The following articles take a look back at Heart of the OHR 2020 from the benefit of hindsight. The theme this year was community outreach. With many of this year’s entries finding their way onto the Steam and Itch.io platforms, and playthroughs broadcasting on both YouTube and Twitch, and contestants joining from not only the usual forums but also from social media, this year’s crop of games have certainly reached a wider audience than usual, even if that audience eventually constricted back into the expected places. It makes long-term OHR users wonder just how far the engine’s arms can stretch if given enough opportunity to expand.

But that’s not all. This year’s contest is also one of generosity. More voters participated this year than in seasons past, and most voters cast a rating for every participating game. What’s more is that most voters gave high marks to all but the lowest-rated games. Whether the games deserved the scores they got, each voter was certainly generous with their positive opinions, much more than in previous seasons. And some voters even went beyond expectation by recording livestreams of themselves playing each game. Going back to outreach, these voters delivered on not only feedback services for each game’s author, but awareness to non-OHR players that these games exist. None of these voters needed to go that far, but because they did, the community was made better for it.

And, of course, this year’s contest also represents commemoration. With the strong likelihood that 2020 will be the last official season for this longstanding contest, it’s tempting to reflect with fondness on its ten-year history and all the quality games it’s produced or supported along the way. It would be difficult to close out this season’s articles without addressing the specter of finality hovering over it. So, these articles will address each of these things, as well as to look into the future for whatever may still be possible.

For years, Heart of the OHR was the Cadillac of OHR contests, but it was still just an OHR contest, confined to the usual marketing tactics employed by any OHR contest, which involved a message board announcement, some casual talk about the rules and guidelines for participation, and an informal “signup sheet” that didn’t amount to anything when contestants started dropping out but looked nice on (digital) paper, giving off that air of prestige for a few days.

By 2018, however, I’d introduced the contest to YouTube by recording playthroughs of every game, and preceding each gameplay session with a catchy TV-sitcom style intro that included a dopey song that I’d recorded and asked Kylekrack to make better. For kicks, I also recorded a separate video of just the intro so that I could have an “official trailer” for the 2018 contest. It was terribly basic, with just clips of previous and current winners, plus the OHR mascots Wandering Hamster and Vikings of Midgard, rolling underneath a badly rendered image of a cartoon heart and the words “of the OHR 2018” superimposed over its center.

It was fun and sort of unlike anything we’ve had for any previous contest (Heart of the OHR and beyond).

But by 2020, I’d gotten access to some stock video of smoke and other special effects (from Action VFX) and learned how to render them onto existing footage through my video editor (Cyberlink PowerDirector 15). I also had access to Filmstro, a music generation tool that can change the composition of a music track by adjusting sliders related to momentum, depth, and power, and selected and modified a rather powerful track called “Soldier” as the base for a new trailer. And through my video editor, I also learned how to use animation keyframes to simulate screenshots of previous winners shooting off into space, as well as to create 3D title effects for a better introduction to the contest and year than what I had for 2018.

And most importantly, I learned how to put it all together to create a compelling trailer. For added effect, I also asked Kylekrack if he could isolate the theme song vocals from the TV sitcom music. I learned how to improve the trailer by including the classic song (without the year).

On March 3, 2020, I posted a new announcement thread on Slime Salad called “The Window Is Coming.” In that thread, I released the Official Teaser Trailer for Heart of the OHR 2020. Soon after, the reactions came in:

“That. Was. THE. SH**.”

-Artemis Bena

“I just lost it when the globs of lava spittle started coming in from stage left :D”

-Bob the Hamster

“HYPE!”

-TMC

And, well, that’s about it.

From that point on, I knew I had done something special for both the contest and the OHR community. The standard for announcing the latest contest had been raised. The Cadillac had become a Corvette or Hummer or something. Naturally, I had to follow it up with an official trailer to announce the official start of the contest, and later with a voting video to officially close the contest.

But, to say that these trailers made the contest better is a matter of personal opinion. I’m sure Heart of the OHR 2020 would’ve been just as successful without them. But would it have been as memorable? I think not.

That said, you can judge for yourself. Enjoy.

The Official Teaser Trailer

-First announced in “The Window Is Coming.”​

The Official Trailer

-First announced in the official Heart of the OHR 2020 contest thread on release day.

