Foo Races Competition

[Black Ninja]

Hello all you foos out there.
I bet you're thinking "UGH, ANOTHER COMPETITION". Well, that's EXACTLY what this is. ANOTHER COMPETITION.

The Foo Races team currently consists of Spotty, Violet, Evilmike, Labratkid, and myself. However, we are currently looking to add a sorry sack of stupidity to our team. So, here's how it's going to be. To join the team, you must make the best Foo Race in the competition. There are some guidelines, of course:

1.) You can use Fooruman if you want to, but it will not affect your score.
2.) Races must be at least 3 laps long.
3.) Races must be playable in Treasure mode.
4.) You may make your own lap system, or you may use the coin system.
5.) Races must be no larger than 300x300 tiles.

Please submit your races in .zip format, along with any required music file or tileset. You may submit the race to J2O, but ONLY once the contest is over. You can email your entries to blackninja@fooproducts.com, but I prefer you find some way to host them, as my mail server is painfully slow.

All entries are due Monday, June 21, at 9:00 PM, Pacific Time. The reason there is such a short time period for this contest is because, honestly, a typical Foo Race takes us well under a week to finish. IF YOU CAN'T TAKE THE HEAT, GET YOURSELF OUT OF THE SAUNA.

Thank you, and good luck.

BN

Edit: You can view the currently released races at http://www.fooproducts.com/FooRaces.shtml.

[Odin]

Excellent. I'll join.

-ThO

[acid]

Sounds fun. I may try this out.

[Violet CLM]

Why didn't anyone tell me I was on the team? I might have actually made some races if I had known.

[Black Ninja]

It seems like I said something about it one time before you disconnected, Violet.
Anyway, good luck in the competition, people.
WHY ISN'T THIS STICKY?

[D4shRed]

I'll try...

[DoubleGJ]

Cool. Gotta.

[$n00z]

im gonna try too. :)

[Disguise]

Stickied, sorry I'm a bit slow in my olden days :(

I won't be taking part though, I prefer tilesets, but good luck to the people that will be 8D

[Black Ninja]

Good to see some people participating. I was expecting we'd get like 2 entries and that they'd both suck.

Anyway, status update:
Only a couple days left! Any last-minute entries are still welcome, of course. I could make 20 races in the amount of time you have left (Or maybe 5 good ones)!

Once again, good luck. I'll post again on Monday.

[Trafton]

A contest to make a bad level. Odd. And the perfect contest for me.

If I get the time, I'm in.

[Lark]

Foo Races aren't bad; the fun part about them is that they don't have to be really good, and you can just enjoy working on them instead of worrying about if they'll be perfect or not. ;D

[Black Ninja]

Exactly, LRK.
If people just send in the worst levels they can make, this contest will prove rather useless ;p

Anyway, only one day left in the competition. Good luck to all the foos who signed up. To any foos who didn't sign up, I have no message.

GOOD LUCK AGAIN, YOU DIRTY MONSTERS!

[Lark]

At this moment, AcId is in the lead, simply because his level is the only one recieved so far. It's a good level anyway, though, and probably might win.

[Odin]

I PMed Black Ninja about my entry. I'll host it at anytime you want. Yeah, I know the deadline is past, but I still have one.

-ThO

[Black Ninja]

I PMed Black Ninja about my entry. I'll host it at anytime you want. Yeah, I know the deadline is past, but I still have one.

-ThO

Actually, the deadline has not passed. 2 Hours left as of my posting this.

[Odin]

Actually, the deadline has not passed. 2 Hours left as of my posting this.
Oh, I now see you wrote Pacific Time. I'm in Eastern time here. I feel so stupid now.

-ThO

[KRSplat]

I have 2 hours to play some Foo Races and figure out what they are. Then I have to make one. Better get going.

EDIT: I give up. I tried hard for almost 5 minutes. Too hard for me. I'm sorry.

[acid]

Hooray I'm winning ^.^

[Black Ninja]

The contest is now over.
Oddly, only 2 entrants actually gave me their races.
Oh well. Good luck to the two contestants.

[acid]

Weird, it looked like a whole bunch of people were joining... Oh well. Good luck to whoever is not me and sent in their race.

[Black Ninja]

Oh, I'm sorry. The two contestants are acid and RoW_Odin314. Once again, good luck to both of you. The results should be posted here tomorrow.

[Odin]

Funny thing was, eariler in this thread, you said that you thought you'd only get 2 entries and they'd both suck. You only got 2 entries for your contest, and mine sucks, and chances are AcId's sucks too. (No offense)

Good luck, AcId.


-ThO

[D4shRed]

I can't make a Foo race level xP! Sorry.

[Black Ninja]

Whatever.
The judges will be myself, Spotty, and Labratkid. We will have our decision by the end of the day.

[Black Ninja]

Well, after a basically unsolvable dispute, we called Trafton in to judge. The results should be up soon. Both races, the winning one and the losing one, will be added to the loop, although only the winner will join the team and make more of the fantastic garbage.

Good luck to both of you.

[Black Ninja]

Well, the judges have (at last) come to a decision. Trafton was kind enough to write a short review for both of the races, so I will post that here. He really says all there is to say. However, I'd also like to add that it was very, very close. Both races are very good in their own ways. If ThO_Odin and Acid had worked together, you'd probably get the best Foo Race of all time. So, here's Trafton's infinite wisdom, which basically expresses the feelings of all the judges.

