December Challenge Results!

[pyrandon]

Our December Challenge was an unmitigated success--the second largest challenge ever! Perhaps pirate maps have some sort of special meaning to us all (or, maybe in the spirit of Christmas giving we gave each other the gift of map...)

I truly feel sorry for all of us in deciding a winner this month, too, for all the entires were fabulous. Good luck to one and all!

Note that due to the holidays, voting is getting started a bit late, so the polls will be open until January 4, 2008.

Remember the guidelines when you vote:

• The map should be a cavern and accompanying cave system located by a large body of water, a coastal river, or "space stream" (for sci fi maps)
• Evidence of now-vanished pirate use must be evident
• The map may be in any style and depicting any historical era
• Provide a scale and at least basic labeling
• The map must be completed in less than four hours (not including planning time)
• Bonus consideration for mapping the surrounding countryside/nation/continent/sea...
• Bonus consideration for including the long-lost pirates' legend/story

Entries:

• Witch's Rock - by Gamerprinter
• The Serpent's Maw - by NeonKNight
• Cave of Thieves - by mmmmmpig
• Ice Pirates - 2025 - by RobA
• The Rock at Morgus Cray - by The Cartographist
• Cap'n Jane's Roost - by Publius
• Isla de los Muertos - by Terrainmonkey
• The Grotto of the Wicked - by rlucci
• The Old Lighthouse - by Redrobes

[thebax2k]

Phew, this was an excellent field of candidates. I had a tough time deciding who I was going to vote for. I liked rlucci's West style map and NeonKNight's maps and adventure brought back many pleasant oldschool memories. Terrainmonkey turned in an excellent effort and RobA impressed me by doing something within the contest parameters yet very different.

In the end though, Gamerprinter got my vote. Not only did his maps and adventure look professionally done, but I really dug the voodoo angle. Evocative and well illustrated, well done sir.

Thanks to all the mappers for your efforts. Pyrandon, I hope we have more unusual dungeon maps as the contest objective in the future.

[ravells]

Very tough to make a decision on this one! Congratulations all, on superb entries, every one.

[Redrobes]

* Witch's Rock - by Gamerprinter
Nice regional map, artistic and simple. Main map is bold with strong colour. I like the clean lines and printable feel to it. Good clear labels and use of colour to indicate extra information like height or sea depth.


* The Serpent's Maw - by NeonKNight
Im having a hard time working out which is the final map so I think its the Pirate Caves from the final set. Brilliant retro feel and very printable though its quite low res, breaking up a the detail a little around crates and tables. Nice book cover.


* Cave of Thieves - by mmmmmpig
Impressive attention to detail. Nice fonts though some lettering is very small, choice of colour, aging and folds etc. Not a lot to fault this map as a piece of art but it would be difficult to use as an RPG map for the caves.


* Ice Pirates - 2025 - by RobA
Very striking with clean lines and nice font. The vector mapping works well in some places with circles and antialiased lines but makes it hard to determine what some of the items are.


* The Rock at Morgus Cray - by The Cartographist
Initially I found the rock contours very hard to figure but the other level maps makes that clearer. Good res and overall quality though the building is low res on the high res map. COuld have done with making that first and scaling down not up. In the end a very fine map and playable.


* Cap'n Jane's Roost - by Publius
A fine map with a good legend and lots of labels. Theres some very strange stream flow on the beach. Im not keen on the number font which would suit a western / coral type better. Leaves me wanting to know more about the roost layout tho.


* Isla de los Muertos - by Terrainmonkey
The regional map has nice colour but does appear as though its been in the sea and washed up - its so blurred. The main map has lots of interesting places and a complex layout. I think the grid is a bit overpowering. Also the icons like beds being all at perfect 45 degree angles notices. High enough res that its usable on a VTT or for printing tho.


* The Grotto of the Wicked - by rlucci
Lovely strong aqua colour with nice ripples. White font numbers work well but not so good when on light grey. A few mysterious details like the the black smudge in room 3 or the odd grating in 2 could be explained. Lookout nice idea though I cant figure out how such a cave would exist or is it a platform.


