53 replies to this topic

[sunandshadow]

Update: votes are in, please look a few posts below the entries.


OK here are the four entries I received. I made the decision to rearrange the formatting a little to make them more similar to each other, I hope it does not irritate anyone to have their entry rearranged.

Voting:

1. If you entered you are required to vote. Others may also vote, but votes will not be accepted from accounts created in the last week.
2. If you entered, you are required to rank your own entry as number one.
3. Rank the entries as follows:

1 (best) your own or your favorite if you did not enter
2 (second best)
3. (etc)
4. least good

4. I would like all votes PMed to me by Sunday night if possible, or PM me if you want to vote but can't until Monday or Tuesday.

[sunandshadow]

Entry A - Tessa


Realistic Name: Tessa Delacroix

Fantasy Name: VaSaSor

Other Name: Wednesday’s Child



Description:

Her thick black hair is matted and wild. Eyes that once sparkled have now taken on a sunken and haunted look. The deep circles signs of a many sleepless nights. To the casual observer she looks like someone who spends most of their time partying hard.But those days are long gone. While Tessa tries to eat regularly everything that has happened to her the last 6 months has left her with a gaunt waif like appearance. The once well-fitting designer black dress now hangs a bit loosely and despite the quality it is starting to look a little worn. She ideally toys with a silver cross hanging from a black choker, the only piece of jewellery she wears apart from silver chain around her right wrist.



Background:

Until 6 months ago she was an up and coming ad executive and socialite from a well off old money family. Not big money these days but still enough to afford the privacy and benefits that befits someone with a name old enough to care. Her family expected great things from her and had many plans for her future. They fully expected her to grow out of reckless early twenties lifestyle. And as long as she kept her indiscretions private, short, and out of the public eye then things would fine.

All that was until shortly after she turned 25, then the dreams began. At first it began with just waking up in cold sweat and panic. But gradually more details began to seep through she still couldn’t remember much. Just fire, pain, and a claw like hand reaching out for her. Occasionally she’d wake up with the odd bruise or what looked like a burn. And since the incident when Jacob a long-time friend with benefits woke her in the middle of the night because she had been thrashing and screaming in her sleep from the nightmare she always sleeps alone.

The nightmares where bad enough but when she started to peel back the layers and seek help from those her around her things quickly began to unravel. Tessa began to see the world around her in a very different way. There were things all around that no one else seemed to notice. Call them demons, horrors, spirits, monsters whatever but they walk amongst us and there effect can felt even if they pass unseen. She quickly learned that as long as she pretended she couldn’t see the things around her then they wouldn’t see her either. But if they did catch sight of her then it was time to run and hide.

Of course she like those around her thought she was going insane and cryptic remarks from her grandmother about these things coming from bad breeding, soon lead her to uncover a dark family secret. Her parents were not who she thought they were. Her Eldest brother was really her father and her mother was from a long line of crazy woman who has died recently in an asylum where she had spent most of the last 20 years locked away and heavily sedated to stop her constant tortured screams and ramblings about fire and the beast.

Secretly guided by The Lady Tessa has slowly begun to accept her fate and due what she can to protect those around her. Recently she managed to save a group of children at an old amusement park by binding and caging a malevolent trickster who was injuring children to feast on their tears of innocence. Since then creature which was calls itself Id has started to help her by providing advice, when it’s not taunting her. But everything comes with a price and while Id may sometimes act like an ally he also lies.Not all the time, but just enough.

Things of Interest

• Tessa is hunting for a being she can only describe as the darkness. It takes everything from a person and leaves them empty shell to carry on as a hallow person. Any aid the player can provide in finding and defeating the darkness would go a long way to ease Tessa’s burden.
• The Lady has told Tessa the Sidhe Tarot a deck of 22 cards holds the keys to unlocking her families cursed destiny. She has found a few of them but if they player can find any for she’d gladly trade anything she has.

Dialog:

“There are more of them every day, they walk and talk and move past people unnoticed from the rest of the crowd. But I can see them. They’re hollow. Empty on the inside, I don’t know how better to describe it than that. It’s like a monster movie when there is the odd zombie walking through a crowd of people. Except in this story they don’t eat people they’re just there and no one seems to notice. There was only a few at first but now I can’t walk down a street without seeing dozens of them. I wonder how long it’ll be before the city is nothing but hallow people. Will anyone else realise it before that happens? Will they care?”

