungeon Award Sprite Contest

[Inccubus]

The hell with it. I'm starting this thing right now before we get any farther into the month.
We can work out the details as we go along.

Duration: From now until October 31st
Deadline for submissions: Monday October 27th
Judgement: by tribunal from Tuesday October 28th to Thursday October 30th at midnight and Winners announced on the morning of Halloween

Volunteer Judges:
Uzo
darkmanx_429
Jorge D. Fuentes

Theme: Design Castlevania themed awards as a prize for our ongoing sprite contests.
Prizes: Award medals for the 1st, 2nd and 3rd place winners.

Guidelines for Participants:
-Provide your sprite in 1x and 2x zoom at least.
-No color restrictions or specific style.
-Size must not exceed 32x32 pixels.
-Contestants may submit as many entries as they like and each one will be evaluated individually.
-Contestants may update their entries freely before the submission deadline.
-You may withdraw any entry at any time before the judgement begins.

Guidelines for Judges:
-judgement will use a point system.
--4 points awarded for your first place choice.
--2 points awarded for your second place choice.
--1 point for your third place choice.
--When posting your scores write up an explanation/critique of your judgement.
--Additional rounds of judgement will be used for tie breakers.
-Judges cannot participate in the contest.


Entries:

Theplottwist: (1st Place Winner)

   

   

Donoffrio: (2nd Place Winner)

Sonic_Reaper:

Kaonstantine: (3rd Place Winner)

                                        

            

Lelygax:

Jop:

[Inccubus]

OK let's begin by discussing the prizes and the and the theme for the contest.

From the sprite thread:

Nothing stopping you from starting one.
Problem is, we still have no real prizes.  Nothing was clarified!  YOU'RE ALL TO BLAME!

Actually, I suggested special Awards on your profiles for winners.

I even went as far as to suggest that the first contest should be designing special Award sprites and then letting the moderators or the dungeonites (by polling) select the winners.

Pixel Joint also has no real prizes for contests, and they happen weekly. Medals are awarded, and of course, exposure is also "awarded". The same could be done here. Award medals to the contestants, and expose the work somewhere prominent (Like on the forum's banner or something?? I dunno).

This is a perfect idea. I should add that they should be Castlevania themed u_u

Maybe we should post something on the main site, too; for exposure.
This contest needs to expose itself!

[darkmanx_429]

I think the first theme should be a Castlevania themed Medal design for a winner of a sprite contest.

The dungeonites choose a bad ass design via poll for the 1st place winner and the mods choose winners for 2nd and 3rd place.

These awards are only available through winning a sprite contest and appear on your Awards box under your profile.

The designs can be idle sprites or animated. (I possible) I think the 1st place Medal should always be animated making them unique among the regular Awards.

Make sure (mods) mention any size requirements or file size restrictions.

[theplottwist]

The dungeonites choose a bad ass design via poll for the 1st place winner and the mods choose winners for 2nd and 3rd place.

I think the contestants should be required to create all three medals, for the sake of consistency, and the mods should evaluate the whole set.

Furthermore, I think the sprites MUST be original. It's easy to find a Simon Belmont sprite, pixel a few details in it (like a typical trophy-base), and call it done. The sprites have to be Castlevania themed, but should be completelly original.

[Dracula9]

Well, themes are variable, but the scoring system that we use over on Inc. for sprite contests should work just as well here.

Adherence to theme X/10
Quality X/10
Anything else that would be contest or theme-specific X/10

Animation bonus if the contest doesn't call for it X/5
Other bonuses X/5

As for the medals thing, it's certainly a neat idea, but it'd be kind of odd making the winning entry and getting your own thing as an award.

[Shiroi Koumori]

If I am not mistaken, Jorge said that the award size should be the same as the awards you see under your profile picture.

[darkmanx_429]

I think the contestants should be required to create all three medals, for the sake of consistency, and the mods should evaluate the whole set.

