Posts Tagged “Challenges”

NOTE: THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

I realise it’s been a while between challenges but with the imminent release of the full game it seems like a good time to launch the Coolest. Challenge. Ever!

That’s right, we’re returning to the land of superbright colours, bad hairstyles, strange dancing and groooovy chicks, man!

Yes, this week’s challenge is to create a creature you think would have fit into the disco dancing scene of the 70s and 80s.
Not sure what that entails? Perhaps you’re a little too young to know the 70s and 80s? Check out this YouTube video and you ought to get the idea. And possibly some bad flashbacks!

And since this is the final challenge before the release of Spore it seems fitting that this week… there be prizes!

NOTE: THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

With thanks to the good people of Direct2Drive.com I have five – yes FIVE – copies of the full version of Spore to giveaway!
These copies of the game are the digital download version, the same one you can preorder from them now or buy as of the 7th of September.

NOTE: THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

How to enter:
1. Create a creature in the Spore Creature Creator.
2. Make sure you put “sporedaily.com challenge” as one of the tags for the creature.
3. Include a groovy description for your creature. It doesn’t have to be 70s-80s related.
4. Upload your creature to the Sporepedia.
5. Reply to this post before 5pm, Wednesday the 3rd of September (Pacific Daylight Time), with the name of your creature and a link to the Sporepedia entry for your creature. Be sure to include a working email address with your comment (or have a working address attached to your Disqus account) as that is how I will contact the winner! Put the address in the “Email:” line, not in the comments box.
5a. (Optional) Include a link to a YouTube video of your creature busting some groovy dance moves!

Winners will be selected by me, based on how good your creature looks and moves, your creature’s description and the overall grooviness, dude!
Winners will receive one copy of the full game, Spore, available via digital download from Direct2Drive.

NOTE: THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

Rules for entry:
1. You must be a resident of the United States of America or Canada. Sorry. As an Australian myself, I feel your pain, but Direct2Drive can only offer me copies for the US and Canada.
2. You must use a real email address when entering as I will need to contact you with details on how to claim your prize, should you win. Your address will not be recorded or displayed publicly, it will only be used to contact you if you win. If you cannot be reached to claim your prize it may be given to the next person in line. Add sporedaily.com to your mail filters if necessary!
3. One entry per person, please.
4. The judge’s decision will be final. No correspondence will be entered into, etc.
5. All entries must be posted PRIOR to 5pm, Wednesday the 3rd of September, Pacific Daylight Time.
6. Your creature MUST be tagged with the “sporedaily.com challenge” tag. I must insist on this to confirm that creatures are in fact owned by someone entering the competition. When the competition ends you are free – win or lose – to remove the tag, it is purely for the purposes of competition verification.
7. Responsibility for downloading the game is the winner’s. Spore Daily will not be providing DVDs, you will have to download the game from the Direct2Drive (Fileplanet) servers. As part of claiming your prize you will need to register a Fileplanet account. Registration is free.
8. The prize is not redeemable for cash. If you do not want a copy of the game, do not enter!
9. Reply to this post directly to enter, do not reply to another comment “higher up” or you will be disqualified. If you do so accidentally, there is an edit button available so you can remove your misplaced entry and enter correctly.

Failure to follow any of the above rules will result in disqualification. I realise there’s quite a few of them but I expect I’ve managed to forget something anyway. Ignorance will not be accepted as an excuse for rulebreaking.

If you would like to participate in the challenge but live outside the US or Canada, please clearly mark your comment “(Non-US/Canada)” so that I know to exclude your entry from consideration for the prizes.

And if you have not yet pre-ordered yourself a copy of Spore then I can recommend Direct2Drive’s digital download store, and not just because they’ve given me fantabulous prizes to hand out. Their system is simple and painless. It is, in fact, how I got my copy of the Creature Creator!
To order the game from the US/Canada store, please click here.
If you’re in the UK/EU, you can buy it from the UK Direct2Drive instead.

Take your time and make sure you submit your best entry if you want to win yourself a free copy of the game. You have until Wednesday!

(Please note, I have never given away anything remotely like this before so excuse the length of the above. I wanted to ensure all bases were covered.)

NOTE: Please wait a couple of minutes before reposting an entry you think did not go through. My site is cached to reduce server load so you may not see new comments immediately. Sorry for any confusion!

NOTE: THE COMPETITION IS NOW CLOSED!

For those who didn’t read the introductory post, or who weren’t here for Challenge #1 or Challenge #2 or Challenge #3 or Challenge #4 or Challenge #5 or Challenge #6 (kudos to everyone who has participated!), part of what I’m hoping to do here on Spore Daily is give people a nudge in the creativity department by setting weekly challenges for people to try.

These challenges are meant to be the fun kind of challenge, not the gruelling “Climb Mt Everest” kind. And it’s not a competition, either. But even if it was, there would still be no prizes. Sorry, all my money is invested in cookies.

Think of the challenge as more of a “prompt”, as some fiction writing circles are known to do some times. Someone comes up with a theme, or an idea, or a setting and writers can then fill in the blanks, as it were.

In this instance, it will be some kind of guideline to follow when creating your creature.

This week’s challenge has been spurred on by my general burnout with the game and the subsequent run of 5 minute creations…

Challenge #7:

The “Five Minute Fling” challenge is pretty much what it sounds like. Get the Creature Creator loaded and ready to go, take a note of the time and then GO! You have just five minutes to create something!

