Contests / New Element Design Challenge 4

The bottom eight were all pretty close, bit this i quite a big step up into greatness territory.

Did ][ntamin write his own write-up? :P

Partially, both me and Liampie made contributions on this one.

WARNING: Non-spoiler alert!

 

Just a note since we'll be hitting the Top 5 in the next few days. I was reading through my reviews for those parks... and man were my votes for these final 5 designs ever close! I know some of the parks had a screenshot released, and some didn't... so there's some serious suspense happening here, but these designs are super sweeeeet! It'll be interesting to see who comes out on top.

 

Thanks to all 15 builders for taking part in this contest, and Louis for the amazing layout!

This contest is pure awesomeness! So much quality works we've seen so far and it only gets better and better. I did not expect to be in the top 5...

Really enjoying most of the parks released so far, great contest. Regret not participating as well.

Who's hype for Top 5

HYPE!!!

NEDC OR RIOT

We're not posting the next batch until all the entries released so far have 20 comments or more. Spam excluded

NEDC4 RESULTS

 

It's time to unveil the results of NEDC4! The panel has spoken, and with an incredible 15 entries, this fourth version of the Design Challenge event just might be the most successful we've ever had.
 
As with previous NEDCs we'll start with last place and work our way to the top, so be sure to check out each park as it is released and check back for even better entries.
 
With 10 entries released, we're down to the Top 5 NEDC4 candidates.  We know they're all Design winners, so from here on out the only question is - who was able to impress the panel the most?  There's still a lot of ground to cover and some incredible theming to take in, starting with Entries #4 and #5.
 
Entries #4 - #5
 
FredD's Arevik comes in at 75% exactly, the highest score he's ever received on a solo work.  The park offers a glimpse into a Taron-inspired walled town, complete with fields, forests, and a towering cliff face.  FredD's not-so-floorless take on the coaster placement floored the panel; he achieved an excellent balance of interesting terrain and framing the town buildings with excellent views of the key coaster elements.  There's plenty to look at outside the town as well, but keep an eye out for the local wildlife.
5th - FredD: Arevik
http://www.nedesigns...dc4-515-arevik/
 
 
Wildfire is our 4th place finish and is a definite step forward for G Force.  Lately his reputation as a parkmaker has been "very good, but stuck in a cookie-cutter Cedar Fair style," and Wildfire is proof positive that G Force is more versatile than he's been given credit for.   This entry features a quaint Dollywood-style setting and tons of detail to draw in the viewer, but may have missed out on a higher placement because there's not a lot of interest in the coaster itself.
4th - G Force: Wildfire
http://www.nedesigns...4-415-wildfire/

NEDC OR RIOT

NEDC4 RESULTS

 
It's time to unveil the results of NEDC4! The panel has spoken, and with an incredible 15 entries, this fourth version of the Design Challenge event just might be the most successful we've ever had.
 
As with previous NEDCs we started by releasing the last place park and worked our way to the top, so be sure to check out previous posts to see the excellent parks that didn't make the podium!
 
This is the big reveal: here are the NEDC4 medal winners!
 
 

Entries #3-1

 
Steve's much anticipated entry lives up to the hype. It's almost immaculately clean and presents a brand of realism that relies on simplicity of presentation - which may have been too plain for some panelists. Many will argue Ghoul's New England scenery is the best attempt the site has seen at American colonial architecture and fall foliage, but the heavy use of tall trees and narrow paths does limit visibility some. Steve's supporting details center on embracing the Halloween spirit with witches and pumpkins. His take on the contest layout heavily features a path bridge over the entrance to the cobra roll and some nice queue interaction by the corkscrews. With all that said, there's one big factor in Steve's entry that the panel didn't consider for scoring, but may be what this park is best remembered for: it was built entirely on smartphone using RCT Classic, and serves as proof that Classic is capable of producing top-tier work and opening up an interesting new approach for builders who prefer portability. 