Furthermore, I think the sprites MUST be original. It's easy to find a Simon Belmont sprite, pixel a few details in it (like a typical trophy-base), and call it done. The sprites have to be Castlevania themed, but should be completelly original.

Well I was about just one for time sake.

And it would allow more people to join the contest as they only would have to concentrate on one medal and it's easier just to pick the other two.

 Also that guarantee's at least 3 different winners instead of just one person winning everything constantly and no one else gets anything for the time they put into the contest.

At least that is my thought process...

If I am not mistaken, Jorge said that the award size should be the same as the awards you see under your profile picture.

True but everyone has different monitor sizes and resolutions.

A standard size would at least ensure all the awards look nice next to one another if a dungeon member may win more than one.

Furthermore, I think the sprites MUST be original. It's easy to find a Simon Belmont sprite, pixel a few details in it (like a typical trophy-base), and call it done. The sprites have to be Castlevania themed, but should be completelly original.

Wouldn't that limit some people from the contest?

I have seen some people make some pretty awesome sprites with frankenspriting etc.

I dunno how technical the Mods would have get with that kinda of stuff..I would say let's not complicate it too much and let people judge the pieces for what they are as a whole.

I mean we are the ones that would be doing the voting anyways!

Well, themes are variable, but the scoring system that we use over on Inc. for sprite contests should work just as well here.

Adherence to theme X/10
Quality X/10
Anything else that would be contest or theme-specific X/10

Animation bonus if the contest doesn't call for it X/5
Other bonuses X/5

As for the medals thing, it's certainly a neat idea, but it'd be kind of odd making the winning entry and getting your own thing as an award.

Good points, I dunno how the mods feel about a scoring system but that sounds good to me.

I wouldn't think it would be odd.

I think more of bragging rights? Unless you would get another type of award only for 1st Place winners that you can only get through sprite contests....

All this sounds so exciting! lol

Mods, don't wait too long starting it! I am pretty sure you guys could get a basic feel of it off all the ideas everyone is providing!

[Inccubus]

The scoring system is not bad, but that would also require judges.
So if we go with that we first need 3 volunteer judges.

As for the theme, how about we take an existing power up sprite say this: , and have contestants use it as a base for the new award?

[uzo]

I can be the asshole judge everyone hates because his standards are high and he doesn't sugar coat it.

As much as I'd like to participate as a contestant I really don't believe I'll have the time.

[Shiroi Koumori]

For the awards size, use this as reference: http://castlevaniadungeon.net/forums/index.php/topic,3573.0.html
The max mini image size is 32x32, most are 24x24, but there are some smaller than that.

[Dracula9]

I can be the asshole judge everyone hates because his standards are high and he doesn't sugar coat it.

Hey, it helped my ass.

Hrm, here's my thing with this. There's not too much you can do in 32x32 pixels or less. I get the feeling this might become "okay, let's set your tiny geometric shape against my tiny geometric shape."

[Shiroi Koumori]

Aren't you guys designing medals for the top 3 spriters for this first contest? Small icons would work for that in order to maintain consistency with the other awards on the site.

For the succeeding contests, the pixel size would be made larger.

[darkmanx_429]

Aren't you guys designing medals for the top 3 spriters for this first contest? Small icons would work for that in order to maintain consistency with the other awards on the site.

For the succeeding contests, the pixel size would be made larger.

This.

[uzo]

Hey, it helped my ass.

That's the spirit!

[Jorge D. Fuentes]

Designing the medals that are to be used for further contests would be an awesome thing.
I 'think' they can even be animated.

So basically, if you design a nice medal design such that the medal colors and ribbons can be customized for the future, we can have contest and just keep making new 'awards' for it.

Like:
-2014 Castlevania Sprite Contest Winner
and later on the exact same sprite for the 2016 Sprite Contest winner.  You would only hover over it to see the description (just like you can now, for the current awards).