THE DON'T FIX THE SHARK COMPETITION
We all know the movie Jaws. The story goes that when Spielberg went to shoot
the film, he couldn't get the mechanical shark to work very well. To avoid
putting a horribly fake shark on screen, he had to shoot the film keeping
the main threat off-camera almost completely. Interestingly, this gave the
movie a lot more menace and he ended up with a much better film than if he
had been able to make it the way he wanted.
The Don't Fix The Shark Competition is a novelty scenario contest for Blades
of Exile. The central principle of the contest is to see what a good
scenario designer can come up with when severely limited in some way. What
way, exactly? That's up to you.
Entrants can place any kind of restrictions on themselves that they wish. It
can be as simple as not allowing more than five deaths in the scenario, or
as extreme as not allowing any special nodes. The level and type of
restriction is completely up to the designer. Also, it's fine to restrict
yourself in more than one way. If you think you can make a good scenario
without combat or dialogue, you're welcome to try!
Scenarios will be not be judged on the basis of relative quality, but on how
well the designer worked around his restrictions, and on how extreme they
were. A very good scenario made without outdoors will probably lose to a
decent scenario without any towns. The perfect scenario for this contest
would be very fun, severely restricted (say, no text), and made in such a
way that the removal of that restriction would not improve it.
The winner of the Don't Fix The Shark Competition will receive a free copy
of Blades of Avernum or other Spiderweb Software game as a prize.
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