Having just finished my last read-through of the finalist entries, my brain is buzzing with excitement about this announcement, but at the same time I’m also sickeningly torn.  This competition has been an absolute pleasure to judge, and there have been no entries where I’ve held my head in despair and bemoaned the state of creative writing in this world.  I’ve come away from every one thinking “heh, I liked what they did with that one bit…” in regards at least one aspect of the quests, be it the humour, used, the clues or the story telling abilities of our players.  However, while they all had something to commend them, there were some which had absolutely nothing for me to nitpick over and which had me laughing and smiling the whole way through.  I knew our players had a magnificent grasp of Zorkish humour and wit, but to see it brought out so perfectly?  Honestly, I was expecting that maybe there’d be one of you out there who could bring it to life on the page, but instead I got a gaggle of you!  I’m so very glad that we added the rule about implementing more than the two winning quests, because there are quite a few quests that were of good enough quality to include, and a couple more (who won’t be listed here) who are going in a “Maybe” pile.

It’s clichéd beyond belief to say “Oh, you were all so good, it was really hard to choose!”, but when it came down to the top three, and I had to decide who would be first, second and who would get a “Yeah, you’re being included too” prize, I was genuinely sitting there reading them again and again, pouring over the notes I’d taken, and generally pulling my hair out trying to come to a decision.  In the end, there was one which was better than the other two, so I could, in good conscience, pick the overall winner.  However, when it came to choosing who was to get silver… well, it was tough.  It finally got to the stage where I was saying “Okay, either I flip a coin, or they both get second place prizes”, and given that I spent my last zorkmid on lunch (and flipping a sandwich isn’t quite as fun), I’ve just decided that there is simply going to be a joint second place prize awarded.  So, without further verbose torture, here are the results:

Winner:

“Enter the Face Breaker” by Afgncaap5

Runner(s) Up:

“The Grognards of Gygax” by Mungo Depanted
“The Dead Walk” by Reason

Not technically “Winners”, but too good to leave out of the game:

“A Truly Absurd Quest” by Mithicus Frotz
“A Wizard and his Cocoa” by Shushaz

We’ve got one big cart of coconuts to dish out to all of you listed, so congratulations to our winners, and to everyone who entered.  You’re going to make this game a whole lot more fun for all of us.

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