Do a map using only the provided elements

[Straf]

You start with a basic shape - coastline, town, dungeon, or whatever. Then you have a selection of icons for various things - buildings, castles, trees, Curly Wurlys. You have to make the most of the items provided and produce the most creative map possible.

There may or may not be scope to add extra features, or a limited number of features, such as rivers and mountains.

Or something.

[Redrobes]

I think that would be interesting to see esp to look at those people who traditionally make great maps just to see what they would do with a limited set of components. But I doubt it would be a very popular challenge to partake in. I think some would find an already difficult task impossible to attempt. And they might not enjoy the freedom they usually get.

There was a similar one where you were given a fixed pallette about a year or so ago. I recall Mouse did a great map in that one too in shades or purples. Was super interesting to see how people coped with some hard limits.

Another fantasic one we did years ago was to make a map that had to be at least of a certain pixel size but had to no more than X bytes. I think it was 1000x800 and 100K bytes. But I cant recall exactly. I do remember that a lot of people learned a lot about image compression and making the most of pixels and how JPEG and PNG compressed. It was really useful.

[Azélor]

I remember the square/triangle/circle only challenge. It was nice to have that kind of limitation.

I'm pretty confident to say that if the Curly Wurlys are small enough, anything is possible.
Anything is possible if you have enough Curly Wurlys!

[Mouse]

A limited supply of symbols would be an interesting challenge, but I bet CC3ers would come out right on top. Using sets of symbols is something that is second nature for us.

You would have to get the provision of symbols pretty well organised first - since it would be kind of open source you might have to ask some kind person to donate a decent set, or make a new one purely for the use of the challenge entrants.

Maybe there's scope for a double challenge entry - the first challenge would be to design a set of symbols, and the second challenge would be for people to use the winning set to make a map.

For that to happen you need to list the required symbols. For example 5-10 mountains, 5-10 hills, 5-10 trees, 5-10 settlement icons... (10 curly wurly designs )...

The people entering the second challenge would then have to pick or make their own fills to compliment the symbol style, and be limited to using only the winning set of symbols from the first challenge - no extras or alterations to enlarge the set.

EDIT: the other thing of course is that the winner of the first challenge would have to be prepared to accept that their beautiful symbols would probably be snapped up by EVERYONE! So you would have to make it perfectly clear that the only granted rights would be for the entrants of the second challenge to use them in the second challenge, and that all rights of use otherwise were firmly reserved... unless the winner decides to give the symbols away anyway.

[Straf]

Symbol sets - that's what I was trying to think of. Thank you Mouse. I was wracking my brain for that term but all I could think of was Curly Wurly At least ChickPea hasn't waded in with her Double Decker nonsense. Those things truly are the work of Satan!

[Redrobes]

I think a dungeon set is probably easier to get a more varied set of maps out of than terrain but it would be good to have a choice of both if that were feasible.