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For the January New Frontier Contest we had: 16 entries, 13 SHAME inductees, 3 bitches, and 2 ban-hammers.

A quick thank you to our judges, @BerkaZerka ; @Killa_Robot ; @TheNewIAP ; @JJJ-thebanisher ; @EndMaster ; and a middle finger to me for being the slowpoke holding up the results.

Congratulations to all of the entrants. We saw some very good content added to the site this past month. Well done. And now... onto the results!



1st Place: @WouldntItBeNice No Quarter AND @Ogre11 The Mountain Pass

2nd Place: @IronPanther The Planetary Exploration Society

3rd Place: @Malkalack Broken Chains

Distinguished Honorable Mention: @StrykerL The Devourer

Honorable Mention: @Mizal You Alone



Once again, no entry made it onto every ballot, however Ogre gets a nod for making his way onto five out of the six ballots. Wibns, IronPanther, and Malk each made it onto four. While StrkyerL and Mizal both made it onto three. Also of note, @Skytenshi made it onto four of the ballots as well, though three of those votes were for the final slot on the ballot.

Three other entries also received votes.

If anyone's interested, I had:

1. Mizal

2. Wibbons

3. Eric

4. IronP

5. Malk

Yes, I was recognized! And by EndMaster! I feel pretty proud but congrats to everyone that participated in the contest and good luck to those are who are willing to finish up any loose ends!

I had:

1. Stryker
2. IronPanther
3. Mizal
4. Ogre11
5. SkyTenshi

Gotta say, I'm really glad that the winners were stories that were actually completed, but I'd love to heatedly debate the other judges about their picks -- because they're wrong and they should feel bad.

Congratulations to the winners! You definitely deserved it.

@Bucky for future contests, we need to have a tiebreaker. Maybe most 1st place votes?

Edit: Thanks to Bucky, as always, for organizing things.

Edit (x2): Ogre + WIBN will get their contest trophies during the next site update.

I suggest gladiatorial combat. Also, I smell Axiom on you ^_^

I think going with the will of the masses (highest rating among the tied stories at the time the ballots are compiled) in a future tie might be the best and only guaranteed way to avoid co-winners.

S T R U C T U R E 

To start off the debate I'd be curious why you (and End) rated Mizal so highly. It wasn't a badly written story, but it was short, and choices didn't seem to matter.

Corruption. Delicious, delightful corruption.

Too lazy to rewrite, here’s what I mentioned in a PM to Bucky.

A lot of people went off script and even those that managed to stick to it either:

Made something mostly linear.
Made something boring.
Both.

Mizal’s I felt stuck the closest to the wilderness theme while having quite a bit of branching at least. She kept my attention and entertained me long enough that I actually went through every choice so she got first.

Wibbons and Eric were about the same since they sort of both strayed a bit, but had enough branching. Wibbons got the edge, because she had pictures and undead in it.

IronPanther’s of course had the most work put into it and I got pretty enthusiastic about it initially since it seemed like it was going to be a scifi version of Dungeon Stompage, but once I started exploring, it was sort of a dull slog. Still, it did involve the wilderness and I can’t ignore all the extra work he did so he got in the top five.

Malk got last since he fell into that “cool story, but linear” category. Actually it was a toss up between him or WriterInTheDark, but Malk’s story was better.

I should also add, Mizal can’t figure out why the hell I rated hers so highly either even though I explained my reasons to her. Which is doubly amusing since normally she bitches that I barely pay attention to anything she writes.

Whoa! I am a bitch!

Congrats to Wibbons and Ogre. Both amazing entries.

If anyone's interested, I had:

1) Ogre
2) Wibns
3) Malk
4) IronPanther
5) Sky

IronPanther's was the hardest to judge. His writing was very good, humorous, and the time and effort he put into the game was exceptional. He also stayed very well on topic. But in the end, the game portion became repetitive and took away from the entertainment value.

damn. I almost made top 5.

we can unpublish the crap now right? pls

Yes, you and anyone else can take your stories down to work on them properly now.

EDIT: I just went ahead and unpublished your now since your story did not meet CYS standards.

I was actually curious about this, is there an official ruling on how SHAME and point bonuses work in a situation where stories don't meet minimum standards? Minnie was in a similar situation but didn't he have his taken down before the judging?

Minnie's is still up and seems to keep hovering near the line of oblivion or something. I felt the effort was obvious in his, even if it is rated low. But as of the results posting he was in the clear.

Ford's on the other hand was a last moment scramble to slap together an idea he had for a much larger story. I wish he had started it sooner because I think he had potential.

* Stories that cannot meet minimum site standards count the same as a non entry and get SHAME.

This was a contest condition ^ but since I can't enforce that, it's up to the coalition of overlords to dispense justice.

Meh, Ford's story got read by all the judges like it was a legit entry and nobody pointed it out sooner so I say he gets a pass this time unless the rest of the judges really feel strongly he needs to get the SHAMING treatment.

If that's the case his points get stripped and he gets shoved in the well.

Though if we do that to Ford, Negative could probably join him. His story wasn't even published and doesn't meet site requirements either. Of course in his case, he wouldn't lose points since he never got them back due to debt anyway.

technically it met site minimum standards. If it didn't I wouldn't have published.

I can't believe I got away with never publishing mine actually. But I only wrote it in the first place because JJJ is a bully.

Anyway I've got a bunch of notes that will have to be turned into reviews at some point. It would be great if more (all?) of the stories could be unpublished first so I don't have to worry about it.

