2009 48 Hour Contest Voting

The voting phase for the 2009 48 Hour Contest has begun. You will be eligible to vote from Monday, December 28 (12:00AM EST) through Friday, January 1 (11:59PM EST). Everyone that is a member of the forums is welcome to vote.

Rules for voting:

- Vote for your three most favorite games. You number one will equal three points, two = two, and third will be for one point.

- You MAY NOT vote for your own game. Those who participated in the contest are REQUIRED to vote.

- Votes MUST be submitted via PM on Castle Paradox or Slime Salad. Do not post your votes in this thread. You may also mail your votes to me at mballsub@gmail.com.

The results will be posted in the next issue of Hamsterspeak (if Surlaw is cool with postponing the issue for a day or so). In the event where there are not enough votes in time for this month's issue, voting will be extended another couple of weeks and the results will be put in the following month's issue. I hope that I can wrap it up this week though.

Here are the entries:

King of Gourmet: Feast for your Life by Hachi and Giz
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=3228

Turkey Killer! by Spoonweaver
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=980

Fall Be Kind by Blue Train and TMC
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=982

Santa Bang Bang! by Rebobinar
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?t=3231

A Very Funkotronic X-man by Spoonweaver
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=987

Wilthawiya by Gizmog1
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=988

Maze of the Red Mage by Moogle1
http://www.slimesalad.com/forum/viewgame.php?p=61523#61523

Wage Slave: Manifesto of a Have-Not by Gizmog1
http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=993

Thanks for all who participated in this contest. Happy voting!

---

Cornbread Chemist

1. Maze of the Red Mage
2. Wilthawiya
3. Wage Slave: Manifesto of a Have-Not

Just a friendly reminder.

Reply to below: All righty then. This gives me a good impression that the votes will be highly varied and opinionated. Looking forward to their appearance in Hamsterspeak.

I don't care.

Would it be okay to discuss/review the entries in this thread, so long as we don't reveal our actual votes? I feel like if there's no activity in here, the forum's just going to swallow it up and nobody's gonna remember to vote.

Sounds fine to me. There are some games that I took issue with, anyway.
Oh, but first, I played all the entries, but only completed a few. Wilthawiya and Wage Slave are un-completable as far as I'm concerned.

Now, some games were unusually tough, and that may be intentional or a result of poor playtesting.
On the positive side is a game that is genuinely challenging and makes you think about what you're doing. You're presented with a huge array of options and you absolutely must think and experiment to win. This is King of Gourmet.
On the negative side is a game that completely ruins an otherwise flawless game design with outrageous difficulty. This is Fall be Kind, and I must elaborate. You're given only one target before the boss, a turkey. The boss is a cheater. It just is. A lowly, cheating worm. First off, it gets a FREE HIT every time the battle starts. I've tried many times to avoid this attack, but it's just impossible. Second, it flies around at lightning speeds and is AGGRESSIVE. The difficulty curve here is quadratic. Finally, it can and will jump ahead about a screen so that it appears RIGHT ON TOP OF YOU for unavoidable damage.
tl;dr: It's too hard.

Somewhere between them was Maze of the Red Mage, which is otherwise a fun and dandy game except for accuracy issues. It got ridiculous when I died because of missing a Rat four times in a row. It's also really tough to grind levels for the Red Mage, since there's a "time" limit, but I bet someone's found a good strategy for that by now.

EDIT: Am I the only one that thought Funktronic X-Mas was hilarious?

MINI REVIEWS!



Wage Slave: Manifesto of a Have-Not by Gizmog1
&
Wilthawiya by Gizmog1
Combined these two because they're basically the same game. Wage Slave, A neat remark on the rat race, even though you're a pig. Wilthawaiya, a sad remark on love. Love's not boring....
Both of these can barely be called games, and I don't see why they took gizmog nearly the whole 48hr's to do.


King of Gourmet: Feast for your Life by Hachi and Giz
I found this one had a good concept and fairly fun game play.


Fall Be Kind by Blue Train and TMC
I beat it! This is one of those games that's so hard, that after you beat it you feel very proud of yourself. Good luck beating the worm though... it's pretty hard.


Maze of the Red Mage by Moogle1
I think the major problem with the rogue-like genre is it's random difficulty curve. I played this game a while and honestly couldn't find any hint of a way to always or even sometimes win. Whether you win or lose seems completely up to the gods of chance, and the gods of chance hate you. Kinda of like playing a really long version of a slot machine that doesn't give money at the end.



Santa Bang Bang! by Rebobinar
You play Santa, who's gone crazy and is now beating children with a candy cane. If you're diligent enough as santa, you will face santa's arch rival. "To think, they think they're the reason for the season."
My girlfriend made this game, with a script I wrote some time ago.
Best game ever.


A Very Funkotronic X-mas & Turkey Killer by Me
Well, I thought my games were pretty good.
Sorry about the surprise end in funkotron. Just, sorry....

Here's the thing about MOTRM: it's much less luck-driven than the source material was. (You can check it out for free via the link provided on the game page -- also, the author is a cool guy who, instead of getting angry, granted me permission to make the game after I had already made it, so here is my endorsement.) The original uses the same battle mechanics, but enemies are almost universally harder than you, they don't drop items, and it's much harder to level up.

While I'm giving out endorsements, I have to mention King of Gourmet: Feast for Your Life, which is so conceptually great that any flaws in its execution must be forgiven. I'd love to see a similar mechanic make its way into the next Surlaw Chef.

---

Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

48 Hour 2009: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

A Very Funkotronic X-Mas
The Good
Pretty graphics.
The DDR gameplay's still fun.
Brings new meaning to rocking around the Christmas tree.

