Developer for a Day 5: The Winners!

This year, we had two people with extensive DFAD experience.  The first, of course, is Alex Navarro, who has been judging these things for years. The other has more experience being judged than doing the judging, but he's proven that he knows what makes a great design document. I'm talking, of course, about Kevin Van Ord, another GameSpot community member-turned-staffer.

I asked the judges to rate, in order, their top three choices. This placement corresponds with a numerical score; a first place selection is worth five points, a second place worth three, and a third place worth one.  The points are totalled up, and the winning document is the one with the most points, the runner-up is the document with the next highest amount of points, and so on.  In cases of ties, I referred back to my unpublicized ratings that I first assigned the documents when reviewing them.

Congratulations to all the entrants. If you are in the top five, please send me a private message with your name, shipping address, and choice of gift card retailer. (Choices are EB Games, GameStop, Circuit City, and Best Buy. If you are outside of North America, I will make alternate arrangements.)  Shipments will go out in several weeks. Anyway, now that those nasty little details have been resolved, I give you the top five entries:

Winner: Forsaken Earth, Shoun (10 pts.)

Alex / (1st Choice): This is the best presented of all the documents I read, and on top of that, the game itself sounds both ambitious AND feasible. It sounds like Lost Planet, Counter-Strike and Planetside all had a three-way baby, and that’s pretty cool. I also really like the way you’ve sort of built in this player opposition system with the militias without having to make people just choose a good or evil side. I will say that, if you were to ever submit this doc to a developer or anything, you might want to give a bit more detail on what actual missions might look like. You talk a lot about enemies and NPCs and whatnot, but I never got a good visual image of what all of that would be. Still, that one quibble aside, nice work.

Kevin / (1st Choice): I would absolutely play this game. Massive, perpetual action makes perfect sense as described here, and it's an original take on a formula that games like Planetside and Huxley use. Militias are a terrific way of implementing player versus player content, and almost every aspect of the gameplay is well considered.

First Runner-Up: The Matrix - Fight for Freedom, WalterDDolneazz (3 pts.)

Kevin / (2nd Choice): This sounds like exactly what I would want in a Matrix game. Flourishes, taunts--all this stuff takes fighting game mechanics and tailors it perfectly to the Matrix universe. The Fate's Battle mode and the Champions of Zion multiplayer mode sound particularly intriguing.

Second Runner-Up: Zatoichi, edubuccaneer (3 pts.)

Alex / (2nd Choice): I’ll be completely honest when I say that I don’t believe any game publisher in their right mind would ever bankroll this game. I also think about nine people worldwide would buy it. But I’d be one of those nine, just because I love games that are completely bonkers. I don’t know how well this game would work at all, but the way you lay it out, it almost sounds plausible as something you COULD play. Also, I have a soft spot in my heart for the Zatoichi films, so that deserves props as well.

Kevin: Easilty the most original idea of the bunch. The problem with a video game like this, though, is that there's no real video. A blind person looking to play games would likely enjoy this, but I know I would feel literally in the dark, and requiring me to move around speakers and whatnot to be able to get the full effect seems like a lot to ask. I think the niche is a little too small for a game that is essentially nothing but sound to appeal to very many.

Third Runner-Up: Corporate Raiders, Dirk13 (1 pt.)

Alex / (3rd Choice): Frankly, I think that this game comes dangerously close to being budget priced shovelware, but I also imagine that all those budget priced shovelware games out there start out with documents that read similarly enthusiastic. The game sounds like it could be quite fun, provided it got the right people working on it. Concepts are sound, and while I wouldn’t call it ambitious, it’s probably the most immediately developable of all the submissions. I think you could flesh this thing out a bit more, but what you’ve got is definitely intriguing.

Kevin: This is a neat sounding take-off on the traditional "Tycoon" type of game. The only problem is that the short document doesn't make the game sound very complex, and it comes across as budget-ish.

Fourth Runner-Up: Silentium, Happy_Cloud (1 pt.)

Kevin (3rd Choice): At first glance, this appears to be a standard action RPG, reminiscent of Dark Alliance or Champions of Norrath. But look a bit deeper and you find a really great method of leveling with Phoenix points, and a neat story that avoids being a cliche (I love the Abeo and Aduro story in particular). With a few more original touches, this would have been an easy choice for a winner.

