Winter Competition Results
The competition ended on December 23rd and has proved to be a huge success. Choosing three games from the 236 games uploaded really wasn’t easy. In the absence of any consensus five judges ( Sandy, Mark, Michel, Clayts and Myself) gave democracy a chance and voted on a final shortlist – taking into account community ratings, naturally. The ballots are now in, the winners of YoYo Games first ever Winter competition are:
1st Place, [$1,000]:
Frozzd by 2DCube
A game to silence any detractors of 2-dimensional game play. The comparison to Mario is inevitable, with elements from Paper Mario and Mario Galaxy combined to make something altogether new, and more interesting than either. Moreover the characters have a charm all their own and we found ourselves sucked into the “Wubbly” world. Excellent concept, Great graphics, good level design, a nice range of enemies and fine polish – $1,000 well earned.
That this game has found such strong approval in the community is no surprise. The judges were left charmed.
2nd Place [$500]:
Garden Gnome Carnage by Ultimortal
Despite being one of the first games uploaded for the competition, despite having played over two hundred games with a winter theme over the last week, despite actually having work to do, I keep coming back to Garden Gnome Carnage. That’s longevity for you.
A Grinch like garden gnome, attached by a bungee cord to a building mounted on remote control wheels is not what springs to my mind when I think of winter. That said, this must have been the most original game in the competition. GGC appears fairly simple at first glance, but appearances do deceive. The graphics, music and game play all contribute to a very pleasing and unusually consistent style. While the potential for enormous points/combos and the intuitive, yet challenging, controls produce excellent replay value.
It’s impossible to explain what’s funny about swinging a gnome around on a bungee cord, play this now.
3rd Place, [$250]:
Granny and Snowmen by RedSystem
Probably the most highly polished game in the competition. An isometric third person shooter which sees you, “Granny”, fight off hordes of extra terrestrially possessed snowmen, with only your arsenal of weapons and power-ups to aid you.
The engine may not be so different from what we’ve seen out of GM before but the artwork, polish and dark humour meant this game stood out from the crowd.
Congratulations to the winners, (I’ll be in touch re:prizes). As I said before, this was no easy decision, our only regret was that there weren’t more prizes to give. What’s more there were many games which, whilst perhaps not quite complete/polished/bug-free enough to win, had the potential to develop into really incredible games. There will be many staff picks amongst the other winter submissions. For now consider this list of honourable mentions:
Twodase
The Winter Solstice
Sun Sun Der
Dominos 2: Winter Edition
Snowy Joe
Save the Christmas
‘Twas the night
Sinking Ice Block of Doom
I.C.E.
Snowball Frenzy
Mage of Seasons
Check out all the other competition entries here.
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January 10th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Good job everyone! Those prizes were definitely earned.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
I don’t think Block Man snow should be there.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:44 pm
Funny, Frozzd was the only game I’ve played. I can’t say it hasn’t earned it.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:54 pm
FYI we had 5 judges, including myself and Mark Overmars. We all used slightly different ways of evaluating the games , but regardless this was REALLY difficult. The overall standard was amazing. There will be a new competition announced VERY shortly. My personal thanks to all of you who took part, including those of you who provided ratings and reviews.
January 10th, 2008 at 3:55 pm
I don’t think it’s a great idea to start a “zOMGG tHat shouldn’t be there!!” conversation.
1) Make them sorry, and they can take away competitions from now on.
2) I’m disappointed about my game too- just try harder next time.
January 10th, 2008 at 4:40 pm
[...] of the Winter Competition. There’s not much point in copying the results here, so goto the GLOG post to read the [...]
January 10th, 2008 at 5:41 pm
[...] five judges have announced the results of their $1750 winter competition. The panel was made up of Sandy Duncan, Mark Overmars, Jim, [...]
January 10th, 2008 at 6:00 pm
The level design in “Block Man Snow” wasn’t even changed, only a very few things. I was hoping “Pig Rescue” would be there, but after all, it was my first “decent” game.
January 10th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
*would be there: would get an “honorable mention”
January 10th, 2008 at 9:21 pm
Well i didn’t win, but I’m not surprised, the three winners had amazing games. I underestimated the amount of competition, once Frozzd came onto the scene i was desperately hoping for 3rd place. But oh well, i happy with my second Staff pick
January 10th, 2008 at 10:00 pm
I hope we will be notified earlier the next competition so we wont have to rush and stay up all night especially for more complex games its very disappointing knowing you worked on a game for about 3 weeks then ran out of time, o well just didn’t have enough time.
January 10th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Sandy said the next competition is coming ‘VERY soon’
A week maybe?
January 11th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Nice decision, hopefully a new competition I have a better chance at will appear.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:16 am
My warm congratulations go out to YoYo’s Winter Games contest winners (and honorable mentions.) This contest really brought out some fine games.
January 19th, 2008 at 2:26 pm
Congratulations everyone who won prices or a honorable mention or a staff-pick
Everyone thanks for taking part in competition. It was really nice to play the games you made. @sandy: it’s a little while after you posted this post. Any idea of the new competition date?
January 21st, 2008 at 11:44 pm
[...] the inaugural Winter game creation competition for the YoYo Games community, the winning game, Frozzd, is a highly original two-dimensional [...]
January 22nd, 2008 at 11:42 am
[...] ???????? ?????? ????? ?? ???????????? Winter Competition ?? ????? YoYo Games. ??????-?? ? ??? ????? ?? ???????? [...]
January 24th, 2008 at 8:08 pm
I agree with gmfreaky, could you give us any kind of rough time for the next compo? Next week, two weeks, next month, two months, by the summer. Any rough time would be great, as I’m deciding whether to start a new project, or wait until the next competition.
Thanks for any reply.
January 25th, 2008 at 2:43 am
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January 30th, 2008 at 9:58 pm
Congratulations to the winners!
I also have a suggestion for the next competition. My idea is a circle or square(or any other shape) theme.
-hanson
February 1st, 2008 at 6:49 am
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February 7th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
[...] so plan your game carefully. There’s more info at the competition page. Check out the YoYoGames Winter Competition Winners to see what you’ll be up against. You’ll find some great casual games to [...]
February 28th, 2008 at 5:52 pm
[...] 10th 2008: Winter Competition results announced http://glog.yoyogames.com/?p=51 Jan 21st 2008: 10,000 games, 75,000 developers [...]
November 9th, 2008 at 9:25 am
Dominos 2: Winter Edition should of won!