The Bad
The song's too dirty.
Not much new in the dancing.
Can't easily focus on the arrows and the dancing at the same time.

The Ugly
Not as good as the original.


Fall Be Kind
The Good
Fantastic scripting
NES styled music.
Beautiful boss stage.

The Bad
Rain effect on the first stage.
NES difficulty.
Talking to the ghost EVERY TIME.

The Ugly
That turkey kicking my butt while I talked to the ghost.


Maze Of The Red Mage
The Good
Comes through on an ambitious concept.
Entertaining enemy design.
Reminds me of Tilde and the Mask of :P

The Bad
RNG hates me.
Classes feel samey/useless.
Repeatable traps.

The Ugly
I still haven't beaten it.


Santa-Bang-Bang
The Good
Wide variety of kids.
Final Boss Battle is great.
Fits the theme.

The Bad
Too many traffic cones.
Hunting down every last kid.
Disturbing!

The Ugly
Spoonweaver's girlfriend


Turkey Killer
The Good
Beautiful grass tile.
Blunderbuss effect.
Catchy music.

The Bad
No real opposition.
Too wandery.
Hard to understand what was being said on the title screen.

The Ugly
Not being able to quit from the title screen.


King of Gourmet
The Good
We finished in time.
Hachi and I are still friends.
Feel like I held up my end, for once.

The Bad
The walkabout slowdown effect was thrown in at the last second and is annoying.
Half the graphics look like they were drawn by an illegal immigrant.
Sets a bad example for kids at an already food-crazy time of the year.

The Ugly
Mime eggs.

As for Wilthawiya and Wage Slave, which are two totally different games in my opinion, I made them because I had some free time, and wanted to enter all three stages. I had intended to do a little bit more with Wilthawiya, maybe add some more purpose to the kitchen, and have it recognize various holidays with a suitable activity/greeting for each.

Unfortunately that was the night of the TF2 update, so I finished up the bathroom and called it a day after a mere 13 hours. I released it late in the weekend, but only because I started late in the weekend. I started Wilthawiya at 3 AM on the second day of competition and finished at 4 or 5 pm.

Likewise, I decided to enter and started Wage Slave at 3PM on the second day of the business theme, and finished two hours later at five. Fiddled with the readme, disabled the debug keys and posted it maybe a half hour later, suspiciously at the same time my Grand Theft Auto IV download finished.

Yeah, they're stupid. Yeah, they're short. But darned if they aren't true to the 48 Hour experience.

(Wage Slave is completable, by the way. I didn't do all the textboxes, so somewhere around $2.50 (Or 250 pennies) it'll break down, read you a few lines of a poem and then break itself. Wilthawiya, on the other hand, is an open-ended pure love simulation. Who would ever want that to end?)

Maze of the Red Mage had really fun writing, and is short enough that dying repeatedly really didn't bother me.


I really hope so.

---

Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

Already received a decent amount of votes already. Very surprised at that. Keep them coming and I should be able to release the results in the upcoming issue of Hamsterspeak!

---

Cornbread Chemist

Santa BangBang

Best concept ever
Broken, rushed, needs work like mad
Awesome soundtrack

Funckotonic X-Mas

Same as last time dears
Crappy song fits game just great
Throwaway entry

Fall Be Kind

I can't play this game
Maybe I am just real bad
First boss a doozy

Turkey Killer

Captures Thanksgiving
Not a bad time killer, bros
But not up to snuff

Red Mage

It's a roguelike folks
Not a bad one, but needs work
Too much evasion

Withawiya

Best laugh in a while
Thank You Giz, you delivered
Awesome title screen

Wage Slave

This concept is great
Giz, phone games in forever
I love you, buddy

King of Gourmet

Best in show, I guess
Broken as all mess, but well
I still enjoyed it

---

My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com

I decided to use the Game Informer magazine scorer for each of the games. Here's my what I came out with:

Wilthawiya
Concept: 3
Graphics: 4
Sound: 1
Playability: 7
Entertainment: 1
Replay Value: Low
Total: 3


Wage Slave
Concept: 3
Graphics: 5
Sound: 1
Playability: 7
Entertainment: 1
Replay Value: Low
Total: 3


Feast For Your Life
Concept: 6
Graphics: 5
Sound: 8
Playability: 7
Entertainment: 3
Replay Value: Moderately Low
Total: 6


RedMage
Concept: 8.5
Graphics: 7
Sound: 7
Playability: 7
Entertainment: 9.5
Replay Value: High
Total: 8


A very Funkotronic X-Mas
Concept: 8
Graphics: 6
Sound: 10
Playability: 8
Entertainment: 10
Replay Value: Moderately High
Total: 8


Fall be Kind
Concept: 8
Graphics: 8
Sound: 5
Playability: 4
Entertainment: 7
Replay Value: Moderate
Total: 6


Turkey Killer
Concept: 6
Graphics: 9
Sound: 4
Playability: 7
Entertainment: 6
Replay Value: Moderately Low
Total: 6


SantaBangBang
Concept: 6
Graphics: 7
Sound: 6
Playability: 8
Entertainment: 8
Replay Value: Moderately Low
Total: 7


Now, this is on a scale of 1-10. 1 being worst game EVER. 10 being most absolutely best game ever. I personally have not yet encountered a ten. But some of these were close.

I found the Funkotronic game to be f*cking hilarious, too. Although I wasn't very happy with the:

NOTES UP TOP

and

DANCING DOWN BOTTOM


I got good near the beginning, but it got so busy near the end it was really hard to look at the notes. Plus, they were going so fast and the framerate just wasn't fully there. (Although that might've been my pc...)

You're a horrible person.