Background Blitz - Ritual / Ceremony - CLOSED - Winner Announced!

[RootBound]

Hey @newwaveburritos, I really like the interpretation. I suppose we can leave criteria judgment to the voters.

[lorenzo]

I haven't done a Background Blitz in a long time, so it was fun doing a new one! I started very late, so I couldn't polish the background how I would've liked, but here it is:



Since the topic is about a ritual that can be religious, what's better than a church?
The aspect ratio is a bit strange because I wanted to include the bell tower, so I'll say that it's a game that is played on phones. 

[Hannah_Banana]

Great entry Lorenzo! So much detail, and you're right, what more fitting than a church. Hope to see you enter more often with backgrounds like this!  😊

[cat]

Wonderful entry, @lorenzo ! Maybe the scene just starts with a pan from the tower down?

[Volcan]

Many entries this time.

Here mine.

Archeologists have found this artifact.

[newwaveburritos]

Oh wow!  Lots of great entries this go round.  What a treat.

[RootBound]

Thanks for all the entries, everyone! Just about 24 hours left to go before voting, so last call for any final entrants. We've got 5 so far, so this should be a solid competition. 

[lorenzo]

Great entry Lorenzo! So much detail, and you're right, what more fitting than a church. Hope to see you enter more often with backgrounds like this!  😊

Thank you very much, Hannah! The real church I used as reference had even more detail, but I wanted to be able to finish before the deadline. 

Wonderful entry, @lorenzo ! Maybe the scene just starts with a pan from the tower down?

Thank you! That's a really good idea, why didn't I think of that?!

[RootBound]

Hey everyone! Thanks for all the submissions - we are now in the voting stage until the end of the day on April 3rd.

We have 5 entries, above:

@Creamy : Museum
@Hannah_Banana : Mayan-style sacrifice
@newwaveburritos : The bar
@lorenzo : Church
@Volcan : Artifact

Please pick your favorite in each of the following categories:

Concept: What is the background about? What sort of mood does it spark? What is, as it were, the big idea?
Playability: What is its opportunity for gameplay like? Walkable areas, hot-spots, dialogues, and so forth?
Artistic Execution: How well does the picture convey an atmosphere? How well is it executed?

[Creamy]

Concept: newwaveburritos - original take on the theme. It made me think of this recent comic book where some people go to the bar while other go to mass.
Playability: Volcan. I can picture a puzzle quite easily with the artifact.
Artistic Execution: lorenzo - like Obelix fell into the magic potion, I fell into European comics when I was a little boy.

[Hannah_Banana]

Concept: @lorenzo can see this being used in a game to set the scene for a cool storyline full of intrigue and puzzles throughout the church and catacombs underneath

Playability: @Volcan like creamy, I can see this used for a good puzzle in game

Artistic execution: @newwaveburritos great atmosphere in the bar for a cut scene conversation. Cool old school comic vibe

[cat]

Concept: newwaveburritos
Playability: lorenzo
Artistic Execution: lorenzo

[lorenzo]

My votes:

Concept: Hannah_Banana -- it evokes the idea of the ritual without the gruesome details (well, except on the carved image on the pyramid ). The toy on the right was a nice touch.

Playability: Creamy -- plenty of different objects to interact with and read their descriptions. The tyrannosaurus with the knife is just funny!

Artistic Execution: newwaveburritos -- this scene is perfect for a cutscene and it's a cool interpretation of the theme. I like the different expressions each person has in the image.

[RootBound]

The facilitator's allowed to vote too, right? If not, I can leave these out of the final count.

Concept: newwaveburritos -- and I think there's some playability here too, in the form of dialogues. I could see a group conversation which, depending on how the player chimes in, could have multiple outcomes. Really interesting idea.

Playability: Creamy -- Lots of potential secrets to uncover here, inventory items, clues, etc.

Artistic execution: lorenzo -- great subject, composition, and skill.

Great entries, everyone! It was difficult to choose.

[ildu]

Concept: Creamy. I like the idea of human history seen from some other race's lens. Extra points for getting some things wrong , like the common dagger-wielding tattooed T-Rex.
Playability: Hannah_Banana. I think this one is just about ready to be put into a game.
Artistic execution: lorenzo. This is great! I would love to see it colored, especially with there being so much space for the sky. A nice balance between busy and open space.

Side note: This Blitz was definitely fun to follow. I enjoyed the conversations and the fact that it just felt like there was a lot of activity. Good job! More Blitzes like this one! I'll definitely try to find time to take part in the next one.

[RootBound]

And the final vote count is in!

@Volcan:            2
@Hannah_Banana      2
@Creamy             3
@newwaveburritos    4
@lorenzo            6

Congrats to @lorenzo for the winning entry! You now have the honor of picking the next Background Blitz theme!

Great job to everyone who entered - this was an awesome set of entries.

[newwaveburritos]

Congrats @lorenzo !  I never mind losing to you lol since you always produce such great work!  Great job to everybody else as well.  This was definitely a fun one!

[lorenzo]

Thanks everybody for the votes! It was a lot of fun taking part in a background blitz again and it gave me a good excuse to draw something different. 
I also like how different each interpretation of the theme was, great work everybody!

I'll try to make a new competition as soon as possible... when I get a decent idea for a theme. I'm open to suggestions!

newwaveburritos: thank you very much! Your entry was lovely!