I've been away for a few weeks and I have been reading up on all of many forum posts that happened while I was gone.  In that time the community (gross generalization warning ahead) has grumbled about $5 fees for updating Shades of Doom, emptied their wallets picking up Paladin of the Sky (sweet), and tried hard to start  up a few flame wars (definitely some grumpy people lately).  ROFL!

I think it's time for a contest!  Lets put some money back out there, and maybe brighten the mood of a few people.  Perhaps this will help a few new people grab the Paladin game, which I'm hearing really great things about! 

Castaways 2.7b has been posted, and it contains a game mode called Recorded Challenge.  This is how players will participate in the contest.  The game always starts you with an identical set of resources, but after that it is up to you to survive and thrive.  You have the daunting task of surviving through 10000 game ticks as you earn a score based on the things you save up.  At any point you can press Shift + space to hear your current score, and also list how many game ticks you have used.  10000 ticks seems like a lot at first, but eventually you'll start wishing you had more so you could save up more stuff.  Here are how points are calculated.

Knights, Rangers, Pikemen, and Cavalry all start out worth 1000 points for the first unit, but each additional unit is worth 100 points less.  Having more than 10 of any of these troop types will give no additional points.

All units upgraded with Tomes (Serfs, Woodsmen, Physician, ect) start out worth 1000 points for the first unit.  Each additional unit is worth 250 less.  Having more than 4 of any of these skilled job types will give no additional points.

All food stored in your Store houses or Taverns will be counted.
Meat, Bread, Vegetables, and Wine all start out worth 500 points for the first item, and each additional item is worth 5 points less.  Having more than 100 of any of these food types will give no additional points.

Tomes stored in your Store houses start out worth 1000 points for the first Tome, and each additional tome is worth 250 less.  Having more than 4 tomes will give no additional points.

Lumber and bricks stored in your Store houses are all worth 10 points each.  There is no limit on the amount of points you can earn on lumber and bricks.

When you first start up the game you'll already have quite a few points.  This is normal, because you begin the mission with a lot of food and stuff.  As you start to burn through your reserves, that score will drop lower and lower as you work to build your town and get on your feet.  Defend yourself against the goblins (walls are your friend) and soon your score will begin to rise as you produce more than you use.  The game stops once you reach 10000 ticks, but it will still allow you to save your game instead of immediately kicking you out to the main menu.

Saving is important, obviously, but your save game files are what you'll submit to be part of the contest.  Save your game at any time, and email me the save game file.  The score you have at the time of the save, is the score I will credit you with.  I will list everyone's scores here in this thread, so you can see what you need to reach in order to beat them.

The Prizes:  (using the traditional, highest score is better, system)  haha

First place, $40 (USD)
Second place, $35
Third place, $30
Fourth place, $25
Fifth place, $20
Sixth place, $10
Seventh place, $10
Eighth place, $10
Ninth place, $10
Tenth place, $10

Rules:

You do not need to have a Kaldobsky Gamer account to participate.  This contest is open for anyone to join.

Don't cheat, obviously.  Contained within the save game file is information about every action you took as you played.  I take these save game files and run them through a special program that recreates the same starting conditions and quickly plays through the entire game doing everything you had done.  I will use the score my program tells me, which means any type of cheating or save game editing isn't going to work.

Don't give other people your save game files so they can turn them in as their own.  The program I feed these files into can tell if the original game data matches any of the other files people have submitted.  So if you play 100 ticks of the challenge, save it, give it to a friend, he plays the remaining 9900 ticks, and submits it for the contest... I will not count that.  Hopefully that makes sense.

Do feel free to discus strategy and stuff here to help others.  Telling others exactly what you did is totally fine, because their random events will end up being a bit different.  I'd actually like to see the more skilled players sharing tips with those who need a hand.

Do have a paypal account.  I will be sending the prizes out through paypal, so having it is a requirement if you wish to participate.

You are able to win more than 1 prize!  (I'm allowing this because I have no realistic way to prevent it.)  As long as you start over again from the beginning, you can submit additional save files to get your name on the score board multiple times.  If you submit another file that is "related" to one you've already submitted, then it will not be counted.  This means that you can't submit a save file if it was loaded from another file you had already submitted.  A special set of starting conditions for each game are what make them unique, so that is why each new game you submit for points must have been started fresh from a new game.

Deadline:

August 31 is the last day I will accept submissions.  Once September first rolls around (Eastern timezone), I will just delete any new save game files I see in my email.

Where to submit save game files:

Attach the save game file to an email, and send it to [email protected].  Please include your Audiogames.net name in the email so that I know who to give credit to for the score.

I'm sure I've forgotten something important, but oh well.    Good luck everyone!