Adoptable Games?

[MadMooCow]

Hi guys. I know, long time no post.

I need some advise / suggestions regarding adoptables, and I though the very best place to seek advise would be the very first place that I ever got involved with adoptables, way back when (was that really 7 years ago now? Its hard to believe).

OK so I'm considering starting an adoptable, now I'm planning on this being a big one. With its own world / realm and having a number of species, plants culture, language, etc. For the foreseeable future this will simply be a forum kind of adoptable (like the ones given a way here, or on PI). It will have its own website with information and its own forums with the adopteds list and stuff hosted there. I intend for it to be given out on PI and on its own forums mainly, but I may have a few Orchard Exclusives given away here on occasion.

Thing is though, I have the concept, I'm working on the art and building the world... there's just something that's been bothering me, and its something I know I'm awful at. Games.

Since they will mostly be given away through the forums, I was trying to come up with interesting ways of going about it. So I guess I'm asking, if anyone has some interesting ideas for forum based games I could use?

I'm really in love with what Silvanon used to do with the Painted Unicorns, where there she'd construct a load of pages and users would have to search though it to find the critter / item. So I was thinking of using something like that (I'll kill myself coding it though x.x) because that was fun and interesting and I'll probably use that as the major part of the giveaways.

That website it going to be a monster to create (even with DW), so I'm probably going to construct that a little later, so I have an aboptabe to work with and adopt out whilst making it. So for the most part, I will be relying on forum games and things that can be played in a forum setting.

So I guess the question is, does anyone have any ideas for way I can adopt out a critter in a forum setting which is fun, interesting and a little different than the usual?

I'm working on adopting out strategies now, so that I know what I'm doing once I've finished the first lot of templates.

Thanks a lot for reading, even if you don't have any suggestions, I appreciate the time.

[Aevelyn_LL]

When I made a maze for a contest, the first thing I did was lay it out on graph paper so I could see where all the pages were and where the dead ends would be.

You can also host a hunt on a forum with a map and people "search" squares to see if there's anything there.

I've also done scavenger hunts from the site. Aka the things you list would be things they have to find off of the adoptables site. So "something blue" could be on of the adoptables or even the color of the background of the site. You can get way more specific and cryptic with the items too and make into a riddle first and then they have to find it and bring you a link to the image or page.

There's "Guess the appearance" contests, where who ever guesses closest to the colors of the adoptable you've drawn up wins it.

etc. etc. I'll post some more after work.

[SunBlind]

Actually, before Silvanon coded her search world, she used to just run the search off her normal site. Also when there were breedings, we could hide the offspring in our own sites. I remember when I did a shared search with Lady Brooklyn across our two sites...of course my site was substantially smaller than it is now *g*

You could have trivia games, to force people to read up on the world and learn more about it.

You could have roleplaying games. If your creature bonds to people then you could have a few people try to interact with them to bond.

You could have page contests, where people need to create a page for the creature to live on and you pick the best.

And like in the old Festivals, there can be art contests, poetry contests, etc. Or just simple things like random draws or pick-a-number game.

Like Lessa said, you could have a guessing contest, but you could also have a design contest. Especially if you want to come up with new mutations or colour patterns or whatever.

Once there are a few out there, you can have beauty contests and such too.

As you can see I've participated in my fair share of Festivals and games *g*

And hopefully you'll hold some of them here since I'm not on PI

[Aevelyn_LL]

I think some of the favorite games that I've participated in have been the color/design your own and riddles. They can be riddles you've made up, or popular ones, like the riddle of the sphinx.

[MadMooCow]

Awesome suggestions, thanks a lot. They are all very helpful. You both have given me loads of ideas and definitely got me thinking about how to get the critters out there.

Lessa Lynn, graph paper = win. I was going to have to draw it up in a visual form before I started it. Graph paper will probably help best.

I love the scavenger hunt idea. I could hide little things all over the place, awesome. Kind of reminds me of those "I Spy" books, where they'd show a large picture filled with all sorts of things, and they'd list a whole bunch of stuff you needed to find. Hmm... That's an idea too, those were both fun and frustrating.

The guess the appearance one, I could get people to try to guess the hex / dec numbers of the colours. I could tell them that it is red, but they'd have to try to get as close to the actual hex code as posable. Or get them to guess the colour combos / what colours are where on it.

Riddles I'm no good at making up, so I'd have to try to find some but that could be good too. I could create a whole little scenario around that.
You've got me thinking. Thanks a lot for your suggestions.

Sunblind, Trivia / world knowledge stuff would be good to get people familiar with the critter and where it comes from that's for sure. That would be a good one, I think.

Roleplaying would be interesting.. I'd need to watch a few other RPs before I try to host my own though since I don't do much / any of it at the moment.

Pageing contests would be a good one. Those on PI could use their presentation or a forum post if they don't have their own site, and the people hear could use their critter sites. That would be a good one to run on both here and there. I like this suggestion.

I don't think I'd be able to run a festival often, but it would be good to have one for each season, or teamed ones and stuff. That would take a lot of planning, but could be really fun. I'd have to make sure I have the time available for something like that.

How would a beauty contest be judged? Would I put the entrants up for vote for the public via poll? Perhaps I could allow them to design their own accessories over the adoptable images then put it up for vote. Hmm...

Don't worry there will be Orchard exclusive and inclusive games for sure. I have to include the place that introduced me to adoptables in the first place. It just would not feel right otherwise.

[SunBlind]

Beauty contests usually need people to vote. But you can encourage more voters if they get some kind of participation points that they can accumulate and later exchange for...whatever ^_^