events VGS Bingo - Post-mortem

[Gloves | 11,771]

BINGOOOOOOO!!!

But not for 5 of you.

 

I'm hoping everybody who participated had a good time, and maybe tried something new along the way. The goal of this event was to get people not just active but participating on the site with each other, and to step out of your comfort zones. 

I'll start with a big congrats to the 3 who cleared the entire board! @DefaultGen, @Jeevan, and @ZeldaFreak, well done!

I'd like to get everybody's feedback on the event, so please do be sure to respond to the poll questions. These will help to make similar events in the future even better! And beyond that please do feel free to leave feedback in this thread.

Also, it's been suggested that someone compile the cool stuff people made for this event, and I was entirely planning to do so, but by golly you all have made SO MUCH cool stuff! Like jeez you've not made my job easy in this regard. I'll get to it soon... >_>

Now, to the reveal!

 

As you can see by the very fast moving gif above, there were 3 secret charms - Make, Collect, and Play! The idea being that these are the 3 pillars to the community. I made the tiles based on the pillars, each with a (roughly) even amount of easy, medium, and hard tiles (green, orange, red, respectively). If you completed all of the tiles for a pillar, that earned you the secret charm for that specific pillar. Yes, if you earned the blackout, this means you also earned all 3 of the secret charms. Do note that the secret charms are one-time only!

If/when we run BINGO again, the completion charms will remain the same and you can upgrade your previously earned charm; if however you have a blackout this time around, you will still be able to participate next time to earn new, different secret charms!

Phew that was a lot of explaining.

Here's the list of who won what, for clarity:

• @Reed Rothchild
  • Secret: Collect
• @0xDEAFC0DE
  • Line
• @JamesRobot
  • Line
• @Adorabear
  • Line
• @CasualCart
  • Line
• @Hammerfestus
  • Line
• @Deadeye
  • Line
• @KokiriChild
  • Line
• @Jicsan
  • Cross
  • Secret: Make
  • Secret: Collect
• @Gaia Gensouki
  • Cross
• @DefaultGen
  • Blackout
  • Secret: Make
  • Secret: Collect
  • Secret: Play
• @Jeevan
  • Blackout
  • Secret: Make
  • Secret: Collect
  • Secret: Play
• @ZeldaFreak
  • Blackout
  • Secret: Make
  • Secret: Collect
  • Secret: Play

[Gloves | 11,771]

Sidenote: The designs for the charms will be revealed at a later date; I was planning to make them last week, but I ended up having to focus really hard on work. Likely the same this week but I will do my best to get them all made up soon. Thanks for your patience!

[Murray | 2,447]

No Runescape. 10/10

[Deadeye | 1,596]

This was great.  The week time frame and varies routes made it open to people who had selective free time and as well for people who wanted an all in competitive experience.  

Each line was laid out well.  You most likely had to get out of confront zone to compete a bingo.  Either you had to play a homebrew, maybe something you never did, or make chiptunes (thanks gloves, I now know I will never be a chiptune artist), or do online play with VGS members.

Great job @Gloves

[Jeevan | 8,910]

2 hours ago, Deadeye said:

This was great.  The week time frame and varies routes made it open to people who had selective free time and as well for people who wanted an all in competitive experience.  

Each line was laid out well.  You most likely had to get out of confront zone to compete a bingo.  Either you had to play a homebrew, maybe something you never did, or make chiptunes (thanks gloves, I now know I will never be a chiptune artist), or do online play with VGS members.

Great job @Gloves

why no online?  I mean, if i had a switch i would for sure kick ur butt at some mario kart  or get my butt kicked, whichever.

[Deadeye | 1,596]

1 minute ago, Jeevan said:

why no online?  I mean, if i had a switch i would for sure kick ur butt at some mario kart  or get my butt kicked, whichever.

I wasn't suggesting to remove it.  I meant there was most likely an item in every line that you haven't done before, which is good. 

[Jeevan | 8,910]

1 minute ago, Deadeye said:

I wasn't suggesting to remove it.  I meant there was most likely an item in every line that you haven't done before, which is good. 

Ahh, gotcha, ya i was like almost bingo, shit, almost bingo, shit, almost bingo, shit.........now to crawl out of my hole and do some of this........

[JamesRobot | 5,790]

Well done @Gloves.  I had a blast and was happy to try some stuff a little out of my element.  Length was good for the challenge.  I feel 2 weeks may have made it too easy.

I liked the secret charms and suspected those were the categories.  There seemed to be a distinct theme.  I voted that charms were perfect but also not varied enough; only because I would like to see the special charms change out a little bit next time.

All in all this is the kind of thing I really appreciate about VGS.  Thanks.

[T-Pac | 7,531]

Sick - this was a ton of fun @Gloves! It was so well-thought-out, and I look forward to future games like this!

-CasualCart

[Jeevan | 8,910]

Voted, I forgot to the first time.  All in all, good little game to spice things up!  Liked it, and it did get me out of my element on a lot of things.  Thanks for doing this, I think the length was good and it was reasonable on all of the challenges.

Now we expect for you to use our submissions in Gamemaker to make your own game for VGS! 

[Hammerfestus | 3,832]

This was great.  I think the length of time was perfect. Any longer and it would’ve been too drawn out.  Wish I had more free time.  Would’ve snagged a laptop so I could try my hand at that making a platform er challenge.  Can’t wait to do it again.

[Jicsan | 589]

Thanks Gloves, this was a ton of fun!  By the way, I like what you did with my card  

@Gloves if the idea was for members to only get a single or few bingo lines, then one week seems about right looking at the results.  If the idea was to get as many black outs as possible, then two weeks would have been better.  I only got so much done in because I was off work the whole week.  On a regular week I would probably have struggled to get one line done. 