The Official Voting Trailer

-First announced at the start of the voting period, many pages within the Heart of the OHR 2020 contest thread.

Will Heart of the OHR come back in 2022 with a brand new trailer? Only time will tell (unless that time has already passed).

When Heart of the OHR debuted in 2010, I wanted to give re-released games a fair shake at getting first impression votes based on their added and/or revised content from previous releases. Compared to original games that made their first appearances during the contest, re-released games had a slightly unfair disadvantage. Original games could be rated according to the entire game experience, as all of it was new to each player. But re-released games like Vikings of Midgard had a steeper hill to climb thanks to so many voters having already played earlier versions of it and having to play for an hour or longer just to see the newest content. It required voter patience and endurance and awareness of new discoveries just to qualify for the scores it would receive. It was the negative side-effect to an otherwise noble deed: advancing a game’s design within a community infamous for its tall pile of abandoned projects.

At the time, it was easy to determine which games were original and which were re-released. Simply put, it was original if no one had played it before the contest window opened (via public access). Likewise, it was a re-release if it had been online prior to the contest window but got a significant update within the window. Usually this meant adding more maps and storyline and otherwise extending the experience at least half an hour beyond the last release. Again, games like Vikings of Midgard adhered to this standard because it took existing content (from years earlier) and expanded on it by adding more areas to explore and more side quests to complete. It also revamped certain earlier sections.

For most editions of Heart of the OHR, these categories, along with the third standard category, OHR Legends, were easy to define. And just as easy was my ability to classify games based on these categories.

But in 2014, I encountered my first challenge.

I didn’t know it at the time, but RedMaverickZero had thrown a wrench into the categorization scheme when he released a game called Mr. Triangle’s Adventure into the contest. On the surface, it was a simple categorization. No one had played its public release before its contest debut, so it was an original. Easy placement. Then again, it was also the new spin on an old property based on a five-part series of Mr. Triangle adventure games. So, it was also kind of a re-release.

What the heck was it?

I’d eventually categorized it as an original game, because ultimately, that’s what it was. But it was an unsettling classification. It didn’t seem like either an original or a re-release.

It seemed, rather, like a remake. Because ultimately, that’s what it was.

For the next two contests, I had no such game challenge my categorization skills again. But then came 2020, and I was hit by not one, but two entries that generated the same question that Mr. Triangle’s Adventure had given me six years earlier.

Walthros Renewal, the latest entry from 2018’s winner, The Wobbler, is an expansive adventure RPG that revisits the land of Walthros as we remember it from the original 2002 game (just called Walthros). Yet, it’s not exactly as we remember it. It borrows the same general script and timeline, but improves on it in every way. And the only way it can do this is to start from scratch. So, it’s a new game. But it’s based on an old game.

It’s a remake.

Likewise, Xoo: Xeno Xafari from Willy Elektrix, the developer of Steam’s OHR success story Void Pyramid (2016), is based on a shorter game of the same concept that’s featured in a compilation of games called 1999: Megallennium 6-in-1 Megacart (2017). The two games are basically the same, yet they are entirely separate productions.

Again, it’s a remake.

Following in the footsteps of Mr. Triangle’s Adventure, both Walthros Renewal and Xoo: Xeno Xafari reminded me that if Heart of the OHR is to claim any level of categorical integrity, then I needed to establish a new category.

The Remake.

Anyway, now Heart of the OHR has four potential categories for contestants to fulfill. Will the community ever get clever enough to force a fifth category? Time will tell!

The core drive behind Heart of the OHR was to bring the engine back to its RPG roots. After several years of game authors drawing up tech demos and stupid joke games to satisfy flash-in-the-pan contests (and a few good ones like the Terrible/Ridiculous Games Contest and the 8-bit Contest), the magic of unveiling the newest OHR game had faded. To make a game was hard enough, but getting anyone to care about it was a feat in of itself. Part of the problem was that games in that pocket of time when Castle Paradox was crumbling and Slime Salad was rising were designed simply to demonstrate a cool feature or make fun of some absurdity in the community or pop culture. The joys of quests and adventures were lost on these titles. And, though there were certainly impressive games to come from that season, most of those impressive games were platformers, rhythm games, and other non-RPG types that the engine wasn’t built for.

The “heart” of the OHR was MIA, it had seemed.

