Thank you. I always knew one day I'd be one of those people who would never ever have a silver compass. Whoops.
Thank you, Chickpea, Simkin, Tonquani, TimetoDraw, Bogie, Rdanhenry, tilt, and Arsheesh.
Thank you to the 18 people who voted for me, and especially the 10 of you who voted only for me.
Thank you to everyone who forgot to vote for people who weren't me. Thank you to everyone who forgot to vote but definitely would have voted for me.
I give my credit for inspiration to being in a Cyberpunk game without an overland map at this very moment in time, and also to the game Outer Worlds which I am slowly playing. And also to the street data, which was an ArcGis dataset, without which I could never have done it.
I wouldn't have guessed it was a challenge for you, I thought you would win to be honest. I think if you had another couple of weeks to iron out the color scheme and add some cyberpunk flare you would have had it, maybe add a bit of that extreme flooding to win crowd approval. Still, quite an achievement, you should be really proud of what you made.
It was also out of my comfort zone and I'm embarrassed that this is my Golden Compass map. Barely any text! And half of it is Chinese calligraphy which is at least always translated except for the ones in the apps. But our setting involves so many other languages it only seemed right to reflect it, just like it is on the 'canonical map' in the setting guide. I think the theme scared a lot of people off and left the competition small. I wish I had another month, if I did I would have inked all the streets again and done a way better border and maybe added some names to streets and regions other than the major ones.
You're welcome. I'm glad you enjoy using my free assets. Nice to see them on a map. I hope you finish yours, I do love the whole Hackers UI concept you came up with for it.
Thank you, Arsheesh. May it be as you have spoken!
Previously, I was pretty sure the only way I would ever get a Monthly challenge award was if there was an unpopular Gold Challenge that seemed unusually hard or unappealing for the typical spread of fantasy creators here, as this one turned out to be. I enjoyed all three very different other takes to the concept. I'm glad all were so different, as it gives a delightful taste of the look of cyberpunk in map form. Each was wonderful with its own cyberpunk story to accompany why it was cyberpunk and not just a sci-fi or textbook or dungeon map. It was a good showing and I enjoyed each map in their own way.
Prior to this acquisition, it was the peak of my achievements that someone actually nominated me for Cartographer's Choice, but I knew I didn't stand a chance at winning. There are dozens of guild members with more talent and or personal time than I have, and I believe it's only due to the small showing to this contest that I stood a chance. Make the theme Fairy Garden, Fantasy Britain, Elfhome, Celestial Realm, or something "nice and fantasy" and 20 people will be there with REAL works of art to contest with my odd tomfoolery! So... we'll see. If the guild is here for another 12 years, statistically it should happen, right? Maybe I'll turn around and knock another one right out of the park and fulfill the prophecy of Arsheesh. I'm sure I'll be around for as long as the guild stands in its current form, so there will be chances.