Who wants another Sierra Tournament?

[Datadog]

A while ago, I had a few tournaments going. Respectively, we all voted on "Best Adventure Game Hero", "Best Sidekick", and "Best Villain". "Gabriel Knight" won all three of them. But, hey, Gabriel Knight can't win 'em all, right? Let's find out!

Vote above on what you think the next tournament should be! Should we vote on characters again? Should it be a musical tournament? Maybe vote on a specific aspect of a game? Or just plain critique your favorite background art? I'll handle organizing the match-ups and tallying the votes as we go. You can also suggest additional ideas for tournaments below in case anyone has a really popular idea for one.

I'd also like to ask a favor to everyone. When the tournament is decided, everyone should submit their own nominations. I'll do what I can to fill out the roster, but in past tournaments, I found these rosters can get pretty huge, and I tend to overlook other people's favorite games. Besides, if we end up doing "Best Puzzle" or "Best NPC", we'll really have to narrow it down.

[BBP]

Any of those would be great, but after seeing the Conquest of Camelot egg, I'd love the best Sierra easter egg.

[AndreaDraco]

Awesome idea, Datadog! I loved our tournaments!

I voted... Best love interest!

[Tawmis]

Lots of great possibilities... I voted.

[Datadog]

@Bonny, an easter egg one would be fun too! Maybe for Easter?

And last night, I kept thinking the love interest one would probably be a smaller tournament since romance isn't as frequent in these games. And then I wake up this morning and realize "Oh, yeah... Larry". That might be a fun one to do considering Valentine's will be coming up by the time the tournament's a-go. I'll be saving my vote in case there's a tie anywhere (like there always is), but that would be my pick otherwise.

[stuntology]

I think that a best background art tournament would be pretty cool.

[Rudy]

Lots of fun stuff to pick from, but that Easter Egg tournament sounds really fun, so I voted "other".

[stuntology]

Easter Eggs would be great as well!

[Tawmis]

My only problem with Easter Eggs is like Love Interest; there are some games that just didn't have any at all.

[Datadog]

And there might be some debate over what's considered an Easter egg. For example, does the "look in hole" egg from KQ2 count if the marketing team made it easier to find than most of the game's items? Or the "Don't touch" button from SQ1?

The loosest definition I can come up with for "Easter Egg" (for the purposes of this tournament) would be: "Anything both unusual and unrelated to your quest that the developers have "hidden" for their/our amusement, which sticks out like a sore thumb when discovered".

At the moment, the EE tournament (Other) has the higher votes. If there's enough votes against, however, we could always hold two tournaments if there's enough support for a second one.

[Jules]

What's a MacGuffin? I'm getting a muffin-shaped MacGruber image in my mind. ^_^

[Datadog]

A MacGuffin is an item that the plot revolves around. In Indiana Jones terms, a MacGuffin might be something like the Lost Ark or the Holy Grail. So in Sierra terms, we'd be looking at any super-important item (or person) we'd be questing for (i.e the Magic Mirror, the Dark One rituals, the King of the Whales, the, eh, Holy Grail. )

It looks like the Easter Egg one is getting more support, but since I'll probably start up another tournament right after this one, we can also try out "Best Background" and "Best Love Interest" at some point. At this point, anyone who voted "other" can now post their votes for the next tournament as well (and save me the trouble of making another poll.)

All righty! We're doing Easter Eggs first!

I'll get this going by the weekend. For now, submit your nominations!

What's the best thing you ever found hidden in a Sierra game?!

(And if people don't submit anything, I'll just fill the rest of the roster with "Phantasmagoria 2" and VSB easter eggs. )

[Collector]

What's a MacGuffin? I'm getting a muffin-shaped MacGruber image in my mind. ^_^

The most famous explanation of what a MacGuffin is (with liberties by the YouTube poster):

[AndreaDraco]

SHalle we post the nominations here, or send them to you via PM?

[Datadog]

You can post them here. If we PM them, I'll probably keep getting the same ones (which would fast-track the whole voting process, but where's the fun in that?) The whole idea is to start building a roster list without excluding any favorites, and I'll fill in the rest.