Hi all!
Over on the discussion thread for the new OGA layout, chasersgaming made the point that we ought to rotate responsibility for running Art Challenges on OGA.
He suggested a 'Winner's Out' approach, where whomever wins the challenge picks a topic and runs the next one.
I'm not sure that would work for everyone, sometimes the winner may not be able or interested in running the next challenge.
However, I have an idea for an alternate approach that might work:
Maybe we could do a thread where we solicit volunteers to commit to running an Art Challenge for a month. Like we say 'We want to run challenges every other month this year, so we need a volunteer for Jan, March, May, July, September, November.' (or whatever the target schedule is) And then folks can respond and commit to running a challenge for whatever month they think works for them.
If you run the challenge, you get to pick the theme, so there's some incentive to run one, and by asking for volunteers at the beginning of the year, we'd give folks plenty of time to respond.
As an aside (but a well related and important one)
Are these all the steps involved in running an Art Challenge?
1) Come up with a topic
2) Make a thread announcing and detailing the Challenge including providing the tag for folks to use on their submissions
3) Validate submissions as they come in. Ie. verify they meet the challenge criteria and are licensed properly.
4) Check favorite counts and declare a winner
Should there be a post announcing the switch from th submission to the voting period?
Also, most of us would definitely need help from a proper admin to get stuff to appear on the front page.
I'm down for this, whatever keeps the art challenge rolling, I like to use them in the summer jam.:)
Chasersgaming | Support | Monstropolis |
Can anyone whose run an art challenge let me know if those steps seem about right or if I'm missing something?
Looks right to me. :) I'm ready to give volunteers the access needed or to do the parts that require admin intervention. :D
--Medicine Storm
Theme suggestion: "I enjoy my life"
What kind of schedule do folks think is reasonable for Art Challenges?
I was thinking one every other month.
How long should the challenges run for? I was thinking 4 weeks for the challenge, 2 weeks for judging, 2 weeks off.
Does that sound reasonable, or should it all be done in one month, 2 weeks for challenge, 2 weeks for judging?
If we targeted one challenge every other month, and assuming a Game Jam in June, that would give us a schedule like so:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
July Art Challenge
September Art Challenge
November Art Challenge
Once concern with this, is it gives us a challenge in July which is also the judging period for the Summer game jam. So an alt approach would be to skip Jul and pick up again in August, this yeilds:
January Art Challenge
March Art Challenge
May Art Challenge
June Game Jam
August Art Challenge
October Art Challenge
December Art Challenge
I actually like this because it keeps October and IMHO we could run a 'halloween' themed challenge every year and it would never get old ;)
Or we could go for 'seasonal' challenges, so:
Winter Art Challenge (Dec, Jan, or Feb)
Spring Art Challenge (Mar, April, or May)
Summer Art Challenge (Jun, Jul, or Aug)
Fall Art Challenge (Sep, Oct, or Nov)
We've been on the 'no art challenges' schedule for a while, so maybe it would be better to shoot for just a seasonal challenge for now and ramp up more if that works out. We can always add a 2nd challenge to any given season if we want (so Fall Art Challenge #2, etc).
Well what do folks think? If we can agree on a schedule, then I'll start a thread asking for volunteers to run each jam. volunteer gets to pick the theme, so there's some fun in running the challenges.
Final thought, it would be extra super great if there was some way to highlight the challenge entries on the main page. Currently, we get 'popular this week', 'latest art', 'latest art by friends' and 'featured art'.
It would be super-de-duper cool if 'Featured Art' could 'feature' entries from the current art challenge. Could be done for the duration of the challenge, or just through the voting period. Either way, this would be an added incentive for folks to participate (more visibility for their works) and help level the playing field a bit since presently there's a bit of a 'favorites beget favorites' economy going on. By that I mean, favorites get an entry onto the 'popular this week' tab, which brings more eyeballs and more favorites. Whereas, if an entry gets pushed off the 'latest art' tab before getting enough favorites to make 'popular this week' (which can happen simply because you submitted at an inopportune time, ie just before a sudden deluge of submissions) it'll effectively disappear and be unlikely to compete.
@withthelove thank you for considering the summer jam in your thoughts here, there's lots to consider, I like the idea of the monthly challenges, but there's something about the seasonal challenges I find appealing, and I think that they work towards the jams taking place.as a seasonal thing. Espicially that working on assets before a jam is acceptable it does give it some sort of essentive to not only take part in the challenges, but also the jams themselves, even the themes of the challenges could be the inspiration needed to work on a game project.
anyways, I'm good either way. :)
Chasersgaming | Support | Monstropolis |
I'm down for seasonal challenges!
Hello, guys! By the way, are some of you interested by my "Arcade Art Challenge"?
I think it was unnoticed. You can take your time and add your art when you want : there is no time limit.
See here for the description of the challenge.
And here to see my submission.
@all: Yikes! meant to get a post out with our schedule and asking for volunteers before the Summer Art Challenge in June but now it's a bit down to the wire for that. I am totally up for running the Summer Art Challenge myself though just to keep the train rolling. If someone else is keen to run the Summer Challenge, speak now, otherwise I'll write up a theme and start a thread for it.