A History of the Terrible Game Contest, Part I
A feature by Iblis

On Feb. 7 2007 Fenrir Lunaris posted the rules for the fifth Terrible Game Contest, the third time he's hosted it. The contest will begin on April 1 and end on April 30, same as the last one he hosted in 2005. This contest will have a theme, edutainment, something no other Terrible Game Contest had before. Entrants are also encouraged to include as much "mature content" as possible, and a list of what qualifies is provided in the contest thread. The prize for first place is a check for $50, the highest ever for this contest.

Entries to the Terrible Game Contest have included some of the strangest, funniest, and, predictably, worst games ever produced for the OHR. No standard definition of a terrible game exists, but it's generally agreed that it's something beyond just a very bad game. A terrible game can offend or disgust the player, harm the player's eyes or ears, confuse the player, and all of these things are encouraged. However, a terrible game is never meant to bore the player. During the first Terrible Game Contest that Fenrir hosted he said, "The basis of this 'contest' is to attempt to construct a game that is awful, insulting, terrible, disgusting ... but still be playable to the point where it actually keeps the player's interest long enough to get to the end." Most successful entries follow this idea in some way.

This contest actually began as the "Horrible Game Contest" and was hosted by Gilbert (known on Castle Paradox as Rolling Stone). The contest was announced on April 20, 2004, but it had no single starting date because each entrant could specify the day they wanted to receive their contest file. The entrants would have to complete and submit their game within 48 hours of the time they received the file.

Aside from the time limit, the required use of an RPG file provided by Gilbert, and the general idea of making a "horrible game," the contest had no rules. The prize for the winner was fanart by Gilbert of their horrible game.

Most entrants to this contest took a more literal approach to the idea of a horrible game than the latter contests, with no real attempts at interesting gameplay. Many of them were intended as comedy or parody. Ugly or incomprehensible graphics, incomprehensible or misspelled dialogue, and irritating or misplaced music were common features of the entries and have continued to be a part of the Terrible Games Contest to this day.

Voters were asked to vote for what they thought was the worst game in the contest. The winner by a wide margin was SDHawk's entry: Final Fantasi XXX. It used bright, scribbly graphics and high-pitched, irritating music in order to do harm to the player's eyes and ears. Most of the dialogue was nonsensical and the player was given no direction. The fanart Gilbert drew can be viewed here.

Other notable entries were OMFG TIZ ROXORZ TOO!! by JSH357, Habla no Ingles by Gizmog1, and Hentai Quest by Chaos Nyte.

About two and a half months later, on July 7, 2004, Fenrir announced "Terrible Game Contest v1.WTF." Several changes were made to the contest format. Entrants would have an entire month to work on their game(s), there was no required RPG file, racial slurs were not allowed, and each game had to parody a member of the OHR community but change the person's name. Later the rules were relaxed to allow racial slurs and allow the use of real usernames in parodies. The winner of this contest could choose between two prizes: a drawing by Fenrir of anything they want, or an item worth no more than $25 from the Castle Paradox store.

This time the contest received many more entries, most of them similar to the previous contest in that they took a literal approach and were just very bad games. However, many more games were attempting and succeeding at humor this time, and a few games tried to keep enjoyable gameplay while being terrible in other ways.

The voting was much more complicated this time. There were eight categories: best graphics, worst graphics, best music, worst music, most enjoyable, least enjoyable, offensiveness, and best extras. Voters chose three games for each category. The winners in each category were:

Best Graphics: Barely Legal Bitches, by Fenrir Lunaris
Worst Graphics: Dog gets hit by car, by Dan The Man Entertainment
Best Music: OHRdate 1.5, by Shadowiii
Worst Music: Timmy's Maze, by Sparrowhawk
Most Enjoyable: OHRdate 1.5
Least Enjoyable: Dog gets hit by car
Offensiveness: Barely Legal Bitches
Best Extras: OHRdate 1.5

The overall winner was Fenrir's Barely Legal Bitches, with Shadowiii's OHRdate 1.5 coming in second. Since Fenrir was the contest's organizer, Shadowiii won the prize.

Barely Legal Bitches was a furry prostitution simulator where the main character had to whore herself and her friends out in order to pay her college loans. It featured excellent graphics as typical of a game by Fenrir, and offended enough of the voters to win first place.

OHRdate 1.5 was an expansion of Shadowiii's OHRdate, a dating simulator. In OHRdate 1.5, the object of the game was to make the girls hate you, rather than to win their affections.

Other notable entries were Burgertory 100% by Junahu, OMFG TIZ ROXORZ TREE!! and OHR House by JSH357, and Gato Sucio: The Quest for Color and Scottie Goes to Hell by Surlaw.

Next month we'll continue the history of the Terrible Game Contest, beginning with Fenrir's "Terrible Game Contest v1.PWND."