[CONTEST] Build a Gingerbread House!

Discussion in 'Empire Events' started by MoreMoople, Dec 4, 2020.

  1. I had been looking for a new project to do so I could avoid doing other projects..... :D
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  2. Cool Shell and I should be in she is off this week ill let you know Moople!
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  3. Yeah I'll definitely need some assistance when it comes time for me to submit this thing. :p I have no clue what I'm doing.
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  4. Are custom heads OK to use or disqualifying?
  5. Considering they're able to be used on EMC (see +deco on 8 and Utopia, for example) I would think yes, but I'm no official authority so someone please correct me if I'm wrong
  6. They are fine.
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  7. I do have one question:

    Is this contest
    1) a contest to build a gingerbread house, which thus will be judged based on how good of a gingerbread house it is, or is this
    2) a build contest with the 'theme' gingerbread house, and thus a contest where the builds are judged based on what they aesthetically look like in general, and on how well it communicates what the phrase generally means to the contestant. (e.g. time with family, desert, cartoons, etc.)
    To me the objective, and this further explanation, can read as both:
    To use an idea that I am not planning to use as an example: You could make an up-scaled build of two children making a gingerbread house, including the house, but having it unfinished and generally not very good-looking in isolation, because, well, two children are making it. This build would also communicate the idea that a gingerbread house is something that reminds of family or childhood.
    If this is contest 1, a build based on this idea would not meet the requirements, and thus be either disqualified or really lowly graded, but if it is 2 (which I hope) this would be a perfectly fine entry, and would be judged based on how good of a build the entire thing is.

    Because I feel like it might be that it has not yet been decided which one of these two it is (because the question did not occur to anyone) I would also like to explain why I think there is a 'correct' answer here:
    You see, 1 would have the problem that what to one person "feels" like a gingerbread house may not to me, or someone else, "feel" like a gingerbread house. I, personally, have never encountered a gingerbread house or anything similar in real life, and only know the concept from North-American cartoons, so I immediately got the idea to make something realistic (if a bit old,) with a really simple colour palate, only using five different blocks, to match the style of those animations, additionally making it very Christmas-y, since that inevitably is the subject matter of those cartoons. Reading up on the concept, though, I found out that it is a desert or generally something some people actually make out of foodstuffs, something that I thought was only a joke of those cartoons.
    (I should add that the phrase "Gingerbread house" literally translates to Dutch "Huis van Peperkoek," which semantically means the exact same thing as the English, both originally referred to a desert, though the Dutch one doesn't have the cultural history of making that desert as a basis of that, which is probably why I read it differently.)
    Ultimately, of course, language is defined by how we use it, and thus: none of these readings is more correct than another without prescribing people their langue: it's all just the meaning we give to random sounds/letters/pixels, there is no inherently correct answer. And though this might be a drastic case, others might be a lot smaller, and more subtle, making it impossible to judge if someone “correctly” made something that looks or feels like a gingerbread house. The only thing that can be judged is how well the contestants idea of what it is lines up with the idea of the judge.
    Because of that, contest 1, where the builds are judged based on how good a depiction they are of a gingerbread house, or how well they incorporate the principal of it, is inherently problematic. That is probably also why all professional contests that I have seen and participated in had themes, a phase, where the contestants make something based on what that phrase means to thém, and the builds a judged based on general aesthetics and how well they communicate that personal meaning. This would be case 2 in my original question.

    I’m sorry for the long read, but I hope that this is a meaningful contribution.
    I know people have the tendency to read posts like this by me as ill-intended. The only reason I write this now is because I feel like this is a problem that would otherwise come up later, and have people be very angry when the time-consuming entries are judged differently because someone read something differently from someone else, and would have done something differently if they understood it the way someone else understood it. I also just generally think that contest 2 leads to more interesting submissions and a more interesting time working on them, but that is mostly personal
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  8. This one. :)
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  9. We don't make them much here in New Zealand. Our Christmas is in summer so lots of traditions are changed/adapted. I've only ever made and eaten one gingerbread house.

    But online you can see many examples. Some people make them out of a soft, spongey gingerbread, some out of the harder cookie style gingerbread and there are many shapes and sizes and colour schemes. There have been gingerbread versions of famous buildings too.
  10. The clarification question was perfectly acceptable as an inquiry and Moople has clarified the answer, as requested.
    Please let's get this thread back on topic.
  11. Just FYI as the title says it’s a gingerbread house building contest not a gingerbread chair contest.
  12. It is building gingerbread houses in minecraft, I think the intention was for it to be fun and light-hearted. Of course you can think about anything as philosophically as you choose but that doesn't mean other people are required to.




  13. Honestly, I was trying to be helpful. I don't need a lecture. (I have studied philosophy at university and I have many letters after my name, but that's irrelevant, when I'm on EMC it is for fun and that is all.)

    Anyway, back to collecting heads for my gingerbread house :p
  14. Did anyone read that all?

    Anyway, Im struggling to fit all the build in...
  15. I warned you guys. Give up now.

  16. I was just about to start, guess I dont have to now... -.-
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  17. LindenNZ, MoreMoople and wafflecoffee like this.
  18. Friendly reminder that this is the last week to turn in your builds! Get them in by next Thursday! :D
  19. Finished and submitted! Thanks for the fun build challenge 😄
    MoreMoople likes this.
  20. was just checking the rules real quick before I went to work and caught the "1.15 blocks and below" part
    we updated to 1.16 in the middle of the contest I guess.... just clarify blocks for me.