* The Old Lighthouse - by Redrobes
Looking back, although I went for some realism, my map is kinda dull. The regional terrain sorta worked but was a bit rushed with the detail on top and the trees could have been more varied. Putting the 3D rocks down and getting them shaded seemed to work well as did the texture composition for the outdoors. Technically it was ok but artistically is was well short of these other entries.


So all very good stuff but Witch's Rock seemed to have it this month in my opinion. If the requirements asked for something different then I could have gone with another. Although outside of the scope of judging I think that the other material that Gamerprinter has made for his module is also of very high quality too.

[Bohunk]

Hard choice to make but in the end I voted for Cave of Thieves because it was a good looking map that was done in my way of thinking when I read the challenge.

[Gamerprinter]

I didn't want to "jinx" my entry by voting for myself, so I decided to select that map (which is not my own) that has the most creativity or has in some way influenced my work.

The top entries for me was: Cap'n Janes Roost, Ice Pirates 2025, The Old Lighthouse, and Isla los Muertos.

Terrainmonkey for his his hand-drawn work that's been influencing me lately, unfortunately was missing that "implied story behind it" to get my vote.

The Old Lighthouse, because 3D is a style and practice I really enjoy, though as Redrobes put it himself - overall kind of bland. Its difficult to see a relationship between the caves and coast/lighthouse. The connection could have been better integrated.

Ice Pirates 2025 was very creative and almost my top choice because of it! What held me from voting for this one, was that the challenge rules required a cavern and cave system. Not that using that fusion to create a sphere to build into wasn't a good idea, but in my mind caverns and cave systems are naturally created locations. Excavating additional work space into an existing cave system is acceptable to me, but entirely artificially created caves seems outside the rules - for this reason alone, I didn't vote for RobA.

In the end, Publius's Cap'n Janes Roost sold me as the most creative, most influenced my map and most closely fit the challenge rules. Although I shouldn't have let it happen, Publius's map influenced my entry this month.

The slight overhand of rock shown on the "west" side of his cavern over the floor area, motivated me to create the shadows at the cave entrances of my map, plus his thinking of wave carved caves meeting interior normal caves was very close in my own conception. For these reasons, I voted for Publius!

[Midgardsormr]

What a hard, hard decision this month! Everyone turned in solid entries, and there were elements I really liked in all of them.

In the end, I was torn between mmmmmpig's authentic-looking treasure map and Publius' unusually detailed map. I finally settled on Publius' entry, by coin flip.

[mmmmmpig]

Damn You Coins!!! Damn You Coins To Hell!!!:p

[The Cartographist]

I'm not going to lie to the assembled group. I had every intention of voting for myself. 1. Because several entrants in previous challenges had done so and it seemed like a fine idea. 2. Because, well, then I'll know that I got at least one vote.

However, I couldn't bring myself to do it. After looking through the maps one final time, it became apparent to me that there was really only one choice. I'm sorry (okay, not REALLY sorry) to say that, despite the flack I had given him at the start of this challenge, and despite the fact that I voted for his entry last month, I'm casting my vote for Gamerprinter.

With that being said, a question for those assembled. (Perhaps the answer can be dropped in my entry thread.) Several people have said that they found the contour lines on my maps confusing. How so? Any thoughts would be welcome.

BTW, Happy 2008!!

[Redrobes]

I mentioned that they were confusing to me because they looked like pillars but there was a passage way through them. I wasn't sure whether the lighthouse was on a hill or in a cove then later you marked the area around them with what appeared to be rock with a blue grid that looked like the water. I was just confused at this point but in the end when the black went in it became clear to me and it was a really good map.

I know you did old style so you were in two color. Sometimes the change of color for depth can give a really fast visual clue and you don't think about it because you just know. A series of contours with no height indicators cannot distinguish between a hill and a basin.