I created the Heart of the OHR Contest to bring back the passion for designing and finishing long-form RPGs, and in 2010, the community responded with great favor and a surge in classic and relevant design. But like any great innovation, reality came knocking and brought with it a big, knee-capping stick. It was absurd to think the Heart of the OHR would ever be immune to the creeping tendencies of change.

In 2012, I let the first challenger to the “heart” of the OHR into the contest. Silhouette by Mystic was an adventure that looked like an RPG but played like a puzzler. It was put together well, but it didn’t quite capture the traditional “heart of the OHR.” What it did, however, was mimic it, and that was good enough for me. If nothing else, it gave the players one extra title to vote on.

In 2014, I relented and allowed two challengers of the status quo to enter. Stand by Kylekrack was a side-scrolling Zelda II-like that captured the RPG spirit in a side view perspective. It worked fine, but it was incomplete and unlike the other entries that year (or the seasons before). Then, of course, there’s T4R4D1DDL3 by superawesomeric, which is featured in the article “In the Spirit of 1999” (2014 Retrospective Articles Page) that explains the conflict and resolution that came from allowing that one to enter.

As new seasons came and went, new challengers brought their not-quite-traditional RPGs into the mix, gradually reshaping the Heart of the OHR into a different kind of contest. By 2020, I wondered if maybe it was time to open a sister contest that offered the same level of prestige for non-RPGs of solid quality, just to ensure the integrity of the Heart of the OHR could return if the contest were to ever continue.

Shortly after the 2020 contest started, I proposed an idea to the community called “Spleen of the OHR” to address this slide out of tradition. Like Heart, Spleen would happen once every two years (taking odd-numbered years to balance Heart’s even-numbered years), but it would focus on platformers, tactics, and other game types made of higher quality. It would allow for authors to get more creative with their games without worrying about the nagging question, “Is it or isn’t it an RPG?” With Spleen of the OHR, it wouldn’t matter.

It didn’t take long for the community to respond.

It was a bad idea.

Okay, not everyone thought it was that bad of an idea, but those who chimed in felt that “Spleen” was 1.) a bad title for a contest and 2.) counter to the spirit of Heart of the OHR, which was to include all games and unite all authors by a common goal: to show off the best of what the OHR can do.

But more important, it reiterated a complaint that had come up years earlier by an OHR community member who’d refused to join after the inaugural year, and now newer members were starting to feel it, as was I.

Heart of the OHR, quite simply, demands too much of the calendar year, and dominates too much release focus to allow for quality games to go live any other time of year.

And it’s a valid complaint. Consider this: Bob Smith (a.k.a. AwesomeDude1986) finishes his epic masterpiece in February 2019, but he thinks it’s so good that it could win Heart of the OHR. He’s just missed the 2018 contest, so he waits until May 2020 to release his game to become eligible for Heart of the OHR 2020.

Now, for AwesomeDude1986, this might be acceptable. In any other competition, waiting until the submission window to release an entry is expected if the wannabe contestant wants to become a contestant. And why should all contests die to circumvent this waiting period? It’s a consideration on both sides.

But why does the game’s author also have to wait to share his game with the world?

Heart of the OHR is a notable and well-respected contest in the OHR community, and most people agree that it’s good to have around. But these same people think that one contest of this scale is enough. And any addition to the community would be better represented by a Game of the Year contest.

So, with Spleen of the OHR 2021 stricken from the record, the community has once again returned to simpler times. Except, that rejection ignores the prickly needles poking at Heart of the OHR’s other side.

At some point, Heart of the OHR, like all contest runs, has to end, and I’ve already started plotting its exit. So, the better question is, what happens when it’s gone for good?

More on that in the next article.

“You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain.”

-Aaron Eckhart (as Harvey Dent) from The Dark Knight (2008)

Once upon a time, Seinfeld was a popular sitcom that dominated NBC on Thursday nights. The show churned out memorable episode after memorable episode, and to this day it remains one of the all-time greats in TV history. For nearly a decade, it seemed nothing could ever kill its place in the zeitgeist. But then, at the end of its ninth season, it ended.

It was still popular, and it continued to earn the network lots of advertisement dollars, and it was in no danger of being canceled.

Yet, it ended.

Why?