“Haha, you want to save me? That’s sweet. A year ago I would have thought that was a bad pickup line and got you to buy a drink to see where the night would take us. Not that I’m going to complain if you want to buy me a drink now. But maybe I can’t be saved, maybe I deserve this…”

“Thank you, I can’t believe you found the Wheel of Fortune card. Only 17 left to go now. This means a lot to me, not that I don’t know why you did it. It’s been a while but you deserve your reward. You can’t stay the night but we can at least together for a while. Let’s just enjoy the moment because sometimes these fleeting moments are all we get.”

“I spoke to Id about that problem you were having. He was as cryptic as ever. But he did have some advice. He said that sometimes a door isn’t a door at all, that to go forwards you’ve got to go backwards while looking over your shoulder. And that when you least expect it 4 right turns will lead you to your destination.I tried my best, but I’m not sure if any of that will help you. Be careful though if you’re determined to carry out this plan of yours. The people you’re after are dangerous. And I’d hate it if anything were to happen to you.”

[sunandshadow]

Entry B - Molly


Name

Molly Baconsdaughter

Alternative Name

“A name composed of 1-3 real words ...”

Queen of Pipes

“A fantasy name that has no obvious meaning but ...”

Exhaustica

Backstory

Molly Baconsdaughter is a master hydraulic engineer. She’s developed a magical chair that one can sit upon whilst expelling waste. It will then take it away; out of sight, out of mind. It uses the flow of water to transport the undesirable matter from the castle to that outside area where the peasants live, never to bother anyone who matters again.

The thirty-two year old genius in question is from Bentley, a city-state known for its glorious waterworks, fountains and so-called “bath” houses. Young Baconsdaughter was pressed by her widower father to go to the academy and become a lawyer - the family business - but a watery mix of state-pride and a slight preference for dealing with machines instead of people lead her to hydraulic engineering.

About mid-way through her apprenticeship with an elder engineer, she got pregnant and was blessed with a healthy son who, among other things, needed to be changed a lot and as time passed, post-birth mental fog cleared and inspiration struck.

“What if”, she asked herself, out loud and while pacing back in forth in her room alone waving her arms, “we had pipes going this way and that and feces could be directly transported from homes to the end of the river such that it flows downstream, away from us and upon our enemies?!” (She was of course referring to the down-river city-state of “Tosserton”, as it was known to her people.)

With a cash grant from a local patron and help from the baby-papa keeping the little one occupied (and writing the grant), she drafted a novel system using levers and valves that’d store water to move the waste then refill itself. The system was built and it worked. It was a joyous win.

Tosserton either didn’t notice or didn’t mind, but as Molly often said, “not every day can be a winner”. Today her and her team implements these systems for wealthy customers all around the land.

Appearance, Notes

Four times out of five, Molly is seen with a pipe in her mouth, puffing smoke, biting it and sometimes just fidgeting with the damn thing. She always carries her notebook and pen. Frequently in conversations she seems to drift off to another world, then begins scribbling notes. She wears a violet shawl over a white blouse, black shoes and gold hoop earrings. She has an olive complexion.

She is rumored to sleep only four hours a day and holds a record in her home town for light oil and draft paper consumption. She has dark circles under her eyes. Her hair, which is black and curly, is cut somewhat short because she is (as she puts it) “lazy”.

She is rumored to have once fallen asleep standing while negotiating with the infamous Queen Deathspike. After reviewing her proposal, the Queen decided to perform the ceremony of fiscal wisdom which involved four hundred and thirty seven verses in the Ancient Tongue of the Damned. Near the end, a horrible ripping sound began which, for a moment, convinced the Queen that she had accidentally summoned Saturn, the harvest-god known for eating his son.

While the Queen distracted herself demanding answers from a wall-mirror, Molly’s accountant gave her a discrete nudge on the arm, waking her and the mysterious roar ended at that moment. The Queen was so embarrassed by the false alarm that she gave them the contract in exchange for their silence. (The story was later leaked by the wall mirror.)

Things Needed & Dialog Quotes

“Some vandals keep plugging the drain pipe with a nest and eggs. We moved them to a store house, but last night someone knocked it down, ate the guard, stole the eggs and re-clogged the pipe! Supposedly it’s a “dragon” but I’m smarter than that. Houses knocked down by dragons don’t fall that way. It was the Tosserton government. So I put a bounty on Tosserton. If you’re interested.”

“I want to get to the goddamn bottom of who is constraining the tobacco supply in this town. Someone is out to get me, I don’t believe any of these lies about pests eating the leaves, if animals ate leaves they’d be cows, cows can’t get into the store house look at the goddamn size of that door and if you get me a goddamn smoke I will fucking pay big.”

