The following articles take a look back at Heart of the OHR 2012 from the benefit of hindsight. The common theme here is that we’re all full of hope and imagination, but not that full of commitment. It also reveals how any hot new thing can become victim to the sophomore slump.

Heart of the OHR 2012 was allowed to exist because the 2010 debut season got plenty of attention from the community and nothing but praise from all involved. It seemed like the kind of contest that OHR members wanted to see return. In fact, that desire for a second round was reiterated before the first contest had officially ended. So, just a few weeks after I closed the original contest, I started talking about this one.

In “Preproduction: Heart of the OHR 2012,” community members and future hopefuls did what they always did when their engines were hot and their creativity was flowing: talk about the games they hoped to work on for the next contest. It was a pastime as old as baseball (or in the OHR’s case, as old as the OHR).

But, of course, most of the hype fell away as the drift of time took us further from the end of the 2010 season, and these same hopefuls ultimately drifted on beyond the games they’d spent the post-2010 season discussing. But it was a wealth of motivation while the momentum was still active.

You can read the entire discussion in the “Preproduction: Heart of the OHR 2012” message thread (link at the end of this page) to see the list of games that could’ve been, had only the momentum continued for the next year.

When Heart of the OHR started in 2010, I allowed for submissions of original games, as well as those released prior to the July 1st starting window. At the time, these were the only two types of games available.

But in 2012, the idea of a rerelease becoming a “re-re-release” seemed absurd to me, so much in fact that I’d contemplating banning any game from making a second rereleased appearance. I didn’t want the contest to become a graveyard for the same games over and over.

But, I also realized that such an attitude was in violation of the spirit of Heart of the OHR. The contest was in part designed to encourage authors to finish their games, not just work on them for a season and move on. If I prevented them from submitting a rerelease for the second time, then there was a chance I’d discourage them from continuing the game they started years earlier.

I didn’t want to do that.

So, I came up with a different plan. I’d allow the entry of re-re-releases, but not call them that. Instead, I’d develop a new category ineligible for voting called the OHR Legend.

The purpose of the OHR Legend was to credit a game for its long-term development and dedication from its author. And as a reward for its entry, it would get a digital trophy based on whatever release “level” it was on—with Level 1 going to its first appearance as an OHR Legend.

In 2012, Fenrir-Lunaris’s Vikings of Midgard was the first game to take that honor. Of course, having already spent several years in development, and having made its first appearance in Heart of the OHR 2010 as a rerelease, it was getting tougher to identify which parts of Vikings were new and which parts were around since the last contest. This was especially troublesome with early areas getting new updates.

Because it would’ve been next to impossible to judge the game entirely on its new content (except for the “World of Ruin” section, which Fenrir-Lunaris had said contained the most new content for that year), I didn’t take any votes for it.

Not only that, but Vikings of Midgard had the lowest voter turnout in 2010 and even won an achievement for it. To expect more voters for it in its second Heart of the OHR appearance seemed too unlikely to justify ranking it. So, I decided that OHR Legends would get a participation trophy only. No votes. No rankings. That would be true of any future OHR Legend, not just Vikings of Midgard.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t get a trophy, either. Ironically, Fenrir-Lunaris, the designer of the previous season’s T-shirt and resident best artist, was the one I’d hoped would design the trophy, and given that he was the first to earn it, it made sense that a Level One Legends trophy would be nothing more than a vanity project and probably not worth the time for him to draw.

So, it didn’t get drawn. Not then. Not ever.

Unfortunately, the trophy wasn’t the only prize planned that failed delivery that year.

At the top of this section, I’d mentioned the “sophomore slump.” I should reiterate that the “sophomore slump” in this case refers to prize commitments, not the contest participation. In 2012, the contest itself was more successful than its predecessor and the second most successful of the entire Heart of the OHR ten-year series. But the commitment to deliver on prizes was mediocre at best.

