We recently ran a competition to win one of our freshly-launched Picade kits, and we were overwhelmed by the quality of the entries!
We had entries from the UK, Europe and the United States. Some hand-drawn, some used computer graphics. Some hand-wrote the description, others typed, and those too little to do much writing enlisted family members to add descriptions!
We looked at how well the entries had met our requirements in the brief, which were:
- an A4 promotional poster
- around 100 words describing the game concept
- any concept art/sketches that help describe it
- a title and strapline
Everyone managed the poster, and that in itself made for quite the visual feast, as our newly-painted office wall rapidly filled up with a gallery of brightly-coloured artwork.
Some of you went waaaaaaaaaaaaaay over the 100 words for the game concept, which although lots of work went into it, didn't really fit the brief. We liked the short and simple explanations.
We particularly liked Hannah's use of "screenshots" to help describe her concept, and Casey even mocked up some gameplay. We liked the Molloy's detailed hand-drawn game characters. In "Loose Cannon", Alan mocked up an in-game screen and some notes on the game concept, complete with coffee stains!
Finally, here at Pirate Towers we really love a good pun, and the titles and straplines didn't disappoint.
"Pirates of the Open Source C - with an I/O here, and and I/O there, we go piratin' everywhere"
"Trolley Wars Special shOPS - aisle be back"
"Rainball - they thought football wasn't colourful enough, it is now!"
We chose Trolley Wars as our overall winner because of the simple premise, giving us a throwback to top down scrolling games, and evoking memories of an awful gameshow from our childhood. The simple gameplay of a frantic scramble to get through the supermarket, avoiding your hated groceries while collecting powerups, fitted the simplicity and button-bashing of arcade favourites of old.
Once again, thanks for your wonderful entries, and we're sorry we couldn't feature them all.
the Pirates xx