“Listen. I have a quest for you, and not some goddamn sweep-the-floors quest, this is serious and nobody’ll do it for me. I need you to go to Tosserton and get some Hemiflax Verconim. It’s an herbal blood pressure remedy I need but I’m not allowed in Tosserton anymore. I’ll pay premium if you can go fetch some for me but for the love of Saturn don’t say my name in front of them.”

“So my family and my workers forced me to take a day off.” (Takes drag of pipe.) “And I realize now that my family... Swapped my tobacco for something else. And I think feel OK about that. A little hungry, but OK.”

[sunandshadow]

Entry C - Skyle


Names: Skyle Katherine, Scaffany, Serenity

Appearance: Long braided light orange hair, narrow shoulders, non-athletic build, blue flat cap, white tailed dress shirt over a light blue nautical sweater, fitting jeans with wing symbol near ankle, canvas sneakers. Her appearance in mind space varies.

Personality: Empathetic, considerate, silly at times.

Backstory: Skyle is a witch who searches through people's minds trying to find someone like her. In doing so, she encounters minds that are stuck by thought patterns called shadows. Resolving them frees the people troubled by them. The player found Skyle by following clues that she left behind, and helps her solve these patterns when she was stuck.

Wants: Skyle wants the player to find her and solve shadows.


"Peace is not kept by those who can destroy evil, but by those who are still content when there is nothing evil to destroy."

This was what Skyle said one day while we were lying on a crop circle, on a wheat field, as usual. The ripen crop blocked the view of the surrounding land, leaving only the sky, and the time for some random thoughts.

"Who said that?" I asked.
"A shadow." She said.

A 'shadow' is a troubled inner self. Skyle called them shadows because that is what they looked like when she saw them in people's minds. I've never been to someone else's mind. According to Skyle, it was mostly a benign place, but it could get very scary, very quickly, when the mind discovered an intruder. Sometimes when she came back she would become withdrawn and wouldn't talk. In times like that, I could only wait silently, so that when she would be ready, there would be someone to talk to.

"It is hard to imagine someone who said that is a shadow."
"He was a shadow because he couldn't decide whether he should keep those thoughts to himself. Do you think that often times something is better not said, even if you know that people could be helped by knowing it?" She said.

"I don't know whether it should be said, but in my experience, if you say something valuable when no one was asking for it, chances are people would just ignore it. Sometimes you need to have a certain experience to understand the meaning of what is said."
"But wouldn't that fill you with regret, if you find out later that if you had said something, it might have prevented the consequence?"

I didn't know what to say, but I was starting to get what the shadow was this time. The shadow was someone who had gone through an ordeal to learn a lesson that could have prevented it. He saw that someone else was about get entangled by the same ordeal, but wouldn't listen to his advise. He was trapped because he couldn't tell if he was wrong for trying to say something, or wrong for not saying anything.

I thought:

a) He should just say it. Then at least he won't regret for not saying it.
b) He should learn how to say it in a way that people would listen
c) He should believe that people could learn on their own
d) He should believe that for some lessons, people could only learn from their own experience.
e) He should believe that what was an ordeal for him wasn't an ordeal for someone else
f) He should do something so that the others wouldn't get near that situation in the first place
g) ...

I said: "Do you agree with what he said?"

"I think so, why?" She said.
"Maybe he just want to know that someone understands."
"Is that it?"
"Worth a try."
"Alright!"

* * *

Skyle found herself in a crowded place like a carnival. There was a big tent. In the tent there was an announcer with a top hat, the announcer said:

"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to the fantasy character contest! The contestants will come to the stage shortly after these messages from our sponsors...!"

** Skyle sneaked into the backstage. **

The contestants were lining up in costumes. There was a paladin, a rouge, a ranger, an assassin, a dragon, a healer, a wizard, and a boy who hadn't made up his mind. The shadow around the boy showed Skyle that he was a shadow. Duh.

A teacher walked to the boy and asked, "Have you decided what you want to be?"
The boy said, "Um... I have some ideas..."
"You better hurry up, it is almost time..."
"Yes, Miss..."

When the teacher walked away, the boy took out a piece of paper from his pocket. He looked at it, then he folded it back up, put it in his pocket, and walked out of the tent. Outside the tent, he looked at his watch, as if waiting for the contest to begin.

"It seemed like he didn't want to enter the contest..." thought Skyle.
"Who's there?" the boy suddenly noticed that there was someone hiding and looked into Skyle's direction.

