Sonic Hacking Contest 2015 Results

This was certainly an interesting year for the Sonic Hacking Contest, and I wish everyone of luck for next year.

 

The Next Level, Sonic 3 D.A. Garden Edition and Big's Fishing Derby are my favourites this year. The polish on those games is outstanding.

 

I felt this contest suffered from not enough standout hacks... and far too much filler. I'd love to see measures put in place to prevent that next year, as there were far too many Big the Cat Trophy candidates in the lineup this year, and considering the long-ass delays we got, and the extra time afforded, that is completely inexcusable.


Also no love for Mobius Evolution... my heart breaks.

 

I WON ONE! I WON A TROPHY! :D :D :D

I'm truthfully surprised Bunnie won the Spin Dash trophy, compared to MainMemory and Flamewing converting Adventure gameplay to 2D and Markeyjester's....everything with Next Level. Heck even within just my own entries, I thought Sally's scan mode was a more innovative ability.

 

The Spin Dash trophy is for a new ability, Knuckles' Emerald Hunt doesn't add any new abilities to Knuckles.

 

I would like to take the time to express my sincere gratitude to not only the judges, but the media team, and the general public, for not only supplying me with a substantial number of trophies, but also encouraging several others to make some project regardless of minority, and for introducing me to those projects. While I cannot thank you enough for showing me how much you enjoyed Sonic 1 The Next Level, I also have some questions to ask, and they may come out as highly critical opinions, but nevertheless, I feel it is necessary to express my negative thoughts about the results. I am excessively concerned about the number of trophies I have gained, I was expecting some, but not on this scale, in fact, I am not sure any hack until now has recieved this many trophies in one go. I know I'm good, but surely not that good.

The Eggman Trophy (Best new boss or miniboss in a hack submitted):

I honestly expected SonicMT by Natsumi to win this one, I honestly felt her bosses were far more unique and interesting, and weren't so infuriating either. I felt they were spot on, and would be the type of bosses you would have expected from an actual Sonic game in the day. They were also the most appealing quality of the hack too.

11000101 Trophy (Best technical / proof of concept hack submitted):

All things considering, Sonic 4: Cybernetic Outbreak by Varion should probably have gotten this one. Now, don't misunderstand me, I don't think that being able to run something on a SEGA Mega CD/32x and playing samples on them, or displaying a simple moving image on the display buffer is impressive (believe me, I know how that works, and it's not too impressive), but mine was not exactly technical either, the effects you saw are just as simple so long as you have the knowledge, and by comparison to what other entries were in the list, this should surely have come first. I would like to think that the boss' difficulty had not clouded the judgement of the Judge and public voting. I am certain that maybe you had your reasons, but I was picking up quite a few negative vibes from almost everyone regarding his project, while I sympathise with their reasons for negativity, I'm wondering if those reasons really justified not winning this trophy.

I'm also shocked that vladikcomper's hack (or homebrew) was restricted from the hacking contest, some of the code from it was still from the original Sonic engine as I understand it, and vladikcomper's original code would have been based on the original code in terms of ideas while not necessarily code, I really believe that it should have been in, and it should have won something. I know you guys had explained to me in minor detail regarding the line between hack and homebrew, I just wished it would have been bent this one time around.

I do not wish to sound ungrateful though, and I am not implying the contest was rigged or anything, I just wanted to express my opinion and supply justification where it's needed, more importantly though, I wanted to ask if you guys would consider runner up trophies? I know we displayed runners up before in previous contests (not sure why the recent contests have seemed to have dropped them), but it would be nice to give extra credit where its due to show how close someone was to winning, this would help encourage those to work a little bit harder, I am also really curious as to who would have gotten the trophies had I have not gotten in the way in the first place. What do you guys think?

 

Personally I think the level of polish creativity on a hack goes a long way. You can have minimal/dirty code running your game but if the end result gives an extremely satisfying memorable experience it's not going to matter.