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Fooruman vs. Monk-Man (ThO_Odin)
The story. Foo Races stories aren’t exactly Jack London novels, and they aren’t meant to be, but every one has a distinct stupid story behind it. Fooruman vs. Monk-Man contains no such story. There’s something about Fooruman battling Monk-Man, but I was left wondering what this had anything to do with me. Oh well. At least he tried, although not very much. The story wasn’t even resolved in the end.

The look. Part of Foo Races is appearance, although not a major part. However, it’s good to have some entertaining or at least non-distracting eyecandy in race levels. Here, we see a 4.2 job. The Hocus Pocus tileset looks pretty bad here, with pointless invisible blocks (a design faux paus at this level.) It could be worse looking, but there’s not much creativity or effort here.

The fooishness. “Fooishness” is hard to measure, but it basically means how true the atmosphere is to the series. Fooruman vs. Monk-Man feels less like a Foo Races level than an unbranded level with Fooruman’s name slapped on. There are no in-jokes or anything, and Fooruman does not have any of his classic lines.

The puzzles. It’s hard to generate a lot of good idea for puzzles, so I’ll be nice here. The puzzles here are mostly minor variants of previous Foo Races puzzles. However, they are set up fairly well and seem effective. Nothing new, but everything seems functional enough to make up for this.

The layout. I frequently got confused while running around this level. It’s partially because all of the invisible blocks. In addition, the level ended a tad too quickly for me. Even with five loops, this level would be too fast and it isn’t challenging enough. Just a bit too confusing, and just a bit too short.

The verdict. Fooruman vs. Monk-Man shows many signs of life, but unfortunately appears that it would have been a better product if more effort and creativity was put into it. I probably wouldn’t consider putting it into a Foo Races pack.


Foospace (Acid)
The story. There isn’t any. There needs to be a story to make it a Foo Race.

The look. When I first looked at Foospace, I was surprised that it used the Space Warbase tileset. It would certainly be the first Foo Race to do so. It isn’t exactly a tileset that lends itself to levels like Foo Races. However, it looks fine, although there’s nothing Foo Races-related, which will become a problem. Tasty, but needs a dash of Foo.

The fooishness. Boo. Booooo. There just isn’t any foo. That’s right: Not a single foo reference in this level. Was this just a race level renamed to Fooscape or something? There really, really needs to be Foo-related elements added here.

The puzzles. All the puzzles here, like in traditional race levels, are more or less just running through the area as quickly as possible. Nothing here is creative, and nothing is new. Heck, there isn’t a single obstacle that involves an event. The elevator parts are cool, but not Foo Race-y. Creative spacial puzzles, and well-done layout, but there aren’t any Foo puzzles.

The layout. The layout, for a normal race level, is perfect. As a Foo level, it would be perfect. There isn’t much to say here, other than it’s a shame that this isn’t really a Foo Races level.

The verdict. Fooscape is a very spiffy race level, but not a Foo Races level. Acid shows great promise as a Foo Races level maker, but there need to be more creative puzzles and some hint of a plot line relating to Foo Races.

The Winner
ThO_Odin’s level suffers from a lack of professionalism, although it is much more Foo Race-y than Acid’s. As a level, it is significantly inferior. In fact, the puzzles and Foo Race-ishness are the only things that it have going for it. Acid’s level could have some puzzles added to it and a plot line easily integrated, but overall Acid’s level is the superior level overall, Foo Race or not.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

So, congratulations, Acid! Also, ThO_Odin certainly deserves an honorable mention, and his race will be included in the Foo Races loop. Good job to both of the contestants.

For Acid: You'll be getting an E-Mail in the near future, which will include the Foo Races Resource Kit and all the other info you may need. Again, congratulations.

For ThO_Odin: Your race was very much in Foo Races tradition. However, it lacked eye candy, and the plot was just a little confusing. If we have another contest (and we may), I wouldn't be surprised if you were the winner. Good job on your race.

For all the other foos: The contest is over. You should all send E-Mails of praise to Acid and ThO_Odin. They are superior beings, due to the fact that they actually submitted something.

GOD BLESS YOU ALL.
THE END.

[Violet CLM]

I would have submitted something if I weren't already on the team. It's your own fault for saying I was on it in the first place.

[Odin]

Nice job, AcId. I congratulate you on your victory.

I'm upset that you didn't mention my lap counting system. The race would've been a bit longer if I had more time (not your fault, I had a ton of stuff to do).

I'm sorry mine sucked. Then again, what'd you expect? Foo Races of all kinds suck. (No offense) I guess i'll go upload it and work on another.

If you think about it, a Foo Race is not meant to be that good, nor is it meant to suck. The point of a Foo Race is for people to enjoy it and for the creator to enjoy the process of creating the Foo Race.

So i'll make some more, post those as a pack, and see if anyone likes it.

-ThO

[acid]

Wow. I really wasn't expecting to win this. Even after reading Trafton's reviews, I thought ThO had won. Oh well, good job too, ThO.

The main reason for my lack of foo content is that I only vaguely remember playing one Foo Race, which was the one using the Mez 1 tileset. Or maybe that wasn't even a Foo Race. Or maybe I'm really confused.

[Black Ninja]

That is actually the first Foo Race. Fooruman didn't exist yet, nor did any of the other main characters/plot points. Anyway, expect that email soon. My mail server uploads astoundingly slow (I've been working on sending your mail for 20 minutes).