Skyle:
a) Is a cat
b) Is a fairy
c) Is the announcer
d) Is the teacher
e) ...

"Oh my! What big tent this is!" Skyle said, and walked out slowly.
"Little Red Riding Hood?" said the boy.
"Everyone knows the Little Red Riding Hood! Oh my..." Skyle saw that she got totally decked out in that costume with a picnic basket.

"The contest is about to start, aren't you going in?"
"Nope."
"Why not? I think you will win."
"I'm not going in unless you go in."
"That's okay, my character isn't as good."
"No way! Yours is the best!"
"Why?"
"Because yours is the only one that is truly peaceful!"
"How would you know?"
"Because every other character has something to do with fighting, but yours is different!"
"But being different isn't good. It just means no one wants it."
"I want it!"
"But you don't even know what it is!"
"Then show me!"
"Alright..."

With that said, the boy started to put on his costume, saying:

"I am a witch that can go into people's mind to help them when they are sad. Everyone is afraid of me, for fear that their secret would be known. But I don't give up, because I know that somewhere, someone will understand..."

When the boy turned around, he was wearing a blue flat cap, a white shirt loosely tuck into blue jeans that ran down to a pair of canvas sneakers.

"Oh my..." Little Red Riding Hood dropped her basket.

"It is pretty boring isn't it. There is no monster to fight, no conspiracy to uncover... just the actual problems that make people sad that they don't admit or try to solve..." the boy continued, "In any case, I can't enter because I only know her first name.

The boy reached into his pocket and showed her the piece of paper. It was a form, but nothing was filled except a first name.

* * * * * *

Dialogues: (see above)
1. A shadow's words
2. Skyle would try
3. Skyle as Little Red Riding Hood
4. Little Red explains

[sunandshadow]

Entry D - Cara

Name:

1. Cara Manipola
2. Keriwine
3. Meadow Clay-Weaver

Appearance:
Cara (or Keri or Meadow) is moderately short for her race (5' 3" in human proportions). She has brown hair (or crest), tanned skin, and green eyes. She is a young adult (20 in human years). She often smiles, crinkling the corners of her eyes, but when concentrating on a project or her thoughts she looks solemn. Her top is cream-colored and her bottoms are faded blue; this could be a blouse and jeans or a blouse and a jean-colored skirt. When she wears jewelry it is generally in the copper/amber color range, whether made out of metal, wood, or gems. Buterflies, sheafs of wheat, or suns would be good decorative motifs for her clothing and jewelry; particularly she should have a barette or other hair decoration in one of these shapes. Colors of gems or additional decorative elements can also be drawn from the rest of her color palette – pale green such as heat-treated amber or peridot, blue such as saphire or lapis lazuli, white such as moonstone. For shoes she would wear moccassins, loafers, or ankle boots (as appropriate to the setting) in the same copper/amber color.

Backstory and Personality:
Cara is unfamiliar with the culture of the place she has recently found herself living in. She is wary of finding herself regarded as scandalous or heretical because people have already reacted this way to her a few times when she has spoken her mind without knowing that the locals would disagree vehemently with an idea that was common where she was raised. A high-ranking local man (older, married, perhaps the mayor or other pillar of the community) has taken her in and is attempting to "civilize" her and marry her off to a local man. Cara appreciates being provided with food and shelter while she tries to orient herself to this new place, but does not appreciate being treated as a child in terms of being told how to behave, what to think, and who to marry, with vague threats of disciplinary punishments if she doesn't cooperate. When the player encounters her she is trying to decide whether to go along with the idea of marrying a local man or whether she won't be able to be herself unless she abandons the safety of her current position to either be a scandalous outcast or leave completely.


Tasks For Player:
Task 1. Cara asks the player to subtly find out about the men in town that she might marry. There are two candidates Cara's 'adoptive father' approves of, and two he doesn't. The player must discover who the disapproved-of two are by speaking to the NPC at the local inn or bar. Then the player must talk to all four and present a report to Cara. The player gets to choose whether to recommend one of the men or recommend Cara leave town. Task 2. Depending on the player's choice in task 1, Cara either asks the player for help preparing to leave town or asks the player to arrange things such that the 'adoptive father' is forced to allow one of the disapproved-of candidates to attend a ball where Cara can meet him (and the player will also be present at the ball). Cara is a craftswoman or mage specializing in transmutation and item-crafting, so appropriate rewards from her would be an act of transmutation, a crafting recipe, and/or an IOU to craft the player something epic later after she has either gotten married or left town and established herself somewhere else.