Oh man, I've got a big stupid smile on my face right now; did not expect that in the least. Gj wibn + ogre.

Congratulations to everyone who actually took the time to write and submit an entry!! (so not Ford) I'll get to reading them sometime.... >_>

God, both WIBN and Ogre failed to achieve first place and had to share it. Weak.

Oh hey, this finally exists, fffffffucking finally.

Congrats to the winners and everybody who submitted an entry besides me. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take down my story before any aliens see it and think lesser of the human species, thus making a peace treaty harder to achieve during the inevitable war between us and extraterrestrial lifeforms.

Also, when will the February Contest start up?

Damn. I knew I missed one. Turns out No Quarter was it, so I'll rate it later today.

Congrats to the winners in the meantime.

Well, first I want to congratulate everybody who engendered this contest and completed an entry. This especially goes to @Ogre11 who completed a very well made and on-topic storygame which I did enjoy. If you would’ve put an undead anything in the storygame (unless I missed it), The Mountain Pass would be the winner. In fact, I thought it would be the winner anyway ever since I read it. I metaphorically applaud you.

Also, I want to thank Malk since your comment “<@klam> I am now writing solely for the purpose of beating WIBN” was both ironic (since I beat you) and motivating (because it made me really want to beat you). Next time, write something less linear and I’m sure you’d be able to do much better than just third place. Your writing is honestly very good.

Will, SkyT, Mizal, SkyL and WITD, I liked all of your storygames as well. I can tell that you put a great deal of effort into your games (or so it appears). Each of you improved the site’s quality with your entry (except Mizal who should publish hers).

I’m amazed by the work you put into your storygame @IronPanther since it had great deal of scripting that I haven’t seen in a new storygame for quite some time. I didn’t like the grinding, but I now have even more respect towards you as a writer. Please, continue writing these, and congratulations on receiving second place.

Finally, I want to thank the judges for reading our storygames. I appreciate the time and effort that you gave us, and I am especially appreciative of Bucky for hosting the contest. Thank you everybody.

P.S. @Axiom I didn’t use any structure because screw that stuff.

Man, you took that throwaway line in IRC to heart. Fair deuce, I suppose. Congratulations

Maybe a bitter rivalry between the only two even remotely competent Marauders is what's needed to help that side crawl out of its hole.

Anyway, congrats to Wibn and Ogre, and to everyone who entered. I've enjoyed pretty much all of the entries so far on one level or another, though with most of them it was really obvious where the time crunch started kicking in. Having so many good but unfinished stories, plus the wilderness theme having to be taken into account I'm pretty sure made this a difficult contest to judge.

Your calling out of Malk and your shitting on structure has made me proud.

Congrats to WouldntItBeNice and Ogre11 on winning! It was definitely well deserved. I enjoyed most of the stories for different reasons, but two I especially liked were No Quarter for the unique story approach, and The Devourer for being an interesting piece of sci-fi.

I hope those who couldn't finish or simply have more to add, will take the time to do so and republish their stories. I'll be sure to read through any updates that are made.

Going to pull mine down for ~1-2 weeks or so, to fix a couple bugs and fill in some additional content. The combat system is fundamentally flawed for a few reasons, but it was a good learning experience on scripting. The next time I attempt a game-heavy project, avoiding mindless grind and having a stronger/engaging combat system are two of the main goals.

Congrats to the Winners and HMs!

Wow. Thanks for all the kind words. And thanks to the judges and Bucky for putting this together. I honestly didn't expect to win this one!

And congrats, WIBN!

congratulations everyone!

didn't think it was possible for 2 people to tie first.

 

So my top 5 was:

Ironpanther
Malk
Skytenshi
Orge11
StrykerL

After reading No Quarter, I'd probably rank it third.

So basically Wibbons would have won. Lol.

They did win.

It's just Ogre also won, lol.

Meh, I'm sort of with Steve in that a tie isn't a proper win, but it's done now and there's steps in place for tie breakers in the future.

Winning involves crushing all those around you. If you draw you've failed to do that.

Forgetting a story is pretty bad haha.

Hey, in my defence I couldn't find any sort of master list. I just sort of looked at the recently made storygames and checked the tags.

No Quarter had two storygames in between it and the other contestants that didn't have the tag, so I assumed it wasn't related to the contest.

Though I would have known better had I been following the threads more closely I suppose.

That's true. Next contest we should definitely produce a master list.

I used End's updated "SAFE" list.

The host using someone else's list.

Tsk, tsk, what a slacker.

Alright, I'm late to this. Congratulations to everyone who participated and wasn't shamed! It was a pleasure to be a part of this contest (and to get the motivation to get something written and up). Thank you judges for your kind consideration, and for the hard work that went into running this contest.

This was my first work, and I'd like to thank Thara, Sent, 3J, Steve, and mayana for their awesome and constructive feedback, and tip my hat to IronPanther in kind, in appreciation of his splendid work. To everyone who played the Devourer, if you have a moment I'd love to talk to you and find out more about where my work can be improved.

Looking forward to putting up a lot more (and better) stories on the site!

A simple suggestion for ensuring no tie in a system like this: instant runoff.

That's wiser than basing it off of ratings (in which case everything devolves into a popularity contest instead of a literary one). Another option is calling a tiebreaker judge to decide between the top two, though instant runoff is probably the better and more systematic option

So when will the next contest be?

Congratulations WIBN and Ogre! Excellent stories.