OCT Survey 2024

• Less than 3 months: 9

• 3 months to 6 months: 55

• 6 months to 9 months: 40

• 9 months to 1 year: 46

• More than 1 year: 9

There seems to be a preference for shorter tournaments (3-6 months) but the general consensus seems to be that OCTs can last to anywhere up until a year which seems consistent with previous years' tournaments. 

There's a tremendous number of people who've joined in on OCTs since 2019 which I think suggests that there is still a healthy number of new competitors in the scene.

How many OCTs did you enter in the past year?

0: 41 people

1: 48 people

2: 38 people

3: 15 people

4: 9 people

5 or more: 11 people

How many OCTs have you entered overall?

1: 17 people

2: 17 people

3: 21 people

4: 12 people

5: 17 people

6: 14 people

7: 14 people

8: 9 people

9: 3 people

10 or more: 34 people

There is still a healthy number of people willing or considering participating in OCTs. 2024 might not be the most accurate showing of how many tournaments people will try to join but in general people tend to join 0 to 3 tournaments in this year.

Comics still remain the largest medium used for OCT entries, and whilst writing is far less common, it does still seem to be in demand based on responses to later questions in the survey.

Auditioning remains enjoyable for the majority of people but there is definitely people who find the process unenjoyable. Whilst I don't know what a good solution would be I still think it's an important thing to note. 

4 or 5 rounds still remains the popular number of rounds for competitors.

For the question of "what makes you most interested in the OCTs you join?" a majority of the "other" answers involved:

• Trustworthy or passionate staff/organisers

• A friendly community

• Creative freedom with their entires

• The ability to experiment with their character ideas

"Other" option for the OCT Format question had 2 responses which were both in favor of the Multiple Lives/2 Stock format where you have two "lives" before you get eliminated from the competition.

A sense of community is definitely one of the biggest things people value in an OCT, and I was curious to see what the general consensus was regarding people's preferred OCT format, events outside of the main rounds and their view on spectator involvement.

There seems to be around about an equal split of people who want elimination tournaments and people who don't have a preference in the tournament format they join. 

Fan Art and Round Readings being the most popular activities outside of the main event makes sense and I think this acts as an easy way to make a more involved community. 

Goku Royale - 19 votes

War For Rayuba - 16 votes

Azlantec - 7 votes

Goku Royale 3 - 7 votes

Zombie Escape - 6 votes

Midwich Valley - 5 votes

Black Market Brawl 2 - 5 votes

Goku Royale 2 - 5 votes

Summer Leagues - 4 votes

Walking City - 4 votes

Chop 2 the Top - 4 votes

Crown of the Beast - 3 votes

Splinter City - 3 votes

Murder on the OCT Express - 3 votes

Humans and Horrors - 2 votes

Parasomnia - 2 votes

Thimblewood - 2 votes

Cascade Cabaret 2 - 2 votes

Ebon Spire - 2 votes

Kilos Point - 2 votes

Adrift - 1 vote

BiOCTle - 1 vote

Black Market Brawl - 1 vote

Carnival Town - 1 vote

Cascade Cabaret 3 - 1 vote

Count Your Stars - 1 vote

Cursed City - 1 vote

Dreamcatcher - 1 vote

Eldritch Escape - 1 vote

Entervoid Election Royale - 1 vote

Escape From Nevera - 1 vote 

Fatal Gambit - 1 vote

I Crave Violence - 1 vote

Jackpot - 1 vote

King of Hares - 1 vote

Lost and Found - 1 vote

Lovechild - 1 vote

MAE Day - 1 vote

Murder House - 1 vote

Nightmare Land - 1 vote

OMGOCT - 1 vote 

Pantheon - 1 vote 

Peerless Under the Heavens - 1 vote

STAR - 1 vote

The Red - 1 vote

Thieving Crow - 1 vote

Tower - 1 vote 

Trinity Tournament - 1 vote

Wife of the Wizard - 1 vote

Here are some notable responses from several tournaments which I thought were worth highlighting.

War For Rayuba

• Massive community

• Lots of creativity

• Unique setting/format

• The massive scale and number of participants gave unique feel (“lightning in a bottle”)

Notable Answers:

Person A:

W4R did two huge things: it split people into teams with a friendly rivalry, and it gave those teams something tangible to fight over. The lore driving the fight was rad as hell, but I think what really helped make that environment special was the fact that everyone had people in their corner (narratively and during the creation process) working towards the same goal.

The ‘wargame’ elements present in the OCT made each round matter, no matter how minor, and the inclusion of free-for-all areas gave folks who weren’t drafted to claim territory for the round something to do in a looser, more casual environment. Everyone contributed to the success of the team, and the success of the team lifted everyone up with it.