Dialogue:
Cara's Dialogue 1. "Oh, you're not from around here? Me either. I'm still trying to figure out what's scandalous to do and say around here, since it's completely different from where I grew up. You may want to be cautious yourself – I heard it hasn't been that long since someone was lynched for heresy around here." Cara's Dialogue 2. "Sir Millcraft has been very kind to take me in, but he isn't concerned with what would make me happy so much as with making sure I fit into his orderly town like his mental image of a proper young lady. I know how dangerous it is out there, but I can only stay here if I can find a way to be myself."

Cara's Dialogue 3. "Before I came here I trained as a craftswoman [or transmutationist]. Although I don't have any equipment here, there are still many things I could craft or teach another to craft."

Cara's Dialogue 4. "You think Jareth wouldn't be scandalized or disapproving of me even if I was completely myself around him? But, Sir Millcraft doesn't like him, and watches me like a hawk. How can I meet Jareth to see if he's truly someone I would want to marry?"

[sunandshadow]

Looks like no fifth entry, this is now open for voting and discussions. Please do comment on and constructively criticize the entries.

[TechnoGoth]

Should we hold off on critics and reviews until after voting has closed?

[Bigdeadbug]

Sent my votes in, I'll lay of the critiques like TechnoGoth said till after the votes are all in. Unless someone states otherwise.

[sunandshadow]

I don't care if people critique now or wait, as long as you don't forget what you were going to say.

[JoeCooper]

I will say I like C. It has what I like to call "hints of talent". The passage depicting a contest with a boy who hadn't decided is parsimonious, dense, possesses emotional content (if it has resonance with you). It "paints a picture" effectively. At first glance it seems drowned in bureaucratics and formalities but this individual (it's clear who but I won't say, as per the rules) could write anything.

[sunandshadow]

I have the votes from all the entrants now. Others can continue to submit votes through sunday night.

[Bigdeadbug]

A – I thoroughly enjoyed the basic elements of the story.The way it was described really caught my imagination. The only major issue I have is the introduction of the support characters, The Lady and Id. I get the sense they play an important role in this characters development (and from the name I assume Id is somehow part of Tessa) but the background provides very little information on either. I understand this may be down to the word limit but expanding on these two characters and their relation to Tessa would have really improved the piece for me.

B – The setting wasn’t one of my favourites but the development of the character more than makes up for that. The dialog seems to really match the character described. I do feel the dialog still has room for improvement for. More information could be supplied as to the characters mannerisms when they talk, similar to what was done in the fourth example, and there are times it does lack the flow of someone talking, instead feeling very “written”. I suspect I notice this more because of the contrast between those pieces and the more fluid ones.

C – This was an odd one. I enjoyed the character and the themes of the dialog, but have to admit I got a bit lost when reading the last half of the dialog. The character also leans more towards that of a protagonist than a NPC.I think maybe more focus her interaction with the player would have solved both those issues.

D – The development of the character is really extensive and gave me a very vivid image of the Cara in my head. Considering this I didn’t feel very sympathetic of the character considering its current situation. I think this may be down to the dialogue more than anything; it lacked personality and made the character feel more wooden than she needed to be. The inclusion of the characters body language/mannerisms or even an accent (since she’s from another place entirely) would improve the dialog a lot.



I have tried to keep the reviews as short and simple as possible so they may come across as somewhat blunt. That isn’t my intention so sorry if it comes across that way. If you have any issues with what I said feel free to ask me in the thread or PM me. Good luck to those that entered .

[sunandshadow]

OK here are the voting results:
First place with 17 points is Wai's Entry C - Skyle! Congrats Wai!
Second Place with 16 points JoeCooper's Entry B - Molly, a very close second!
Third place with 14 points is TechnoGoth's Entry A - Tessa
Fourth place with 13 points is my entry D - Cara


Ok, critiques and discussion now please! Also if you all want to do another contest feel free to make suggestions for the next one's topic and I'd like opinions on whether one week is long enough for entries or two would be better.

I personally had quite a difficult time voting because I could see all the entries as functional responses to the prompt who could be implemented as game characters without much difficulty. I don't have time to do a detailed critique now but I'll try to get to it later because I don have things to say. Oh, maybe I should comment that I don't feel too bad about coming in last because the minimum possible number of points would have been 9, none of the entries were given a true 'vote of no confidence'. Max number of points would have been 21 so no one got an overwhelming vote of awesomeness either, lol.

[JoeCooper]

Congrats Wai! Apparently I'm not the only one who thought it was a winner.

