Is this genuine or making fun of me, im bad with tone so I cant tell
Wow, super excited to see our project get first place! 
When my partner and I finished it, we were both super proud of the final product (it helps that, it being a collaborative effort, we each got to ooh and aah at each otherās respective halves of the chapter), but the positive reception to it has been well beyond what Iād expected at the time. Iām really glad everyone liked it so much ^.^
I wanna shout-out @Rexacuse for nailing the exact vibe we were aiming for. Itās really remarkable to be able to sit there, pitching ideas back and forth for what we want a chapter to be, and then get shown a final product that is exactly what I was imagining during that brainstorming session, if not even better. I might be the one who posted the thread, but she did the bulk of the work really, so I wanna give credit where its due, hehe.
Itās also been really fun to see all the ways other creators experimented with their own chapters, with some really creative stuff being showcased. I agree with a lot of Darrmanās final thoughts on things like timing and the like limiting the scope of the event - Pillars was actually put together in about two weeks, because we were both just busy doing other things when the event got announced, and our final day before the deadline ended up being a bit of a scramble (any typos you might have seen are almost certainly my bad for pulling an all nighter trying to get the last few bits of the script done on time lol). Really hope that the next time a contest like this is put on, the timing works out better for people, because itās a genuinely lovely little shotgun blast of creative spark that, I think, really shows off just how talented this community can be. More people just means more blast? or something?
It also instills the fear of deadlines into the romhack community, a fear that all creatives should suffer under as I have. : )
Feedback
Feel free to correct me if Iām wrong, but it seems to me from the uniformity of a lot of the scores like there was a relatively strict rubric guiding a lot of the scoring decisions? If so, Iām not sure thatās necessarily a good idea. While I understand the goal is to create a degree of impartiality to the judging process, I think that, considering there are no prizes for winning, itād be more interesting from a final scoring standpoint to see more disparity between the judges. As is, the only category that ever sees much difference is gameplay, due in part to the 5 point scales vs the 10 point scales.
I think getting to see which chapters are more polarizing among the judges by allowing for greater wiggle room in how they judge each project, if only because it felt like a lot of the reviews from each of the 4 judges would loop through more or less the same points to justify more or less the same scores. If Iām wrong about the rubric, then maybe the solution would be to look for judges with more noticeably varied tastes from one another - get a gameplay goblin in there with the gameplay/story integration fan and watch how differently they assess the same project, stuff like that.
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i mean for what is design-wise, which is very much like the vibes of a prologue for a bigger hack, it got pretty high. thatās smthn to be proud of, think its a great step upwards from the marth entry as well.
it really just is that single chapter contests are innately going to almost always be skewed towards strongly settled setpieces/premises than a relatively solid, but kinda usual earlygame map. cause the format naturally gravitates towards those setpiece moments ending up higher.
hopefully dont sound like im trying to like invalidate how you feel about it! moreso just wanna put into perspective that i donāt think itās placement is something to let discourage you compared to the progression youāve made.
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Big congrats to Pen and Pillars for their wins, theyāre much deserved. Iām really happy with where I ended up- 3rd place for a total gimmick chapter is better than I ever thought Iād reach (I suppose I should be thankful that all the judges seem to be AA fans?).
It was a pretty massive scramble to try and get the chapter done on time- Iām still astonished that I managed to finish a script of its size and get it all inserted along with the actual chapter implementation, all within the deadline. Of course this is my fault for doing the type of chapter I did, but hindsight is 20/20. I can definitely empathize with everyone for whom the timing was just too much.
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Congrats to the winners! This was a fun one. I agree with my scores for the most part - the big criticisms, such as enemy formations and AI being bad, are ones I pretty much agree with, or was too rushed to finish/fix like bugs or errors.
Iām pretty happy with the reception towards the accuracy mechanic - getting feedback on it was a big motivator for actually getting it done and in, and now it feels like I can do something better with it.
All in all, good stuff, it was fun to do and fun to get feedback!
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I suppose I should be thankful that all the judges seem to be AA fans?
even worse! iām a danganronpa fan 
(if my complaints about the mystery being to āsimpleā seemed off-base, this is kind of what i was comparing to. danganronpa cases are nuts)
i mean, itās basically ace attourney but longer and worse, right?
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While there is a rubric, my intent was for it to be broadly interpreted. I can see where your point is coming from: one of the judges asked if it was okay to score an entry 3/5 in story because I had 2 defined as āunremarkableā and 3 as āworth paying attention toā when the text was largely straight to the point without beating around the bush. I said āif you think itās a 3, itās a 3ā, but maybe a revision to the rubric wouldnāt hurt. It was pretty much the same as CELICAās. I do want a degree of objectivity, but if you particularly like something, you should score it higher. You like it!
Regarding granularity, thatās always been a bit of a problem. Gameplayās worth the most because I believe itās the most important factor, but it having more points on the scale allows wiggle room story and presentation simply donāt have.
Iām not overly happy about handing out 8 2/5s in story. It somewhat skews the scaling. A few came close to 3, but one or two things usually annoyed me enough to dock the mark. Theyād absolutely be 2.5 if I allowed for half-marks to have granularity equal to gameplay, but then it would be a bit odd if gameplay didnāt also get half-marks, resulting in the same initial problem. Something to think over, certainly.
I absolutely agree about having judges with different opinions. If I was the sole judge, I think half the entries would be Jugdral fanfics by now, and I want the winners to win because theyāre the best, not because they appeal to me specifically. Hence why Iāve always had multiple judges and got them to review a chapter of mine as a test this year. (Turns out there was a gamebreaking bug I didnāt know about, but that serves as a useful test in its own way.) Explicitly having judges valuing one of each category the most is worth considering, though. Actually choosing judges has always been tough for me: Iāve always ultimately ended up relying on my gut (or begging friends for help in MARTH). There has to be a better way.
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Congrats to the winning entries!!
Honestly all things considered (first SRPG, start of something bigger, etc), the critiques I got were pretty expected. Iām sure it was obvious I was sending the art off to carry my score a little bit lmao. So I wasnāt expecting a high gameplay/story rank, but Iām glad the judges overall seem interested in this gameās setting & future :]
also it was nice to see BandanaSplitzzz point out the music chosen for scenes. Thatās something I like trying to pay extra attention to in my games.
As for the battle animations yeah that was an unfortunate exclusion. I was debating heavy as I was putting the game together, but by the last week I decided Iād have to go without them for this version.
Anyway thanks for the event yall, it was nice! And it came at just the right time for me. I was learning a good bit about SRPG studio and thinking āWell. Guess its about time to start making this game for real. Seriously. One day. Iām scared of making custom map graphics.ā So this was the type of motivation I needed to just get in there & make something. And maybe one day Iāll come back to another of these contestsā¦ with something meant to be 1 chapter 
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I joined this community two months too late. 
Still, canāt wait to play through all the submissions, and canāt wait for another contest like this!!
P.S. If an event like this happens again, you should call it Level Engineering Is Fun: LEIF. Just an idea 
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iāM LATE FRIG
Congrats to the winners~!
I kinda figured I wasnāt gonna win anything but Iām happy I was able to release something! All your games look cool!!! Good job!!
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