Person B:

The map and the premise, big 2 factions fighting for control, and with such a cool setting??? Nothing yet come close to it for me

Person C:

Besides being my first and likely the nostalgia talking, I was really impressed by the scale and the lore created along the way. My only regret was joining so late, missing out on contributing to the collaborative work of creating rivalries, friendships and a history for the fictional world.

Goku Royale 1-3

• Approachable

• Goofy, less high tension

• Loose format but strong theming, allows for contestants to make it their own, malleable

• Good community

• Good hosting

Notable Answers

Person A:

Combination of fun concept (knock-off characters) and a really laid-back attitude (see aforementioned concept, as well as no auditions, judging done basically on whim, and a general feeling that everyone was just in it for the laughs). It felt like a really approachable OCT space coming immediately after the very high-stress environment of War for Rayuba OCT.

Person B:

I feel like I've started to push myself more in terms of art thanks to it. I haven't been able to consistently draw as much as I've wanted to in the past couple of years, and it's been a great opportunity to just have fun and learn a little. And, I just love seeing a bunch of great artists make great art of funny lil guys.

Person C:

I have it to thank for getting me back into the scene!

Azlantec

• Good judging

• Good premise

• Friendly community

Notable Answers:

Person A:

Fun activity during the pandemic

Person B:

The premise of the tournament, the opponents I got to fight, but most importantly the community. Pretty much 80% of my enjoyment is from the community. 

Chop To The Top 2

Notable Answers:

Person A:

The community and involvement of the hosts in events and the oct itself

Person B:

Fantastic premise, fun worldbuilding, light-hearted feel, non-elimination, and a fantastic supportive community

Walking City

Notable Answers:

Person A:

There was a fairy active community and everyone was super hype and excited. I loved that the chats were always active and people were always commenting on each others work.

Person B:

It was an older deviantArt OCT so I probably just feel nostalgic about it tbh. I had a lot of fun in the community at the time with people making memes, art streams, reading parties etc and just have nice memories of it. However every OCT I have joined has been fun in different ways so I do not discount those at all.

Zombie Escape

• Close knit community

• Fun and simple premise

• Round readings

• Good communication from judges

• Competitor managing to finish all rounds

Notable Answers:

Person A:

A fun and simple prompt, a tight community which judges that communicated with us well, and non-competitive non-elimination allowed it to be a chill environment.

Person B:

The community as round readings were very fun

Black Market Brawl 1-2

• Personal fufilment of managing to make more rounds or make a character they like 

• Creative freedom

• Interesting lore

Notable Answers:

Person A:

It was great to see all the writers and visual artists come together and play with so many fun ideas. I was part of an unorthodox group submission that was allowed to keep going and it was exhilarating! For one of our rounds we made an animated podcast skit and its such a highlight for me. All in all an amazing, exciting experience

Person B:

It was incredibly well-organized with super interesting lore that I wanted to expand further and further. It was easy to tell stories in a world like that, all full of atmosphere n stuff.

Person C:

BMB2 allowed me to practice my panel base/panel scrolling comics. It was a lot of fun to try something new and I enjoyed the time I had making them. Not to mention it was the first time I ever made a character specifically for an OCT.

Midwich

• Effort was made to make spectators feel included 

• Tight knit community

• Judges made effort to be engaged in everyone's storylines

Notable Answers:

Person A:

wonderful tight knit community with collaborative storytelling and great artists, judges were engaged with everyones storylines and made efforts to acknowledge them all in comics/bonus material, spectators were integrated into "main" storyline as well, lots of puzzles, banger premise that was well fleshed out

Person B:

Great premise, it's run very well, everyone feels like they have equal involvement in the overall story, even spectators.

Person C:

Incredibly unique premise, hosted by wonderful people who were VERY WELL PREPARED for the undertaking, and presented with a consistent style that made it feel very immersive. Overall sits in its own class above most other OCTs.

Cascade Cabaret 2-3

• Good community

• Well organised 

• Personal/Artistic fufilment

Notable Answers:

Person A:

I feel like it was a lightning in a bottle situation for me. A friend of mine was a judge and got me interested (we kept it professional, no favoritism to the best of our abilities) and the premise got me hooked enough that I slipped in an audition. Next thing I know I’m making friends that I’m still to this day close to, creating memes and AUs of all our characters, and actually making it all the way to the end of the tournament. It helped that it was my first non-elimination so I really wanted to see it through to the end the best I could.