Though I can understand the self criticism markey, especially considering your name has fame behind it.

 

It's good to ask questions like this. I don't think any of the judges mind talking about the results. They're ultimately just opinions formulated within the tight confines of the time frame given for judging.

Personally, while I loved Natsumi's bosses (and it made the decision close), I found your boss to test the bounds of a boss fight by making the boss arena have no gravity at all. It felt a lot more unusual and different from your traditional dodge and hop dynamics that Natsumi's boss still stuck to. Natsumi's bosses are cool, but your boss just seemed to strike the judges as unique enough to nudge it to victory in that category.

I believe the differentiation is that you did more with less, and you executed it well. Don't get me wrong, CybOut is technical, but let's face it, there were a lot of problems with the entry that ultimately tainted its impression. I think you'd agree when I say that technical ability doesn't mean much if the execution isn't well. Ergo, I believe you got 11000101 because your entry was the most technologically impressive and solidly stable in execution, while CybOut missed out because of its bugs and overall rushed feeling. Others may not agree with me, but that was my personal reasoning.

Yeah, that's definitely going to be discussed *very heavily* in the post-contest discussions. The ambiguous nature of the definition for the rule is problematic and ends up with situations exactly like this.

You're not sounding ungrateful at all. You're sounding as modest and curious as you always are. Keep it up. The team's open to suggestions, and we want to make this contest even bigger and better next year.

 

I couldn't agree more wit Iron Sonic, while my bosses maybe were good at best, they quite didnt't go for the "wow"-factor or shaking things up ass well as I'd hope or you did. I think you should have got it in the end, because your boss was so polished and interesting, which I can't say mine were, even nearly so.

 

My love for your final boss disagrees, Green Snake...

 

On SSRG it was said:

Honestly, ?I couldn't disagree more with that statement. Making something crazy impressive isn't a privilege given to everyone equally, like you claim there to be, because some people just have a better feeling for content creation than others. No amount of time or effort will change this. Sure, everyone can make something quite good with enough time, but certainly not everyone is a candidate for a Hidden Palace Trophy worthy hack, no matter how hard they try, because at some point what you consider "trying" reaches its limits.

Think of this as the Olympics. In theory, I could win gold, but it's just not a given that everyone is able to do this, just because on paper it could work. Different body conditions, different specializations, different interests. You get the point.

I draw heavy parallels here, because some hacks were bound to fail from the get-go, just because of what they are. This is true to all Generation hacks, all character-replacement hacks, all "standard" hacks.


Am I disagreeing with the results? Not entirely. Many trophies were given to the rightful hacks and creators, but there were so many that just don't add up. This mindless showering on The Next Level just strikes me as odd until I see what the runner-ups would've been.

So, please, add those retroactively. You already got the votes of the judges somewhere, it shouldn't be a problem to add them up again and see who came in second for each trophy (unless for some reason some trophies were won with all votes).


Finally, I think that adding a trophy at the last minute, competition or not, is just wrong. It doesn't matter whether or not it was the only NSFW hack submitted, and I also don't mind it because it'll be the only thing people will remember of the hack. It's wrong because a trophy was brought back due to subjective opinions of the judges without doing it with any other trophies. To me that directly translates into, "Unless you do something that provokes attention, you are nothing special."


Overall, this year's contest was a big improvement from the last year's, but it still decided to screw its reputation over and look unprofessional at the last minute for pointless reasons.

Also, now my name will be remembered in a gay fic. Again.

 

I agree with Selbi, actually. Bringing back the Shadow trophy with no warning just to be awarded to natsumi for the fanfic in her hack (Which by the way, is just that. A fanfic), is just wrong, in my opinion. I know this contest is supposed to be fun, but the tone has been moving towards a more professional one over the last 2 years and this year felt no different (bar a few small issues I won't go into now), until this happened. I've got nothing against bringing back trophies, but this felt more like an easy way of throwing another one out there for the sake of it. As a judge, I didn't even know about it until the live stream, which is just poor planning as well, in my opinion.