Whenever anyone asks Jerry Seinfeld why he would retire his own show during a long-running season of rocket-fueled success, he typically responds with an answer that could only make sense in hindsight. In summary, he says, “It was time.”​

According to Hugh Jackman, he ended his run as Logan/Wolverine for the same reason. “It was time.”

It’s an interesting idea, ending a successful series before its success runs out. But, how often has a series run on beyond its time? Think of franchise movies that decline in quality the more they prove they’re out of ideas. Or shows like The Simpsons, which has continued 24+ years past its prime. People still watch it, but it’s nothing like it was in the 1990s, back when it was still hot. In fact, most fans of The Simpsons can pinpoint the exact moment when the series lost its edge and momentum.

There’s no mystery here. Everything loses its appeal over time. Just as a tree loses its leaves, so does a hot commodity lose its value. At some point, the luster fades.

Heart of the OHR started as an experiment to see if anyone still wanted to make the kinds of epic RPGs in 2010 that the OHRRPGCE was built for. At the time, the community was steeped in short contests that focused on gimmicks, so I wasn’t expecting much from it. But despite my assumptions, I proposed it to the community, anyway.

The people responded. Big time. It was the best contest idea they’d heard about in a long, long time.

Needless to say, the overwhelmingly positive response was surprising. Not only did people participate in the experiment, but they were so enthusiastic about it that I brought it back two years later.

Question was, would the following season have the same enthusiasm behind it as the debut?

The odds of it catching the same level of fire in 2012 as it had in 2010 were low, but it was still worth continuing the experiment. Maybe not surprisingly, the second season (2012) ended up being even more popular and successful than the first. Clearly, the Heart of the OHR was the next big thing in OHR community participation, and to cut it at the knees so quickly would’ve been tragic.

So on it went.

Its third season was as successful as the first (though less successful than the second), and the fourth season showed a slight decline in both interest and quality from all previous seasons. But I was committed to hosting at least five seasons, so I brought it back in 2018 to witness what would become Heart of the OHR’s most prolific year, 21 entrants, or double the previous season’s turnout.

Clearly, the momentum hadn’t run out. In fact, the very next season, 2020, gave the community its highest quality season, with a cumulative average score of 6.41, almost three full points above 2016’s cumulative average score of 3.55.

If the 2018 and 2020 seasons proved anything, it’s that Heart of the OHR in the early 2020s is still at its best, and probably ready for a seventh season in 2022. And if recent turnout is worth keeping the engine hot, then it would make total sense to bring it back for another run.

But how soon before the cracks begin to show? At what point does the contest lose its relevance?

As the discussion in my post “Feedback for a Nutty Idea” revealed, Heart of the OHR is polarizing in what it claims to allow. Game designers enjoy making games of all types, not just RPGs. Even 2020 entries like Tim-Tim 2: The Almighty Gnome and Katja’s Abyss: Tactics prove that “the market” for OHR games extends past the RPG. At some point, the question needs to be taken seriously: “Is Heart of the OHR too exclusive?” The answer may determine the contest’s future if it chooses not to adapt to new ideas any more than it already has.

That brings us to 2022.

Even though the contest is still popular and would likely have a successful turnout in 2022, the odds of it having a bigger or better run than it had in 2018 or 2020 are low, especially given how much of the community seems to have “moved on” in the months since 2020. Of course, this “move on” phenomenon happens almost every season after the votes are cast, and it never lasts. Every season, the people come back, and sometimes in droves. But where do they go in the first place?

It could be that most people haven’t moved on, but migrated to a different discussion platform, like Discord. The momentum on OHR game design could very well remain hot beneath the surface where Slime Salad doesn’t shine.

Likewise, a lull in discussion doesn’t always equate to a lull in production. Maybe less talk means more act.

But sometimes that conversation is what keeps the spark for design alive. Sometimes the discussion is what keeps the momentum hot. Good discussion and feedback results in motivation, and motivation leads to getting stuff done.

I don’t know what will come of a 2022 Heart of the OHR, whether successful or a failure, because good things do have an expiration date, and I’ve sensed for a while that Heart of the OHR’s day is coming.

But more important, I’ve only committed to five seasons, and I’ve given it six. To have a solid ten-year run (2010­–2020) is satisfying, but it’s also tiring. That said, I’m also attracted to the idea of ending Heart of the OHR on its seventh season, as truthfully, that’s how many I actually wanted Heart of the OHR to have. And seven is truly a perfect number.