"I'd like opinions on whether one week is long enough for entries"

I think we're getting all the inputs we might from the connections here, but maybe if it was on the front page of the sight and there was more time? If a "wider net" is cast, it might be a winner to offer more time.

[TechnoGoth]

21-9 that must be the oddest scoring system I’ve heard ofbut congrats to everyone.

I’m definitely up for doing another round but considering the low number of entries maybe we should allow people to submit 2 entries thatway they can try out two different styles. For the next type of contest Ijotted down a few ideas:

• Write an introduction inspired by this photo http://favim.com/ori...m.com-21537.jpg
• Write a bookended scene. For a given opening and ending line write the scene that occurred between the two.
• Write a conversation where the player convinces an npc to give them access to something they shouldn’t.
• A conversation with survivor of town the player failed to save.

Now since these contests are as much about giving everyone feedback as they are writing I’ll give my reviews of the other 3 entries:



B –Molly

Technical:

I found this is a difficult piece to read. There seemed to a lot of sentences with confused word choices, which really broke up the flow making it a rather halted read. Also the dialog makes a lot reference to her being paranoid about Tosserton but her bio makes it sound like she thinks they’re a bit thick.

Theme:

This didn’t really seem like a female character me. There wasn’t really an indication that character was female from their history, bio, or dialog it seemed very much like a typical old grizzled fantasy style engineer. That being said it was a well-developed character. There were numerous details on her past, and few references to some of her more colourful moments.



C –Skyle

Technical:

I had trouble getting into this piece, it just didn’t grab me and I had to go back to reading it a few times. The highlight of the piece is the well done dialog and the different conversations. Of all the characters Ithought this one had the best name. A character’s name reflects a lot about them and of all 4 pieces I thought Skyle’s personality best came through in their name.

Theme:

It would have been nice to have more details about the character. A longer back story or description would have helped a lot to flesh out the character in more detail. Even after reading I still don’t much about Skyle. Why does she want the player to find her? What are her motivations? What does she want to achieve and why can she do the things she does? But again as I said above some well written and developed dialog.



D –Cara

Technical:

There was lot of detail packed into a few short paragraphs in this bio. It’s a well written and comprehensive piece. But it comes across in a few places like you don’t know what you want to do with the character or how you want to development them. It seems like you have clear idea in mind for a character you want to have but you’re not sure what you want to do with them or how they fit into the story yet.

Theme:

When I read this bio even through it doesn’t mention it I couldn’t help but feel Iwas reading about a catgirl. I don’t know if that was your intention or not butthat was defiantly the impression I got. Very well visualized character, and fleshed outbut I couldn’t empathise with the character at all. I felt like should care about the fact she is trapped and a little scared in a world that’s alien to her. But I didn’t.



We’ll that’s my short critique of the other entries. Hopefully everyone who voted can find a bit of time to give some feedback to everyone. After all how else can we all get,better?

[Bigdeadbug]

Congratulation Wai and everyone else who entered!

A week seems OK for tasks similar to the one set this time round. Maybe extending it so it covers two weekends would help get more people interested/give ample time to complete it (i.e. set the task on a Friday evening and ask for it to be done for Sunday evening the next weekend). Like JoeCooper said promoting the contest on the main site or through some other means wouldn't be a bad thing, this forum feels a bit out of the way. If it becomes popular the time given could vary more, maybe have a weekend where the contestants are given only 24hrs to complete the task or another where they are given two weeks to come up with something more comprehensive.

I love the idea behind the contest though and certainly think there should be more of them, even make them a semi regular event.

As for ideas for other contests:

• I saw this today and thought the idea of multi person dialogs would be something interesting to attempt.
• Write an intro narration for a game with the goal of providing the player the back-story to the game (similar to )
• Write the back story of a small town and then tell key parts of that story to the player through interaction with object (e.g. statues)
• Design a support character that follows/does not follow specific tropes.

If this becomes a regular thing i think alternating between a very specific task (i.e. create an elderly priest character for a high fantasy setting his goal should be to guide the player through the early stages of the game) and a more open ended one (i.e. create a character whose purpose is to mentor a player early on).

[JoeCooper]

"I found this is a difficult piece to read ..."

Now that's funny.

I had the same thought about A; that it seemed difficult to read and way too off-the-shelf. I actually had a comment about it but decided not to post.

This has me thinking.

Anyway, I like the multiple person dialog idea.