There wasn't anything insurmountably difficult, I had to bang my head against Make Your Mark and Jump, Man; but I got it in the end.  I would have gotten Game Master too, but I asked for help a bit too late.  @Jeevan, @ZeldaFreak, and @DefaultGen were all helping me out with suggestions and they all really wanted me to get that last square, I just ran out of time and chose sleep over games.  Look at it this way though; there are 7 charms for LINE, 5 charms for COLLECT,  4 for MAKE, 3 each for PLAY and BLACKOUT, and only 2 for CROSS.  So I got the rarest charm!  High-five to @Gaia Gensouki my rare charm compatriot!   When the next one rolls around I will aim to get that gaming charm first!

I'm going to try to keep involved with the VGS Weekly Contests and the Homebrew Leaderboard.  I don't know why I never participated in them before, but Glove's Bingo was a great invitation for me to get in there.  I know there was no invitation required, but you all know what I mean.

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Jicsan

[OptOut | 8,883]

ROBBED! I was frikin ROBBED I tells ya! 

I'm done, you can keep your stinking charms, quote unquote " @Gloves " if that even is your real name! 

[Adorabear | 69]

This was a fun event! I felt like it was a bit too short, but I think some of that could have been due to an unlucky schedule and having to be at work all day for most of the days of the event. I am still glad I got to participate though and wish I wasn't so busy so I could have tried to get more spots; I was close to being able to get the Cross!

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

Super fun. I'd prefer a longer contest even if it meant harder tasks. It was hard to grasp how long everything would take and try to schedule it into a single week. Having a full weekend would help instead of two weekend halves.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

Hey, thanks so much for putting this event together! That was really fun

I'd say the week timeframe felt like a good amount for the difficulty of the challenges. If you raise the difficulty of the next one, I'd say slightly upping the timeframe might be a good idea.

I chose Not Varied Enough for the charms. The standard charms, from tier 1 to 4 I think are good as they are, but I think the secret charms... I dunno, IMO they aren't as interesting as they could've been. I was hoping for something like my theory on what they were, that whoever makes the best chiptune song/platformer/ whatever gets the secret charm for each respective category, or something like that. I dunno, maybe I'm just saying this because I got a blackout, but I feel like the secret charms just being for clearing a few specific rows isn't very interesting. That's just a minor nitpick though, and I mean, I'm not gonna complain about getting all 3 secret charms plus the T4 charm I just think they shouldn't be charms that you're guaranteed to get if you get a blackout.

[Gloves | 11,771]

8 minutes ago, ZeldaFreak said:

I just think they shouldn't be charms that you're guaranteed to get if you get a blackout.

That's the main concern with this set for sure; I was honestly anticipating maybe 1 blackout is the thing. That's why I said early on that even if you can't clear the board, keep doing as many as you can  - you may earn a secret charm by doing so. Reed is the prime example really, he didn't get even a line but he DID get a secret charm. It was an extra incentive to try stuff out, even if you couldn't manage the harder stuff.

I always hesitate to do things that come down to personal preference. Maybe in future I'll go that route but for the first Bingo I wanted to do it relatively simply. I think it was a big success, everyone seems to have enjoyed it, and like I said the secret charms will change with each iteration; they'll be completely different next time to keep you guessing, and keep even the blackout folks coming back for more!

I actually already have my next event in my head, I just need to get it on paper and start planning. These things can take a while to iron out the details, but I hope that it's worth it for the fun everyone has.

[ZeldaFreak | 3,600]

34 minutes ago, Gloves said:

Maybe in future I'll go that route but for the first Bingo I wanted to do it relatively simply.

Yeah, it makes sense to keep it simple for the first run. Just tryin' to spitball some suggestions for future ones

[DefaultGen | 5,401]

2 hours ago, Gloves said:

I was honestly anticipating maybe 1 blackout is the thing

You know this website is full of world champion checklist checkers right?

[Gloves | 11,771]

4 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

You know this website is full of world champion checklist checkers right?

Buncha nerds.

[Murray | 2,447]

7 hours ago, Gloves said:

I actually already have my next event in my head, I just need to get it on paper and start planning. These things can take a while to iron out the details, but I hope that it's worth it for the fun everyone has.

VGS camp out at Gloves’s place. We know you have a grill! 

Edited August 24, 2020 by Murray

[Mega Tank | 960]

32 minutes ago, Murray said:

VGS camp out at Gloves’s place. We know you have a grill! 

BYOBuns unless you want bunless burgers.

If we do have a campout, I'll spot @Gloves a ticket for a rollercoaster theme park. 

[DoctorEncore | 3,690]

I knew it was unrealistic for me to think I'd have time to participate, but I still thought it was a cool event. I think extending it to a month would be better so people don't feel rushed and you don't feel the need to create as many events. You could throw a few really tough challenges in there to keep the board completion rate at 1-2 people per month.

[Jicsan | 589]

6 minutes ago, DoctorEncore said:

I knew it was unrealistic for me to think I'd have time to participate, but I still thought it was a cool event. I think extending it to a month would be better so people don't feel rushed and you don't feel the need to create as many events. You could throw a few really tough challenges in there to keep the board completion rate at 1-2 people per month.

A month long one with harder challenges could be fun.  Plus you'd have a 'procrastination factor' kick in with more time to do it.  It'd be funny to watch folks scramble as the time shrinks.

[Gloves | 11,771]

The rough part of a month-long event is that people can burn out, and the chat gets pretty stale. I've noticed that compared to other contests that DO last a month, this was quite active the entire week. Part of the idea was to make an event that IS possible to complete within a week, given some effort.

Time is a hard thing to balance and make everyone happy heh.