But then I think to my favorite Thursday night NBC sitcom. No, not Seinfeld. Community. For several years, Community teased its fans with “six seasons and a movie.” And, while we’re still waiting for that movie, the show managed to give us those six seasons. But what’s more interesting is what happened at the end of that sixth season.

First of all, to backtrack a little, there was never a promise of six seasons, much less seven. Likewise, there was never a promise of only six seasons. A seventh was always possible. Six was just the goal. So, when NBC canceled the show after its fifth season, a tribal roar among the fans erupted. How dare the network cut the show so short? Now the show would never fulfill the prophecy of the hashtag. #sixseasonsandamovie

But when Yahoo launched a streaming channel and volunteered to rescue Community from the clutches of cancelation hell, the fans could finally celebrate. Community would get its sixth season. And maybe more!

But there’s a bittersweet optimism to this idea of seven seasons.

The final episode of Season 6 speculates on what its seventh season might look like, even though everyone knows it’s never coming. The best anyone can hope for is a movie, and even that’s in limbo. Maybe we’ll get one. Maybe not. Not even Dan Harmon, the show’s creator, knows the answer to that. But having that open question keeps the legacy of Community alive and well, even if the show is finished and never coming back.

And sometimes, that’s what keeps it legendary.

So, having said that, what do you expect to see in Heart of the OHR 2022, the contest’s seventh season?

Heart of the OHR has been a community staple event for ten years, or about half of the community’s lifespan (as of its 2020 season). Each new announcement making its seasonal return sparks an awakening that brings old voices back to life and invites discussions about new and thought-dead properties making appearances. Likewise, talks about how to get involved and how to make the contest better than before leaks into the public conversation. It certainly has a legacy for drawing attention back to epic games and community involvement, even when the forums seem silent.

Most important, it gives the community a wealth of games to play. Granted, these games are getting made anyway. But games released in other seasons are easily missed and forgotten. Sometimes an announcement is made, and a few people may play it. But the conversation often dies there. Heart of the OHR, on the other hand, encourages longer discussions because it makes these games part of a bigger event, making it more likely that more people will play them. And not only will they play them, but they may play them on livestream. And not only will they play them publicly, but they’ll offer feedback. They’ll offer a rating, even. If the game’s designer is to ever learn anything about how players respond to his or her games, it’s through feedback, especially through live feedback.

If there’s one service that Heart of the OHR is best at, above all else, it’s giving game authors the opportunity to find out whether their games work, are fun to play, and why or why not. In a community of game authors, all we really want is for someone to play and comment on our games. Otherwise, we’d just build them in a vacuum.

Not having that forum would, perhaps, be the greatest tragedy sparked from the Heart of the OHR’s eminent departure. But it’s easily duplicated in any contest that may succeed it. And if any contest does replace Heart of the OHR, or even if Heart of the OHR has an encore season in 2022 (still a possibility), it should be noted that the most important part about the contest is not whether someone makes and submits a game, but whether anyone will play it.

No matter what the Heart of the OHR’s future holds, whether it makes a return or not, its mission statement will always remain true:

“It’s time to play a game.”

Thanks for taking this trip down memory lane with me. Hope you enjoyed it. Don’t forget, you can always view the original announcement threads for this and other Heart of the OHR contest seasons by clicking on their respective links below.

So, for now at least, this marks the end of the Heart of the OHR Contest Results. But it doesn’t yet mark the end of the Contest Archives! You can still jump to the statistics page by clicking on the button below. There, you’ll find the numbers and trends of Heart of the OHR and see how each season competed with each other. Hope you’ll check it out.

Finally, I want to offer a special thanks to everyone who participated in each Heart of the OHR contest season. It goes without saying, but I’m going to say it anyway, this contest could not exist without you. Obviously. So, thank you for making it possible if you were one of the participants. I also want to thank the prize holders for volunteering their gifts and services, as well as the voters who gave up their time to play these games. This contest was among the most successful contests of the 2010s because of your participation. It came back every even-numbered year because I knew you’d come back, too. So, thanks again for making Heart of the OHR such a special event each time.

I hope that whatever replaces it in the 2020s will be just as special.