 

2nd - Steve: Ghoul

http://www.nedesigns...edc4-215-ghoul/

 
 

All the lead-in you get when viewing the stunning Interstellar is this brief description : "TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: WE HAVE MADE SPACE TRAVEL POSSIBLE." It's fair to say that the park is a celebration of all things space-fiction, ranging from Jules Verne to UFO invasions and space stations to cosmic phenomena. There's a lot packed in the map and all of it is presented in a richly-detailed - although some would say overcrowded - style of concept-first parkmaking that freely uses rides and scenery to create larger-than-life bits of theming. The coaster receives easily the most unique treatment of the contest, with some track invisible and some integrated into the space station, pushing the idea of the coaster less as a theme park ride and more as a journey into the beyond. Similarly, the edges of the map don't so much cut off the park as dissolve into the blackness of space, with rides continuing to zip around the perimeter like celestial bodies.

 
 

2nd - Shotguns!: Interstellar

http://www.nedesigns...5-interstellar/

 
 

The scores tell an interesting story here. Both parks received a high score of 90, with Shotguns' entry earning two from the panel, but Steve won a more consistent 80-85. Both parks had a very wide spread of votes, with several 70s for shotguns - but the low scores were both for Steve, with two panelists giving his park a sub-design-level 60; clearly personal taste played a bigger role in these two entries than with many of the others. Ultimately after high and low votes were dropped the scores were identical, and with no tiebreak mechanism in place Ghoul and Interstellar will have to share the 2nd-place spot.

 
 

As the undisputed star of the 2016 NE Awards, alex's announcement that he was entering NEDC4 brought with it a lot of high expectations. Junkyard is an outstanding park that seems to have been created with the idea that the best way to meet that challenge was subverting expectations entirely. Alex has demolished the traditional theme park scenery and replaced it all with his wrecker's yard versions, featuring trackitecture - this time actually representing old rusted coaster used as architectural elements - and discarded monorail trains as food court seating, all set amongst a backdrop of crushed cars and discarded relics from the parks of the past. Is that dinosaur leftover from Swoopasaurus, and maybe the pirate ship is a backup from Lake Chronus or Discovery Bay? Is that brown-and-orange coaster track from ... every alex park? It's an incredibly refreshing and playful approach that gleefully remixes old themes and applies them with just the right touch to create an area that feels chaotic and adventurous even while it still safely covers the realistic park bases of open paths with carefully-managed queues, dining, and services. The coaster is integrated about as well as most entries, diving under the expansive go-kart track for a cool visual moment during the circuit. The karts are likely the strongest supporting ride in the contest, and that no doubt contributed to what the panel felt was the strongest overall entry in the contest. Congratulations to our winner, alex!

 
 

1st - Alex: Junkyard

http://www.nedesigns...5-the-junkyard/

Thanks to all builders and panelist for helping make NEDC4 a wonderful success, the 15 entries we received is the most for a solo contest in ages and hopefully a sign of things to come!

Beautiful write-ups, beautiful winners, beautiful contest. Well done everyone.

It was a really great contest! Had so much fun participating in it and it produced so much quality works! Congrats to Alex and all the rest. We are all winners  

Yeah thanks for organising this and thanks for contributing everyone! 

Great contest! Gonna have another look on all the entries for writing my comments... wanted to wait for all of them...

Took a peek at every entry, awesome job everyone, so happy to see the community going stronger than ever.

At risk here at being called the grumpy critical bastard here, but I have to say none of the results were truly great. Don't get me wrong there most of the entries were good and the average quality of parks was definately high, but none of them really jumped at me being outstanding. Sure there are brilliant ideas, junkyard among them ofcourse, but what seems to lack in a lot of the designs is integration of the ride with the surroundings (although I do admit that is not easy to do with a given ride, but that seems to be the challenge)

Either they had great integration and the execution could use or they had a great theme, but the coasters were mostly standing there along side the theme rather than being included.

 

I do not wish to insult players who obviously put hard work into their designs, but I'm really interested to see how others think about this (also might not be the most ideal first post in a while after a long absence, but at least I can now post this with a Masters Degree in Architecture , so I can atleast hide behind a professional interest )

If I judged it (PT style):

 

1. Alex, just awesome and a very rarely used theme which is great to see

2. Shogo, you finished something?! I really liked it, not too messy

3. FredD, really nice work, great details, you are becoming a very solid parkmaker

4. G Force, still in your comfort zone, but really good work, loved the Q entry building

5. Steve, nice to see one of us old guys still going, I liked it

 

As for the rest, didn't get a chance to see them all in-game yet. Great to see so many entries tho. Congrats Alex!