King of Hares

Person A:

Good community with vibrant characters and an excellently formed premise that was open enough for play, but narrow enough for a cohesive unit

Thimblewood

Person A:

The premise was specific and encouraged creativity without restricing participants. 

Nightmare Land

Person A:

Simple, fun, miniature 1 page oct for people with busy jobs

Cursed City

Person A:

Cursed City had an interesting premise, elimination rounds, and overall good organization. The judges kept the rounds exciting by switching locations and introducing new mechanics like curses, which influence your characters even after the round itself is over. I also tend to gravitate towards more gorey/bloody OCTS in general, and the horror of the pit was intriguing.

Final Gambit

Person A:

It was a Homestuck inspired OCT, perfectly feeding into my massive interest in the franchise at the time. People in the fandom are generally incredibly creative which showed itself in interesting and well-rounded characters and entries, the universe is fleshed out yet almost limitless making it fun to work around and I'm a big fan of the gorier OCT's.

The Red

Person A:

Amazing premise, strong judging and reliable upkeep of community, A small but passionate collection of competitors and spectators, and frequent community events that kept everyone engaged between rounds. 

Adrift

Person A:

Everything about the OCT was lightning in a bottle for me and many of my friends that I met (and am still close to) in it. The premise was hooking, the atmosphere/community was VERY alive and thriving, my teammate and I really pushed ourselves and learned a lot throughout the rounds, etc. While it seems that only the showrunner/host was the one really keeping the OCT going behind the scenes (as it seemed the other judges had all but abandoned the project), that host did a spectacular job keeping it together despite it all and I have so many great memories from it to thank them for.

A great focus of many comments on favourite tournaments is on how important the community is vital for the enjoyment of the tournament. Making memories, meeting new people or connecting with people you already know are all massive points of enjoyment in OCTs.

There were also plenty of tournaments which felt creatively fulfilling for people, whether it was testing their storytelling skills, making it to the end of a tournament or getting to explore a character specifically for the tournament’s setting. 

What individuals value about a premise will obviously vary from person to person, but I think in almost every case the most successful tournaments have a strong theming, community and identity. 

Regardless of if it is a simple premise which is incredibly malleable, or one which has more in-depth lore or restrictions when submitting - I think making it clear what your tournament is and isn’t can be a massive draw for people.

I also think it’s important to point out how much comments on Midwich emphasise how they managed to involve spectators in the main stories more. It’s really nice to see non-competitors get to contribute to a tournament's culture in this way. It allows more people to get in on the fun 

These were answers which focused on ideas for new OCTs premise and theming:

Cartoon

Cyberpunk/Shadowrun setting

Dark Fantasy

Dating Sim

Death Game

Deserted Island Paradise

Goofy/Gimmicky Premises

Horror themed

Magical Girls

Racing Tournament (Max Mad/Wacky Racers)

Mecha/Robots

Modern Setting

Murder Mystery

Nautical/Ocean/Pirate

Niche / Fandom Based OCTs

Pokemon

Romance

Samurai / Kung Fu

Sci-fi or Space exploration 

Superhero

Survival/Escape focus

TTRPG, D&D or adventure based 

Urban Fantasy

Victorian/Steampunk 

Wild West

These were answers which focused on ideas for new OCTs formats or restrictions:

1. Joining as a group of 3

2. An OCT where artists compete alongside their characters

3. Maybe alternate versions of a character all fighting to become canon, stuff with ocs (similar to Goku Royale)

4. Rotating style limitations (e.g. Limited color palette, no text, style swap)

5. Experimental premises or requirements

6. War for Arcadia/Rayuba style team battles

7. A circular branching timeline/chronological territorial capture

8. More writing OCTs

9. More cooperative stories which don’t rely on violence

10. Niche / Fandom Based OCTs (Stuff based on pre-existing stories, tv and games)

11. Exquisite Corpse type comics, where everyone makes a piece independent of the others and then they're sewn together into a final product.

12. More different mediums allowed

Note: These are a selection of comments from this question in the survey. I aimed to pick out ones with different ideas or ones which I couldn’t condense in the previous sections.

1. I don’t mind as long as it’s interesting, I’ve been surprised by premises that I didn’t think I would be into once I started reading more about them.

2. Death or elimination game OCT with a small number of OCs being eliminated each round. Collaborative between all competitors and continues until either X amount of OCs are left, X number of rounds are passed or judges decide it’s a good time to end it with the last round being a final thematic game/gauntlet for the survivors. 

3. Most concepts are glued firmly to the realm of combat, I'd like to see more OCTs in formats that don't feature much, or even actively discourage violence between competitors. Survival/ escape scenarios, outright game show scenarios, such and the like. 

