NOTE: These are my own thoughts on the matter and do not reflect the official stance taken by the judges/staff.
Originally posted by GbreezeSunsetBut the inconsistency between various contests is something that always struck me as a bit odd (and I've seen others mention this as well). You can see for yourself just how inconsistent the scoring is across various contests.
Having scoring guidelines for all the contests sounds like a good idea, and I definitely think staff should talk about some kind of standard. However, keep in mind different contests value different kinds of qualities, hence why aesthetics has less points in vanilla contests. (Which kinda makes it odd that CLDC only had 10 points in aesthetics too, but again, that's why we should have some sort of standard.)
Originally posted by GbreezeSunsetIt's also interesting how many points are allocated to creativity in the 24hr contests. Is this to allow judges to allocate points for theme adherence? I think it could be broken out a bit more clearly in the rules if that was the intent.
My understanding for creativity was that it was almost entirely based on the entry's application of the contest theme. While level creativity played a factor, it was very much tied in to how the author approached the theme and applied it to their level. I think making it 20 points was good as it allows me to reward levels for really playing with the "light" idea even if the level design was lacking.
Originally posted by GbreezeSunsetThis is also nitpicky, but I noticed the "6/10 for pure vanilla" guideline was introduced in CLDC 2020 but never used again. Did the staff decide against it?
I wasn't here for CLDC 2020 so I didn't know about the "pure vanilla = 6/10" rule (though I think I've said something like that before), but that is also something that would be discussed for contest scoring standards.
Originally posted by GbreezeSunsetI think it's important to highlight that xfix's point is not that there is a lack of potential in the theme, but that there is a lack of vanilla potential, especially compared to the last 24hr contest.
This is a really good point, and I don't think that was something discussed when deciding on the theme; it was more of a "what sounds cool" / "relates to the holidays" way of thinking. I definitely think in future 24-hour contests that should play a factor in planning to make sure everyone can participate.
That said, I would be surprised if there weren't enough resources on the site to make use of the light theme, even if not in the typical ways. I am not fully aware of the site's resources, so I couldn't tell you what I played so far was brand new or taken from the site, but I would be very surprised if everything I've played was made in 24 hours just for this contest.
Originally posted by GbreezeSunsetFor example, something like "make a level based on your favorite movie" wouldn't result in very much gimmick overlap between levels.
I know this was just an example, but this would be an absolute nightmare to judge on theme adherence. Unless we saw the movie the user was referencing (assuming they told us, which not everyone did for this contest), we would just have to take their word for it or go off a simple synopsis from IMDB or something.
Originally posted by xfixThird, the timing of the contest. I was pretty much unable to participate myself due to most of contest taking place Monday in European timezone when I was in the work. I think that all 24hosmw contests should start on Saturday to make them as accessible as possible to SMWC members.
Saturday would've been the 26th, which for a lot of people is a holiday (Boxing Day) or the day after a holiday (Christmas), in which case people want to unwind. While I'm sorry to hear you weren't able to participate, I think this was our best option of the ones we had. Like Gbreeze suggested, maybe we should utilize 48/72 hour contests more often?
(Also, I apologize for not responding to your post. I admittedly had a hard time understanding it, and it got buried in a bunch of spoilery discussion so I stopped checking the thread.)
On a side note, I honestly wouldn't mind trying VLDC6's style of judging again, removing scores entirely and just categorizing the levels (Favorites, Enjoyable, Ambivalent, Unfullfilling, and Not For Me, though I would swap the latter two.) So far scoring has been my least favorite part of the judging process, and I feel these categories would reflect my thoughts on the entries a lot better, like it has in my old VLDC reviews. I am curious to see how people feel about this idea.