Okay, you don’t need to stick too strictly to the “five minute” limit. If you go a little over nobody is going to come around and break your kneecaps! But the gist of the challenge is to get the creature created and painted up in 5 minutes or less, so no 3 hour masterpieces please!

As always, post links to your creatures in the comments section and have fun!

For those who didn’t read the introductory post, or who weren’t here for Challenge #1 or Challenge #2 or Challenge #3 or Challenge #4 or Challenge #5 (kudos to everyone who has participated!), part of what I’m hoping to do here on Spore Daily is give people a nudge in the creativity department by setting weekly challenges for people to try.

These challenges are meant to be the fun kind of challenge, not the gruelling “Climb Mt Everest” kind. And it’s not a competition, either. But even if it was, there would still be no prizes. Sorry, all my money is invested in cookies.

Think of the challenge as more of a “prompt”, as some fiction writing circles are known to do some times. Someone comes up with a theme, or an idea, or a setting and writers can then fill in the blanks, as it were.

In this instance, it will be some kind of guideline to follow when creating your creature.

This week’s challenge is sort of a counterpart to last week’s challenge…

Challenge #6:

“My, what big eyes you have!” “All the better to see you with, my dear…”
If you don’t recognise those lines, they’re from Little Red Riding Hood. Red is remarking on the size of the eyes of the wolf who has eaten her grandma!

In this week’s challenge you should have either an unusual quantity of eyes on your creature or eyes in an unusual place on your creature.
An unusual quantity might mean 7, for instance, while an unusual place might be the creature’s feet!
It’s entirely up to you.
I did consider making this challenge be simply “really big eyes” but I suspect most folks have already done that. You may also have done an unusual quantity, but that’s why you can also do unusual places!

As always, post links to your creatures in the comments section and have fun!

For those who didn’t read the introductory post, or who weren’t here for Challenge #1 or Challenge #2 or Challenge #3 or Challenge #4 (kudos to everyone who has participated!), part of what I’m hoping to do here on Spore Daily is give people a nudge in the creativity department by setting weekly challenges for people to try.

These challenges are meant to be the fun kind of challenge, not the gruelling “Climb Mt Everest” kind. And it’s not a competition, either. But even if it was, there would still be no prizes. Sorry, all my money is invested in cookies.

Think of the challenge as more of a “prompt”, as some fiction writing circles are known to do some times. Someone comes up with a theme, or an idea, or a setting and writers can then fill in the blanks, as it were.

In this instance, it will be some kind of guideline to follow when creating your creature.

This week’s challenge is just plain weird!

Challenge #5:

CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW? Well, if not, maybe you should evolve some more ears, or have your existing ears grafted to a more useful location!

In this week’s challenge you should have either an unusual quantity of ears on your creature or ears in an unusual place on your creature.
An unusual quantity might mean 7, for instance, while an unusual place might be the creature’s feet!
It’s entirely up to you.

As always, post links to your creatures in the comments section and have fun!

For those who didn’t read the introductory post, or who weren’t here for Challenge #1 or Challenge #2 or Challenge #3 (kudos to everyone who has participated!), part of what I’m hoping to do here on Spore Daily is give people a nudge in the creativity department by setting weekly challenges for people to try.

These challenges are meant to be the fun kind of challenge, not the gruelling “Climb Mt Everest” kind. And it’s not a competition, either. But even if it was, there would still be no prizes. Sorry, all my money is invested in cookies.

Think of the challenge as more of a “prompt”, as some fiction writing circles are known to do some times. Someone comes up with a theme, or an idea, or a setting and writers can then fill in the blanks, as it were.

In this instance, it will be some kind of guideline to follow when creating your creature.

This week’s challenge is geared towards playing the full game… with a sort of metagaming twist!

Challenge #4:

Create a representative for the grand Azure Ascendancy.

The Azure Ascendancy is a race of creatures, primarily blue in colour, who have reached the peak of their evolution and are now beginning to explore the galaxy.

As a fully sentient creature, an Azure Ascendancy creature should have Graspers with which to manipulate tools and UFO controls.

And, of course, they should be some shade of blue!

Note that you don’t have to call your creature any variation of “Azure Ascendancy”, that’s just “flavour text”. Call it whatever you choose.

** OR **

Create a representative for the Royal Rouge Rebellion.

Like the Azure Ascendancy, the Royal Rouge Rebellion have reached the peak of evolution on their own planet and are now endeavouring to bring their rouge-y ways to the rest of the galaxy.

The Royal Rouge Rebellion creatures should also have Graspers and should be some shade of Red, rather than Blue!

The Royal Rouge Rebellion name is also simply flavour text, no need to put any reference to it if you choose not to.

Bonus Challenge:
When the full game is finally released, take your Azure Ascendancy creation or Royal Rouge Rebellion representative and wage war against the other via means fair or foul. Convert a planet into an ally of your side via diplomacy or all out war.

Easy mode: Take your Blue creature and conquer any planet where the dominant species is Red. (Or the reverse, of course!)

Hard mode: Take your Azure Ascendancy creature and find a Royal Rouge Rebellion creature to dominate, or vice-versa. The opponent may either be one you have created yourself or one from someone else who creates a creature for this challenge!

As always, post links to your creatures in the comments section and have fun!