I would probably not participate in a backstory contest. I hate backstory. I was on a project where there was supposed to be something like that, so I convinced them to use a one-sentence "establishing shot", treat the city as a character then try to develop the character with every mini-story in the game. The results worked and received unsolicited compliments from players.

[Wai]

/joy
Thank you for voting and the comments

* * *

When we could start voting, I sent my reasons to sunandshadow. Right now I feel that people just want to move on so I am posting a shorter version.
When I was asked to vote, I recognized three ways to rank the entries: 1) By their writing, 2) by their design, 3) by personal liking. The following is an
explanation and my ranking for each category.

Writing
This is important if you separate "design" skill and "writing" skill. "Writing" skill is the skill to convey regardless how good or how bad the character is.
In this category, you view the entries as a sample of the contestant's writing skill. If a contest is created specifically for this, usually everyone will write
about the same predefined character. My evaluation for this category is:

Sunandshadow (Cara) > JoeCooper (Molly) > TechnoGoth (Tessa) > Wai (Skyle)

I ranked Sunandshadow first because her entry was the only one that concisely addressed the prompt with no extra information. I ranked myself last
because none of the other entries need the type of editing mine needed. I placed Joe before TechnoGoth because it was easier for me to follow
Molly than Tessa. in Tessa's backstory, some characters seemed to pop out for no reason, when that happens, I can't tell if I skipped reading something.
When that happens a few times, I might as well skip to the dialogs because I couldn't tell what I read. The dialogs were good.

Design
This is the category where you skip how the writing is done and just evaluate the facts about the character, to check if the character is self-coherent and
fits the overall design of the game. Normally, if a contest is created specifically for this, the game design would be given, and everyone would create a
character within the same context. In our case this is particularly hard to evaluate because we have no clue what the intended game is. If you give too much
liberty to assume that "there must be a reason that this description is necessary for the overall game" then every character would be the best fit for their
individually imaginable but unknown game. I wrote something explaining what I did, but to keep it short this is my ranking. For this category I can't rank
my own because I know my game design.

Sunandshadow (Cara) > TechnoGoth (Tessa) > JoeCooper (Molly)

I ranked Sunandshadow first because her entry is flexible enough that leaves little hurdle for anyone to adopt and use. In my opinion, if you are asked to
design a character for a game that you can't control, the best proposal isn't the one with elaborated details, but the one that has a defined shape but flexible
enough to accommodate other characters designed by other writers. Compared to her entry, Tessa comes with a handful of other characters, and Molly
comes with not only other characters but two sections of territories and cultures. Sunandshadow's entry is bounded and gives a better chance to know
the effort and risk to include the character.

Personal Liking
In Writing, I use the entries to rank the Writer. In Design, I use the entries to rank the Designer. In this category, I am only looking at the character itself and
rank the entries based on how much I would want to play a game with the character. If enough people rank the entries this way, the contestants would
know how popular their character is. This is my ranking:

Skyle (Wai) > Tessa (TechnoGoth) > Cara (sunandshadow) > Molly (JoeCooper)

I like Skyle the best probably because I already know her. But to give some possibly false sense of objectivity, here are some possibly fabricated
reasons and related ranking:

Reason 1) She is philosophical
I like her because she comes with philosophical questions. This is different from characters that only talk about what they need or how to get something done.
For this aspect my ranking is:

Skyle > Cara > Tessa > Molly

I ranked Cara second because her situation is also somewhat philosophically interesting: How do you pick a husband? How do you evaluate the candidates?
How do you know who the candidates really are?

Reason 2) She is fun to watch
Imagine that you collect everything that the character does and just watch. Is there something fun the character does? Or does the character just stand and speak?
For this aspect my ranking is:

Skyle > Molly > Tessa > Cara

When I was viewing the entries, it occurred to me strongly that the other characters were quest givers. I don't have a strong association that an "NPC" is a "quest giver".
My concept of an NPC is some sort of comrade that isn't the player's character. This is what you get when you play campaign mode in an RTS, when there are
other squad leaders that talk and fight but aren't controlled by you. They are NPC and they are not just quest givers. For Molly I was referring to the contract scene with
the queen. That scene seemed like something I would see in Shrek. However the dialogs seem forced and took some fun away.

Reason 3) She stays
I like a character more when I know that they are there to stay, and I get to see them over and over. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Molly > Cara

Reason 4) She listens
I like characters that don't just tell me what to do, but listen to what I tell them to do. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Cara > Molly

Reason 5) She changes
I like characters that develop as the game goes on, especially when the development is relevant to the player character. For this aspect:

Skyle > Tessa > Cara > Molly


Overall

1: Skyle - Main reason: She makes things fun.
2: Tessa - Main reason: Her dialogs have the most personality.
3: Cara - Main reason: She looks flat but has an interesting problem.
4: Molly - Main reason: She curses.

