Congratulations, StephenT!
And I owe a belated congratulations to Allenby!
Keep up the great work!
Rensslaer
And I owe a belated congratulations to Allenby!
Keep up the great work!
Rensslaer
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Onward to glory! Crusading glory in fact! I've noticed the crusader kings out there haven't won since April, and it's time to redress that. Fortunately I have just the AAR! It's been noticed elsewhere here and there and deserves all the accolades it can get. Some credit this AAR with starting a new trend, somewhat picture happy with about equal mixes of role-playing the 'main' character and irony/comedy.
I present to you Knud Knýtling, Prince of Denmark (and other assorted tales) by Phargle!
I present to you Knud Knýtling, Prince of Denmark (and other assorted tales) by Phargle!
Goodness gracious. This is very flattering. I'm kind of embarassed by the awards. To date, Knud has won AARLand Choice Award for Best Comedy, WritAAR of the Week, and now the Weekly AAR Showcase. Hopefully, that means we're doing something right here!
Since the AAR is about the Knuds and not about me, I'd like to say a few things about the AAR itself. My intention was to take a minor noble with a funny name and play him. I noticed that the King of Denmark always gave his son Knud the county of Halland, and decided that 'Knud Knýtling', especially if you pronounce it with the K being silent in both names, is hilarious as a name. Then I played, and everything went hilariously wrong. From there, he had some awesome and hilarious heirs. . . but then his line got too strong, and I decided to end things.
After announcing my intentions, a lot of people protested, so I went back to play the game itself - which I had not played in months due to having so many screenshots to post - and found that the Knýtlings were still fun. It's hard since their empire is so large and my computer is slow, but it's still fun to say 'I wonder if I can do this' where this might be unifying Spain, or fighting the Turks, or driving the Muslims out of Europe. Even when you're running a huge empire, there's lots of humor. The little mistakes that would be catastrophically funny in a small kingdom become embarassingly funny when you're so strong that they should never happen to begin with. I'm nearly up to the 1300s in playing the game, and I hope to take it in a dramatic and difficult direction once Europe is unified.
As for the AAR itself, my goal was initially to do a wordless AAR. I noticed that people liked screenshots more than they like text, but it was too hard (and beyond my ability) to do an AAR like that and still make it work. So I settled for short blurbs that made the pictures (hopefully) funnier. I also wanted to make sure it wasn't just random text and random screenies, so I gave each ruler a personality that was distinct and yet still thoroughly Knýtling. This would be my touchstone in each part of the saga. Eventually, I realized that the screenshots themselves were not as funny and only provided inspiration for textual humor, so I've tried to reverse that trend a bit. I also noticed that I was neurotically trying to make each and every caption funny, even though it wasn't that way early in the AAR, and that proved to be a bit of a strain.
Despite all that, and despite how long this AAR has become, the format has stayed the same. It's always centered, with ten screenshots and ten captions. At the end, there's an indented teaser for the next episode - unless it's the end of a saga, in which case a filk serves to notify the reader that the story is over. I've tried to keep the pictures small so they load quicker, and I've tried to keep the layout as tidy as possible to make it easy to read. There's a lot of fine AARs out there that I gave up on because they were just hard to read, and a lot of unexceptional AARs that I read religiously because the layout makes them easy and casual to take in.
Anyway, thanks for this. This is the second award Knud received because the winner wasn't around to accept it, and he and I are very greatful to be your second choice once again! And don't forget, Knud would be nothing without the readers. . . so pat yourselves on the back, because you guys the heavy lifting in earning this award. I just pointed at a few funny pictures and said something rude. Thank you!
Since the AAR is about the Knuds and not about me, I'd like to say a few things about the AAR itself. My intention was to take a minor noble with a funny name and play him. I noticed that the King of Denmark always gave his son Knud the county of Halland, and decided that 'Knud Knýtling', especially if you pronounce it with the K being silent in both names, is hilarious as a name. Then I played, and everything went hilariously wrong. From there, he had some awesome and hilarious heirs. . . but then his line got too strong, and I decided to end things.
After announcing my intentions, a lot of people protested, so I went back to play the game itself - which I had not played in months due to having so many screenshots to post - and found that the Knýtlings were still fun. It's hard since their empire is so large and my computer is slow, but it's still fun to say 'I wonder if I can do this' where this might be unifying Spain, or fighting the Turks, or driving the Muslims out of Europe. Even when you're running a huge empire, there's lots of humor. The little mistakes that would be catastrophically funny in a small kingdom become embarassingly funny when you're so strong that they should never happen to begin with. I'm nearly up to the 1300s in playing the game, and I hope to take it in a dramatic and difficult direction once Europe is unified.
As for the AAR itself, my goal was initially to do a wordless AAR. I noticed that people liked screenshots more than they like text, but it was too hard (and beyond my ability) to do an AAR like that and still make it work. So I settled for short blurbs that made the pictures (hopefully) funnier. I also wanted to make sure it wasn't just random text and random screenies, so I gave each ruler a personality that was distinct and yet still thoroughly Knýtling. This would be my touchstone in each part of the saga. Eventually, I realized that the screenshots themselves were not as funny and only provided inspiration for textual humor, so I've tried to reverse that trend a bit. I also noticed that I was neurotically trying to make each and every caption funny, even though it wasn't that way early in the AAR, and that proved to be a bit of a strain.
Despite all that, and despite how long this AAR has become, the format has stayed the same. It's always centered, with ten screenshots and ten captions. At the end, there's an indented teaser for the next episode - unless it's the end of a saga, in which case a filk serves to notify the reader that the story is over. I've tried to keep the pictures small so they load quicker, and I've tried to keep the layout as tidy as possible to make it easy to read. There's a lot of fine AARs out there that I gave up on because they were just hard to read, and a lot of unexceptional AARs that I read religiously because the layout makes them easy and casual to take in.
Anyway, thanks for this. This is the second award Knud received because the winner wasn't around to accept it, and he and I are very greatful to be your second choice once again! And don't forget, Knud would be nothing without the readers. . . so pat yourselves on the back, because you guys the heavy lifting in earning this award. I just pointed at a few funny pictures and said something rude. Thank you!
Well, as the ACA host, all I can say is that Knud Knýtling is not yet quite done with winning awards. 
Goodbye, goodbyeeeee.
Oops, forgot about this - my choice for the weekly showcase is an AAR that is unfortunately discontinued, but what exists is gold. It has musical Nazis. It has motorbikes. It came in second place in the ACAQ2 for Comedy in HOI2. It's. . .
Achtung Kavallerie! - a German Cavalry Only AAR - Also a musical for some reason
And I loved it, if only for a short time.
(I'm sorry if this means the mod has to pick the next one. . . )
Oops, forgot about this - my choice for the weekly showcase is an AAR that is unfortunately discontinued, but what exists is gold. It has musical Nazis. It has motorbikes. It came in second place in the ACAQ2 for Comedy in HOI2. It's. . .
Achtung Kavallerie! - a German Cavalry Only AAR - Also a musical for some reason
And I loved it, if only for a short time.
(I'm sorry if this means the mod has to pick the next one. . . )
phargle said:
Great choice Phargle! And congrats to you for getting this AwAARd as well as yours is a very nice one to read.
Well surely Alexus will be around to pass the next one on, unless he has disapppeared as well.
Congrats, Alexus!
Congrats, Alexus!