This is an idea I just had and which I don't have the time to work with. If someone reads this and wants to give it a shot, be my guest. Don't take this document as gospel, as it has only half an hour of thought behind it. But I hope this can be a solid red thread to guide one through the process of setting up and hosting such an event.
Common problems with community episodes
- Burnout over time and shrinking team size. A few regulars stick around if any
- Reviewing and balancing
- Lack of design direction leading to a puzzle with mismatching pieces for organizers to figure out
- The levels are way too hard (was the case in SLAM)
The idea
If you were around for New Year's Vanilla Contest 2025, I tried a few things in that contest that address several of the issues with community episodes.
The idea for organizing this event would be as follows:
By having reviews that give constructive comments on how to achieve the A rank and by implementing a system to resubmit a level (via a subforum or the contest thread or pm), balancing becomes easier and the review process is streamlined. Allowing people to have a say in the judging but not power over the organizers also hopefully stirs thoughtful discussion about the levels.
By having well-worded themes for each contest and loosely controlling the difficulty, the design direction issue becomes easier to deal with.
By making high difficulty a negative aspect in the judging, the game will be much more playable by the average player.
I think because of these factors, this idea could be a good way to try and host a contest episode.
Like I said at the start, I am not in a position to host one myself. But if someone is inspired to do it, I am interested in watching it unfold and helping in case they encounter any issues along the way.
Additional thoughts:
Common problems with community episodes
- Burnout over time and shrinking team size. A few regulars stick around if any
- Reviewing and balancing
- Lack of design direction leading to a puzzle with mismatching pieces for organizers to figure out
- The levels are way too hard (was the case in SLAM)
The idea
If you were around for New Year's Vanilla Contest 2025, I tried a few things in that contest that address several of the issues with community episodes.
The idea for organizing this event would be as follows:
- Every other month, a small contest with a 2 week submission period is held and is judged with the tier system. Each of these contests would aim to fill one world in the episode. Having a recurring event like this combats the burnout over time.
- Judging is done by the organizers of the event. Ideally there are 3 or 4, so when someone gets busy, someone else can take the helm. There should always be at least 2 judges on each of the contests, to balance out biases.
- Reviews should give clear steps for designers what they would need to improve their level in the ranking. There is a way to "resubmit" levels after the contest ends and get an updated ranking. This wouldn't award a new medal, but it might be fun to hand out a medal at the end saying how many levels the user submitted to the episode.
- The judging would be harsh on difficulty as levels must be judged in the context of being played as part of a longer play session, rather than as a standalone experience.
- The theme of the vanilla contest was related to winter and new years related NPCs. This makes the design a bit too homogenous. I would advise against NPCs as the theme. Some alternative ideas:
- Just the theme of the world that that contest is focusing on. Be broad in your wording, like "Create a lush, damp or foresty level". "Create a cold, slippery or snowy level". "Create a mechanical, futuristic or alien level", so that the general mood is guided without restricting the theme too much.
- Select a set of 10 video game music tracks and ask designers to select one of them for their level. The tracks need to be varied enough to give designers enough freedom in the mood of the level. The tracks would fit the general ambience of the world, like having industrial beat, dnb, IDM or glitchy tracks for a futuristic world.
- In addition to guiding the world contents, the theme needs to specify the difficulty. I like using phrases like "create an early-game level" or "create a moderate difficulty level". When wording this, be careful, because the levels you'll receive will always be at least 50% harder than what you expect. But that's what the resubmit is for.
- Levels that reach A rank and above are automatically included in the episode. If a level is great but doesn't meet criteria for inclusion due to some design issue or unreasonable difficulty, it should be given B rank with instructions on how A rank can be achieved.
- It might be worthwhile to allow other players to make a case to overturn the opinion of the judges by entering a dialogue with them. Say if User A made a level and User B really likes it, User B may speak up and vouch for User A's levels highlighting flaws in the reasoning for a lower rank handed out by the judges. The judges will have to defend their standpoint or may have their opinion changed and bump the rank.
By having reviews that give constructive comments on how to achieve the A rank and by implementing a system to resubmit a level (via a subforum or the contest thread or pm), balancing becomes easier and the review process is streamlined. Allowing people to have a say in the judging but not power over the organizers also hopefully stirs thoughtful discussion about the levels.
By having well-worded themes for each contest and loosely controlling the difficulty, the design direction issue becomes easier to deal with.
By making high difficulty a negative aspect in the judging, the game will be much more playable by the average player.
I think because of these factors, this idea could be a good way to try and host a contest episode.
Like I said at the start, I am not in a position to host one myself. But if someone is inspired to do it, I am interested in watching it unfold and helping in case they encounter any issues along the way.
Additional thoughts:
- An S rank should be hard to achieve and be reserved for levels that the reviewer finds truly special.
- Time limits should be part of the contest ruleset, like with vanilla, but should be removed for levels that dont explicitly benefit from them when the episode is compiled. Just so that players can take their time.
- The vanilla contest had 19 entries. If 15-20 people submit to these on average, that is enough to fill 2 or 3 normal sized worlds every time (after the tier A and S filter). To get to a respectable size, repeating this twice or thrice should suffice. A trial run with 2 contests and an expected level count of 30-ish would be a good proving grounds for this idea.
- I think it is not necessary for there to be bosses or castles. If you wanted to have bosses and castles, the organizers should handle them I think, as otherwise you end up with too many castles. This is a scope increase for the organizers, though. There are also other ways in which castles could be done, like by handing them out to volunteers. BUT. I would be careful not to bite off more than you can chew for a first go-around with the idea. If the general concepts of this whole structure have proven themselves, then having an additional round for castle design seems like a good addition for a 2nd community episode, rather than the first trial.
- The simplest way to compile the levels would likely be a segmented hub episode: A world map connecting several hubs together that in turn lead to the levels. Or just a straight up hub episode without map at all. With that in mind, you want to restrict exits to stars like in the olden days and put a cap on 2 stars per level to keep the economy in balance. A world map episode would also be feasible, but it makes routing very tricky because levels weren't designed with the routes through the game in mind.
- When balancing the hub episode, aim for a requirement of 33% to 45% of thus-far-obtainable stars for each major unlock to ensure players have enough choice in levels and can progress at a fast pace.
- The judging should always put fun and pacing first. If a level is unconventional, that's great, too. Especially in longer play sessions it is important to have variety. Similarly, it's cool to have some easier levels in later worlds, so I think it is not valid to ever reject a level for being "too easy". You can just put it in a little out of the way spot in the hub to make it a reward for hub exploration if you think it's a "free star".
- Ultimately, the success of this hinges on the availability and consistent dedication of the organizers. Since this idea is undercooked as hell I haven't thought of what would happen as a "plan b" if the organizers all fall ill, but something like that might be worth figuring out. Importantly, the organizers should talk amongst themselves about their schedules and the event's calendar, so that everyone is on the same page and trouble can be caught early. The biggest enemy of such an event is a lack of initiative from people at the top.
Statistics: Posted by Emral — Mon Jan 06, 2025 10:18 am