*** April 2010 Challenge Voting - Brewhome ***

[Jaxilon]

Ouch, this month it actually hurt to vote on these they were all so great!

For those who care for a bit of what I went through in my heart and head:

Ascension - Even though I liked the more vividly colored one in the wip, this is just awesome. All the background imagery and denizens just made this a pleasure to scroll around. It totally pulls you in! Vote number 1 right off.
Devin Night - I think he did this in record time but the idea he is has for the map just sells and I totally dig the hand drawn locations. I just want to go walk up that curvy path to that fortress on the mountain. Vote number 2.
Dj - A totally professional looking map like something you would get out of the box of a new game you just purchased. Some of the great looking land features crafted into the map were hard to see and the lettering made it a kind of hard for me to read. In the end this was barely nudged out by my 3rd choice. Reminds me of the Dragon Age map.
GW - Love the concept of this one, I still say I'd like the words to be more curvy. A splash of color might be nice but I think the precision of the map might be too much. If we could cross this with Devon Night's map I think it would blow our socks off.
Immolate - This is one good looking map but it was pretty hard for me to read. I almost think it suffers from too many killer ideas going on at once in too small of an area. Some of the writing that bleeds up through the map I can't read.
RobA - A different looking entry than most and it looks very old world. I don't know how he even had time for this what with keeping the site going while Arcana was away. Simply amazing. I was going back and forth between this and DJ's map and settled on this one because it was the more unusual imo.
Sapiento - I know you didn't finish but it was a good start
Steel General - I'm ready to play, this looks like a strategy board game to me. I like those icons very much. I would have liked to see more texture to the grasslands and since it says it is a map of "the Journey's of" I would have liked to see a few roads or trails marked. I very much liked the lettering on this, awesome font.
Zar Peter - I think this was the most improved map because it started as a straight up mug which freaked a number of people out. LOL, there were worries that prospective shoppers would think we were trying to insult them. There is nothing insulting here however. This map just tastes like beer and I can smell the pub just looking at it. I'm not sure I like the green sea but this was another worthy contender.
Calydon - I really liked this map. Especially the overlarge penciled in locations were fun to look at. I think if the land had a bit more variety to it I would have given it one of my votes. It looks like the whole thing is in the frozen tundra. Nothing wrong with that but what can I say?
Cereth - A good entry as well. It looks like a deserted isle cartoon which clashed a little with my overall idea of the back story.

PS. I can't say that all my reason's make sense because sometimes you have to go with your gut and that's not always easy to put into words. I made my best attempt at doing so in the above and I really feel that all of the maps are fabulous and worthy of votes. I will be going back through and attempting to rep everyone involved because you all did such a great job.

[Ascension]

I like that idea of putting thumbnails next to the vote entries but as of now the software either won't allow us to or I have not figured out how to do it

Edit: and then YodA goes and figures it out

[bhanain03]

This was a toughie. I was immediately impressed by RobA's work, combining old world style and elegance with a dash of colour yet keeping the main image simple and readable. Cereth got my next vote for rendering a very intricate continent (though the main land mass struck me as a bit too peninsular) but mainly for the great accents and backdrop (yet the script was difficult to read and overall detracted from the geography, making it all look very busy). The last vote came down to a 20 minute staring contest between Ascension and Calydon. While Ascension, as usual, produced a fantastic work, I think the dizzying combinations of fonts, the overly Tolkienesque border script, and the unconvincing hand-penned notations (which were a great addition, but blending into the map more than appearing to have been written personally during travels), tilted me to throw Calydon a vote for a great first entry, despite the clash of the pen-drawn sites with the painted and textured style of the land and sea.

Voting would have been very different if some of the incompleted works were, well...completed. Sapiento's map looks extremely promising and Devin's sketching highly piques my interest.

Congratulations to all for jobs well done.

[Immolate]

Thanks for the kind words PlayinitCool. Kudos to you for the creative marketing. I am tempted to sample some of your stock at a Pathfinder game some time. I am, by far, the least of the beer junkies in our group of old fogies, but I do enjoy a good draft now and again, and stuff from a small brewery always tastes better to me.

Djekspek... I'm finally able to bestow rep again and you benefited from being last by my having graduated to the next level of repiliciousness. Thanks for not accusing me of being a re-miser!

Oh... any idea when the next challenge will be launched? Anyone?.... Bueller?

[Greason Wolfe]

Yep, I was thinking about some color for my map, but then I got hit by this stupid flu-bug/bronchitis and was lucky to finish the map at all. Still, I had a lot of fun working with it, and it wasn't near as frustrating as most of my previous maps have been. I intend to experiment with this style a bit more in the future, just to see where I can take it.

GW

[ravells]

I like that idea of putting thumbnails next to the vote entries but as of now the software either won't allow us to or I have not figured out how to do it

Edit: and then YodA goes and figures it out

Has YodA done it? It would be rather cool! Maybe when we get the new CMS system thingy?

[RobA]

Has YodA done it? It would be rather cool! Maybe when we get the new CMS system thingy?

There is a post in the CL forum with it set up that way, but ye are currently limited to 10 images in a post which includes smilees, so a poll can only hold thumbnails for less than 11 entries...

-Rob A>

[Ascension]

I'm wondering if we could make just one image with each map stacked one on top of the other, turn that into and image map thingy, and then on the right side (or left side) put the names or use a rollover thingy that would show the name. I'm sure we could do that (I did once long ago when I had a website) but sounds like a lot of work.

[Amonite]

I made the mistake(?) of looking at Ascension's map first, was unfortunately it was so funny I couldn't take any of the other maps seriously A beer tour map should make you laugh, right? It's not a wine tour I wasn't crazy about the oddly 3d mountains in the otherwise flat map, although after reading the WIP thread they made more sense. However, I was rescued from my giggles by the beautiful scrollwork of Rob, who won me over for vote #2 (I love antique/old world maps, so that helps), even if I couldn't read the pretty writing *pout* (which in point, was strangly beautiful for someone probably drunk on beer....). Cereth got my third vote, because I could easily visualize it as a prop on a table in a video game. And the map outlines were pretty nice.)

[calydon]

It's great to get so much detailed feedback on a piece of work -even on popular design and computer graphics forums most comments are restricted to "win!" or "Fail!!!"

And congrats to Ascension if he wins, as it seems likely, and is most deserving, and sympathies to RobA because his map deserves its own challenge.