INTRODUCING: THE 2021 KAIZO LEVEL DESIGN CONTEST JUDGES’ CHOICE AWARDS
First, a quick expression of gratitude from myself and the judges - it has been a very involved few months for all of us outside of Super Mario World, before even considering how strong and demanding the overall entry pool of levels was. Thank you all for your patience as we put the final touches on the full scoresheet, and I promise you the full results are coming soon.
Individual judges are encouraged to talk about their scores and their favorite levels once the contest is over and results are posted. This year, while judges were discussing their plans to do just that, we found a common desire to showcase levels in ways that didn’t fit the normal category of award or trophy, but that judges all agreed deserved to be mentioned in some way. Even though we designed our scoresheet to recognize overall level design, we can’t help but take stock of the work on things that we can’t directly assign points in our rubric and try to celebrate them.
To that end, all four judges decided to come together and create the JUDGES’ CHOICE AWARDS. Think of it as a “shout-out” from the judges on something that otherwise wouldn’t have been mentioned in their comments.
A few clarifiers before we reveal:
These awards were determined by consensus of the judges
Awards were chosen on a purely qualitative bases - score was not a factor in the selection of these awards
Judges were free to submit as many categories and submissions for consideration as they wished
Individual judges are free and encouraged to recognize additional categories and levels of their own choosing as they see fit. These are just the ones that were consensus picks.
And now, presenting the 2021 KLDC Judges’ Choice Award recipients:
FAVORITE LORE Recognition of the theory-crafting and worldbuilding behind the level
Nirv - JerryWest 60 Footer
Daizo Dee Von and Farolicious - Mario’s Spike Trek
FAVORITE BRAIN TEASER Recognition of level design and creative efforts forcing the player to apply lateral thinking
MiracleWater - Gate Crashers
Lazy - 810TOXIN
FAVORITE BOSS Recognition of creating an end-level fight of unique design and execution
Gutawer - Khizome
KevinM and Dogemaster - Extended Athletics
FAVORITE "WTF" MOMENT Recognition of singular events within levels that demand attention and defy explanation
xHF01x - Not Cataclysm
Heraga and TheBiob - Virtual Insanity
FAVORITE NON-LEVEL PRESENTATION Recognition of excellence in title screen, overworld and credits design
MistaX88 - The Bee’s Knees
AmperSam - Brutalism, or...
THE POGYO AWARD Recognition of excellence in unique usage of cape in kaizo level design
DJLocks - Flipper
idol - Hand of Metamorphosis
THE VALDIO AWARD Recognition of excellence in introductory-difficulty kaizo level design
ShaoShao - Water Castle
FerpyMcFrosting - Mono No Aware
Kitikuchan - Wario’s Kaizo Mine
THE CHRISG___ AWARD Recognition of excellence in intermediate-difficulty kaizo level design
elusive - Yellow Switch
CircleFriendo - Magic Library
FYRE150 - Filtration System
THE ft029 AWARD Recognition of excellence in advanced-difficulty kaizo level design
FrozenQuills - the state of indiana
NerDose - Columnae Herculis
MDBattlefrog - Constellation
Congratulations to all of the recipients, and thank you all again for your hard work! Stay tuned for final results soon!
Can we just make this a thing for all future contests? These are actually are a very nice way of highlighting very specific parts of entries that make them stand out, which isn't communicated (arguably at all) with actual results since it's very linear last place vs first place. I'm not saying results should be replaced with this, but the JUDGES' CHOICE AWARDS is a nice way of knowing entries are going the right direction.
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This is a great way to highlight various entries from the contest. Just as many others have said here, I'd like to see these more in the future. However, if there were to be more of these down the road, I'd like the categories to be surprises.
The Judges' Choice Award is a very cool idea and I can't wait to see how it goes not just for future KLDCs, but for other LDCs like VLDC, CLDC, OLDC, BLDC and beyond!
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