As I said before, I think that displaying runner-ups for trophies is a good idea. It gives people something to work towards next time; especially if they are well-versed in a single area. (For example, I didn't win the Lava Reef Trophy last year but I did this year. Now, if I had come second in this trophy category last year, I would be more determined to try and achieve it this year. It's an example, though. Nothing to hold facts against).

Finally, yes, I have stepped down as a contest judge from now on. This was a decision that I didn't take lightly and have already discussed it with Spanner. I look forward to seeing who the replacement judges are for myself and Shadow Fire, and I wish them the best of luck with the process. It can be a tough one, but also rather rewarding.

 

Again?! =P


Anyway, what I have to say on the results:

Wait, what? A hack won a trophy that wasn't available to be won in the first place? Especially when there was only one hack that had one feature NSFW? Where the hell is the "best multiplayer" trophy? I swear that use to be one, and at least there was some competition for that one (Sonic Bash, Knuckles Emerald Hunt, Big's Fishing Derby). Seems unfair and not exactly a great competition to bring a new trophy right at the end where only one hack is eligable for it. It's also a shame SonicMT.bin is only going to be remembered because of that fanfic. It's funny, I admit, but it had a lot more features and hard work put into it that no one cares about.


Except for that, I think the results were almost spot on. I was only after the most fun/entertaining hack (mine weren't really eligable for many others), but MJ's hack was enjoyable, so I'm fine losing to that. The "Shadow Trophy" is the only thing I disagree with; it shouldn't even be there.


Anyway, I'm not asking to take Natsumi's/Green Snake's trophy away, nah, not at all. Too late for that, and I'm glad Natsumi won something. Now don't get me wrong, Natsumi's hack is really well done; for her bosses and the points system. In fact, her hack is one of the very small few that makes me want to replay Sonic 1 because I can earn points and earn rewards to go with that game. I enjoy her hack. I do not like the hack for the fanfic however, and that's all it's getting known for at the moment. My point is, if you're bringing that trophy back because of a laugh, then why not bring the multiplayer one back for someone like me, flamewing and MM worked hard on with multiplayer compatibilities? That's all.

EDIT: Spellings.

 

I agree on listing the runners up. I remember that used to be a thing, and even if it didn't change anything, it made it seem as though it was a closer contest.

When you're just listing winners as you did here, it's just like "well, MarkeyJester won everything, everyone else can go home". If you'd listed each trophies along with a potential second place winner (obviously not for the overall trophies, but for the specialist ones) the runners up have more motivation to improve their hacks next year ("I was just one spot away from taking the trophy!").

Also, Big's Fishing Derby should've taken the gold. :v: Well done to Markey and everyone else, of course.

 

You took my comment out of context. I was agreeing with Selbi (and, in retrospect, redhotsonic) that adding that trophy at the last minute, without warning, for one hack (that had no competition) was not a good decision. I am well aware of the rules, whereby you can add and remove trophies at any time, and I'm not disputing that (I even said so in my post). I just dislike the way it was done, which was purely for a joke. In contrast to how well things went this year, it felt out of place and, ultimately, unprofessional. This is my opinion, of course, but it appears that I'm not the only one who thinks so.

 

Hmm... what fanfic? NSFW? What did I miss? *Yes, I wasn't able to beat Sonic1MT and I am ashamed, but that gave me time for playing other hacks*

Congratulations to all people who won something, but mostly congratulatios and thanks to everyone who participated on the contest, a) for being good enough to have something and b) for giving life to this thing that make us replay Sonic even though we played it a million times.

 

Why would you do it in private? I don't see why you don't just make them outright public in the first post.

This goes for Natsumi herself, who probably doesn't enjoy a hack getting lost beyond a fanfic. By your own rules it was okay, but on an ethical level it just felt wrong.

 

This topic reminds me why I stopped caring about the SHC a few years ago. There are several things which are just wrong.