Sunandshadow asked me to explain (4). Up to the dialogs, I thought Molly cares about machines but not people, however, the way she ranted in the dialogs
didn't seem to fit. It didn't occur to me that Molly would be using profanity the way she would use in the dialogs. I was expecting Molly to have a more stoic
personality and a more subtle / nerdy sense of humor. It felt as if the character design of the Queen, who was just described as foul-mouthed, leaked through
and corrupted the design of Molly, who was silent and felt asleep when the Queen was doing all the talking. However, in the dialog, it seemed that Molly
became the foul-mouthed and was like the Queen instead. The unaffected, cool personality in the previous scene seemed to be erased.


* * *

About contests:

I don't have a suggestion on contests. I am just writing this to acknowledge that I read this question. My overall comment is that 2500 word limit is way
too much. For character design, perhaps 800 is enough.

Could we simply have more critiques without contest? Otherwise I would want a cast contest. A cast contest is where instead of posting the design for a
single character, you post the design for a group of characters (the cast), and describe their relations and they work together for the story.

* * *

What I learned:

1) Self-contained dialogs
The dialogs of the other entries are self-contained. They give good context even when nothing else is said, and they did it without sounding forced.

2) Character Expression / Body Language Sheet
I can't remember what I wrote. I only remember what I actually see. This makes me vulnerable to character corruption. I need some kind of visual aid
so that what I write about a character belongs to that character. However, if I draw just one expression for a character, the writing about the character
would turn out flat. Therefore, it would be better if I have a sheet of concept art showing the same character in different body languages and expressions,
so that when I do the writing, I have a more consistent sense of how the character behaves.

3) Writing checklist
I want some kind of checklist so that if I write something every month, the writing would still be consistent. After doing this contest I created a checklist
for myself. Here are some items on the checklist that aren't too specific about my design:

o Surprise for the characters - There must be something surprising for the characters in the story.
o No unnecessary detail or descriptions - Every description should be there for a reason beyond "painting a picture".
o Fun -Something fun must happen for the characters
o Pun-free - So that nothing is lost when the text is translated into another language.

What I want to do:

I want to learn how to keep writing consistent. For this contest, I wrote Skyle two times (and also another character two times). The first time was a lot worse.
I scraped it and rewrote it entirely. I want to learn what people actually do to make their writing consistent. Although I know that this is not an issue if you write
regularly. But is inconsistency a real issue? Or is it better not to look back and just write something new, so that your creativity is not limited by your own past
writing? I suppose on my checklist I could add, "Before you write, read what you wrote last time."

[JoeCooper]

I guess I might as well talk about mine.

There were a few subtle screw ups here that ruined the whole affect.

I had actually went for "strung out, maybe a bit mad" from the start, hence passages like:

“What if”, she asked herself, out loud and while pacing back in forth in her room alone waving her arms, “we had pipes going this way and that ... away from us and upon our enemies?!”

I had intended that she fell asleep through the long winded queen's ceremony because she doesn't sleep.

And mostly amused myself with an effort to not make any direct assertions about the personality. There is exactly one:

"a slight preference for dealing with machines rather than people"

I thought someone might dislike it due to cursing, and so I added more cursing, cause when I made that decision, it made me laugh. Most decisions were made along these lines. *shrug* But I had fun.

[sunandshadow]

I'm very interested in the fact that everyone seems to agree that Cara was difficult to sympathize with or care about despite having an interesting problem. I had a similar problem last time I posted a story synopsis with a female main character. In my mind she was quite a nice person, who cared deeply about things and tried to be a good person. But that didn't seem to come through to the readers at all. Instead the fact that her actions in the plot were rather conniving and manipulative was what readers reacted to, and made them dislike her and wonder why I was setting her up as the heroine of a romance. Fortunately I don't seem to have this problem with the actual fiction, otherwise I'd be more worried. It only seems to be a problem with "paperwork" type things where I am trying to objectively describe a character and their role in a plot. Still very puzzling though.

Could we simply have more critiques without contest?

It has always been allowed to post stuff here asking for critiques, it's just rare that anyone does. I don't even care if what people post is game-related, as long as it's not fanfiction, since gamedev's policy is not to allow that. Me personally, I normally don't write very much and what I do write is usually erotica, which I can't post here.