Congratulations to all the winners!!! Can't wait to read your documents.

Will the other finalists have criticism about their documents, because I would really love to know how I can improve my document. 

will the entries be presented like last year?

Woot! Top 5!

I hope we get to read them! Is there going to be a feature thing like last year?

I'm pretty sure it's for all the finalists. Don't know if there's anything else to be awarded other than that this year, though. edubuccaneer

Then why you and other runner-ups don't have the DFAD emblem?... At least not yet...IonescoF

The emblem I have is actually from two years ago, I don't know if this years finalists are going to get one.

[QUOTE="edubuccaneer"]I'm pretty sure it's for all the finalists. Don't know if there's anything else to be awarded other than that this year, though. IonescoF

[QUOTE="IonescoF"]Then why you and other runner-ups don't have the DFAD emblem?... At least not yet...Shoun

The emblem I have is actually from two years ago, I don't know if this years finalists are going to get one.

It's great to see both Shoun and Happy_Cloud make it. I thought both their documents were quite good. I'm also interested to read Zatoichi, which sounds pretty odd and interesting, though I don't have any speakers, so I probably couldn't play it. Anyways, congratulations to all the winners, and I hope to be able to read all of them soon.Oilers99

Dangerously close to budget priced shovelware ftw!! hehe, actually it wasn't my intent to market it that way, but i dont blame the feedback Alex (and Kevin) gave in that regard, especially in light of the truly premium looking RTSes that came out during the judging process like C&C3 and Supreme Commander (and when i originally wrote the thing over a year ago, there was a definitive dry spell of RTS of any kind, making the idea's endeavor alot more ambitious seeming i suppose).

but i of course appreciate it all, sweet and sour, especially since you thought it was good enough to be amongst the top 5, so thank you very much, i'm very pleased and honored.

p.s. yeah, from what i understand as well the cute light bulb was usually meant for all finalists. He did say there might be something new this year but i thought it more implied something extra on top of the much coveted honorary acheivment for making it. I think though that that was before Adam got really busy overall so perhaps it will just be the regular deal.

-I also remember that in the past years it has taken a bit of time to get the final results page up and the emblem dished out, just from memory (and i'm betting Adam is even busier with regular work this year for whatever reason, so it may take some time, hopefully he'll let us know though).

Thanks, of course, to the judges and to Adam for running the contest and giving me such positive results. Honestly, the way Kevin Van Ord responded is exactly what I wanted to hear - what I set out to do was leave behind the "teasing glimpses and half-hearted attempts" (as I said in my doc) of the previous Matrix titles and make the Matrix game that always should have been. I also was gunning for second place actually rather than first (I felt someone with an original IP should take the top spot) so I'm quite happy to see shoun's Forsaken Earth take 1st place. I can't post my document right now (laptop is broken, DSL is not yet installed, I'm posting this on borrowed time from a lab computer) but I will put it up as soon as I can.

I should also add that thinking about my design more yielded some things I think would have made it even better (I'm sure I echo all the contestants in that) and reading about Cliffy B's speech on iterative design at GDC really made me think about what it would do for M:FfF. But that's mostly just for me to worry about. Congratulations to all my fellow contestants, and I can't wait to read your documents.

Any word on when/if we will be able to read the documents?

Hi guys - In Adam's absence, I've consulted with Kevin-V and assigned the D4AD emblems accordingly, but I'm not sure if the actual documents will be available to view for everybody, at least not immediately. I'll do my best to keep you posted.VinceL

I assume though that Adam is still taking care of the tangible prizes, although i'm not totally sure where i left it with him (i still prefered the gift card, but sent him another pm noting that if i was the only one that did to get back to me for the paypal thing as long as i could extract it).

but yeah, thanks Vince, indeed keep us posted, i would love to see one of the pages up eventually (and on the super fun GS featurette slideshow).

Oh, now I feel sexy. 8)

But we might not get to read the other finalist documents? That would be a shame. If that'll be the case, maybe the finalists could send each other their documents; I really want to see some of them.