Traditionally, at the launch of each season, a community member will offer a prize out of starry-eyed hope. Whatever he or she is offering, it seems like a reasonable idea. Whether it’s money or a service, the contest window is long enough to ensure that such a prize can be delivered. There’s no reason not to make an offer.

But then the community member disappears.

Or the prize proves too big to handle, so it just fades into obscurity.

Or there’s just not enough time or resources to handle the commitment the prize holder thought he could manage.

This third issue was often the case with bug bounties and feature requests. Even in 2021, some of 2012’s feature requests remain unfulfilled (though, in fairness, these are the same huge features that we’ve been waiting on since 2001 and require fundamental changes to the engine to work, so expecting them in six months or even six years was never a realistic request).

But it was also the case for items that we’d seen once before in 2010. For example, I was under the impression that contestants would get a new season of T-shirts for their participation in 2012. That prize was guaranteed right up until the person offering it stopped answering his private messages and hasn’t been seen nor heard from in the community since.

And, of course, there’s the OHR Legends trophy. As of 2021, the OHR Legends trophy is still nothing more than an idea (and a mockup photo, see above). And even if it was a reality, it would depend on the Slime Salad game list having space for it. While certainly possible to accommodate that idea, it still depends on a set of logistics to work, and getting a commitment out of setting up those logistics can be its own obstacle.

Of course, it could still happen. I’ve got better graphics programs than I had in 2012, so I could possibly make the trophies myself (see mockup in article above). I’m just not sure how much anyone would care at this point. It’s been almost ten years since the OHR Legends were introduced. Then again, as of this writing, Ghostbusters 3 is about to release, so what do I know?

Perhaps most alarming during the contest season, however, was the announcement that HamsterSpeak, the OHR’s long-term magazine for news, announcements, reviews, and how-to articles, was closing in July, just a month after the contest had started. HamsterSpeak had been a five-year staple for contest reports and breakdowns, and I’d assumed it would cover the end results of Heart of the OHR 2012 that January, as it had the previous contest a year-and-a-half earlier. In fact, I’d even promised cover artwork of the winning game for the January or February 2013 issue.

But it never happened. Surlaw, the magazine operator, wasn’t getting the time or content needed to keep up with it anymore, and for his own well-being, he had to close it up.

That meant the contest results for 2012 had no home.

The closing of HamsterSpeak was actually a difficult moment in Heart of the OHR history for me because part of what made the contest exciting to host was not just playing the games that people entered, but in delivering the “closing ceremony” that was the end-of-season contest report. Without the “fuzzy descriptions” or the “audience consensus” or the “achievements,” the end of the contest was nothing more than a chart full of numbers. And because every contest did just the numbers, I didn’t want that. That would’ve been boring.

So, I looked for a new home for the final 2012 report.

Fortunately, TheCube stepped in, waved his hand, and said, “Hey, I gotta blog!”

He didn’t actually do that or say that, but he did let me and the rest of the community know that he was willing to fill in the void that HamsterSpeak was leaving behind by hosting a new community blog called The Hamster Burrow.

I’d offered the contest results to him, and he accepted. What happened next was familiar, just as I’d wanted it.

Heart of the OHR 2012’s contest results were posted at The Hamster Burrow in January 2013. It looked as though we had a new place to read up on all things OHR, and a new home for all future contest results. It certainly looked nice. And the future looked promising. The blog had ideas. Ambition. Opportunity!

By April 2013, The Hamster Burrow had also closed up shop. Its final article? An interview with Surlaw, where TheCube mentions HamsterSpeak as the inspiration for The Hamster Burrow. Judging by the tone of the article, The Hamster Burrow had a lot more content planned for the future.

But that’s the OHR Commitment Paradox for you: Ambition > Fulfillment.

Fortunately, Heart of the OHR would find a new host for its results in 2014.

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.

You can also jump to the next season’s contest page series by clicking on the button below. There, you’ll find even more nuggets into the life and times of Heart of the OHR. 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.