Sunday 22 December 2013

Challenge - Olav and the Lute - Winner Announcement




Back in October I set a small challenge for the readers of the blog. I’d come across a short independent game called Olav & the Lute, which took more than a little inspiration from the game I was playing at the time, Loom. The challenge was for readers to play the game and blog through it, similar to the way I do week in week out. Each entrant would receive 50 CAPs, and the entry I deemed the best (and yes, this would be entirely subjective) would receive 100 CAPs!!! Five readers took up the challenge and sent in their entries, being:

Andy_Panthro
http://playedbypanthro.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/free-indie-game-olav-lute.html

Andy’s entry is, like the game, short and sweet. It was more a typical game review than a complete playthrough, but I was very happy to see how much he enjoyed the game.

Charles
http://teseractia.blogspot.com.ar/p/blog-page.html

If you haven’t read Charles’ post yet, I highly recommend you do. He decided to approach it from a first person point of view, and the result is downright awesome. The fact that English isn’t your first language Charles seriously puts me to shame. This will be hard to beat!

Ilmari
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_gUUR63koWoZDI4Mk5vQkJHQk0/edit?usp=sharing

Ilmari’s entry was a bit more in line with what I usually do, although he managed to interweave a poem that describes the events of the game within it. I think he was bang on with his comments about the game in general too, making this another contender!

Reiko
http://telyni.wordpress.com/2013/10/23/game-review-olav-and-the-lute/

The thing I like about Reiko’s entry is that he really focuses on what would be helpful to Shelly Alon and the guys that assisted in making Olav & the Lute. There’s a fair bit of focus on what works and what doesn’t in the game, which would be invaluable to any game developer. Nice work!

Zenic Reverie
http://sidequestsaga.blogspot.com/2013/11/olav-lute-inspired-by-loom.html

Aha, finally someone dared to apply the PISSED rating system to Olav & the Lute! Zenic did a good job too, and I’m not sure the result would have ended up all that different had I done it myself. The list of bugs that he found would no doubt be appreciated by Shelly as well.

If you’ve read all these entries, you’ll know that they are all more than worthy, and each of them offers something a bit different from the rest. The main aim of all of this was to draw attention to the work of Shelly and his small team, and to give him some feedback on his admirable game debut. However, the time has come to choose a winner. After a fair amount of deliberation, I’ve chosen Charles to receive the 100 CAPs for no other reason than his entry was just so entertaining. Congratulations Charles! I trust you will do something wise with this stash of CAPs!

16 comments:

  1. Some really good entries there, I didn't expect the general level to be this high. A pleasant surprise indeed! Congratulations Charles, taking the top place was well deserved!

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  2. CAP Distribution Updated for Conquests of Camelot Final Rating post

    &

    CAP Leaderboard updated

    I apologise if I missed anyone that played Conquests of Camelot at the same time I did. Let me know and I'll reward you appropriately.

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  3. Woo-hoo!! Really honored, Trickster! Thank you guys, and congratulations to my fellow Olav co-bloggers! Here's what I'll do with my new treasure, and there's 10 CAPs for whomever gets the exact reference first:
    I'll dive around in it like a porpoise! I'll burrow through it like a gopher! And I'll toss it up and let it hit me on the head!

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    Replies
    1. Sounds like something Scrooge would say. :p

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    2. Yes, and little bit of googling will let you find the exact story, from which the line originates. Let's say it's by the father of Scrooge, and it involves everyone's favourite gang of money robbers, a big lake and termites.

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    3. It's "Only A Poor Old Man." Notable for being the first story where Scrooge's personality was fially set in stone by Carl Barks.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Only_a_Poor_Old_Man

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    4. Oh right, that's why it sounded so familiar. I've got that story, just in Norwegian so I couldn't place the quote. I'm a Don Rosa man myself, but Carl Barks comes a good second.

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    5. Congrats Charles. I enjoyed the first-person narrative as well. Now that you've pulled ahead on the CAPs board though I'll need to double my efforts to catch up. ;)

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    6. Okay, so Lars-Erik got the character, Ilmari obviously knew the source story and Laukku pointed to it. I'd like to reward all three of you, so would you mind if I gave 5 CAPs to each? The rich get richer, I know!

      @Zenic: Thank you. I reckon you'll be zipping past me soon enough ;-)

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  4. Congratulations to all participants, especially Charles for winning the challenge!

    I hope there will be more challenges like this, I really enjoyed the game.

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  5. This was a fun challenge. I must point out though, that if you look up the name Reiko anywhere, it's not a guy's name, and I'm not a guy. :)

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  6. Sorry Reiko! I actually knew that too as I looked it up for your What's Your Story post. I guess using masculine terms is the norm around here with the lopsided ratio, so I got lazy.

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    Replies
    1. Hey, girls are gamers too! :) Actually, I'm pretty used to it because my real name sounds masculine, but that's one reason I use a more feminine name online. But it's not an English name, so it's understandable.

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    2. Huh, I knew Reiko was a feminine name, from that webcomic about the girl with the axe.

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    3. Here it is! Warning: Dark, dark, darkkkkkkk humour. Also violence and creepy. It warms my heart, though I haven't thought of it in years. http://taintedink.com

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    4. That was horrifically sick and disturbed Canageek! In other words, I loved it!

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