4. An OCT for past OCT judge characters 

5. A masquerade ball interrupted by the murder of the king and all of the entrants are implicated. The OCT is to figure out who did it and try to clear your name

6. I like thematic rounds ppl should do more of those."In round 2 you shall play limbo with the king of demons or else the grim reaper will have your Soul" kinda beat

7. More niche octs. bring out more OCTs like Bionicle where it truly ran on the power of love that a small number of people have for said franchise. Give me my Locked Tomb OCT NOW!

8. I’d be interested to see an oct where the central conflict isn't focused primarily on violence/ found a unique means of making cooperative stories

9. Yearly, people from different countries represent and duke it out in a single elimination format. Champion gets a cool title, I guess. I just wanna see that and draw with people. And judges are completely anonymous. (Like, they won't interact with the contestants unless needed to, won't reveal their nationalities, and such) 

10. 4th wall breaking oc tournament

11. Something focusing more on symbolism and metaphor.

12. More cooking OCTs, maybe more map based OCTs like W4R, more writing OCTs (I'd like to use the medium sometimes and it feels underrepresented). 

13. Any exploration OCT's in fantasy lands are interesting to me. So maybe nghh yeah the map that you can explore/add new locations with your comic

14. stop doing strange gimmicks just do basic tournies its the setting (or i guess, fandom) and artists that show up are what people pay attention to and turn out for.

15. A worldbuilding effort like World Beast Song again

16. I want to see people push the ‘game’ elements of OCTs in new and unhinged ways. The World Beasts’ Song was a smaller tournament that did this by establishing a fluid, morphing world that creators were encouraged to change during each round. Those changes were reflected on each round’s map of the world, and by the end of it all everyone was building and rebuilding on what had come before them, remixing the ideas laid down by the previous tile-holder in new and interesting ways.

Do more stuff like that. Give me a map and let me move my super special boy around it while I make car noises. Make the numbers go up.

17. I honestly wonder how good an OCT would be with either only a single or no judge characters whatsoever. Like only environments or something. Sometimes OCTs feel more like a sprint to impress the judges by drawing fanart of their characters rather than making a compelling story. It doesn’t ALWAYS feel like this, but I sure have felt it occasionally.

18. Raid boss/all participants working toward one goal

19. Whatever the host wants to do - I don’t think people should commit to running something on the whims of someone else

20. I would like to see an OCT dedicated to amateur participants, so they have a good place to get into OCTs. Other than that... probably another pokemon/creatures OCT, I miss them. :(

21. More OCT based around/in the universe of existing franchises! There are SO many good ones that would allow for absolutely amazing OCT's and while I'm always a fan of OG creations, it's sadden me for a long while that those kind of OCT's died out.

22. I'm not sure, I'm fine with most things as long as it can accommodate a large varied cast of characters! Though I'm also fine making an au version of a character like with Samurai Dueling League, so a more solid setting is fine too.

A summary of the most frequent responses. There is a lot of nuance I had to remove to make this more digestible but I would highly reccomend reading the original replies found in the Google Sheet since many go into good depth on the specific changes they think are important.

• Better organisation, transparency and communication between judge teams and competitors

• More safe-gaurding for competitors' health to prevent burnout

• More advertising to people outside the community 

• More cross pollination between tournaments (allowing people to discuss other tournaments)

• Better accessibility for people new to the community

• More activity from those hosting to provide incentive for players to be more interested

• More for spectators to do so they can have fun and leave their mark on the tournament

• Longer breaks between rounds

• Archives and making the entire tournament’s run easily accessible to read

• Better formatting for information, moderation and finding a site outside of discord to use

Notable answers:

Person A:

Archives and readability. Every single person who sets out to create an OCT should have an idea of how they’re going to preserve that material once the Discord is dead and buried. Your contestants deserve to be remembered, and you owe it to future artists to keep that record alive.

Person B:

I believe the introduction of the non-elimination formation was essential for the wellbeing and continued flourishing of the OCT scene. So an improvement that needed to be made already has been. That said, OCTs should come in with a plan to involve spectators in some way. Artists at the Ready and The Hunger Games OCT are good examples of an OCT having a plan for spectators to encourage engagement. 

Person C:

Better communication/transparency overall and people recognizing that these are side projects that we want to get done the best we can, but real life can take priority and should not be ignored

Person D:

Page Limits. People burn out so quickly by including every single thought that comes to mind. You get like 30 page entries per round which is an insane amount of work. It sounds restricting to have a page limit but this can help ppl learn to "trim the fat" of their entries.

Also no animatics. Or at least give THEM a time limit. I have seen 20-40 minute animatic entries being posted per round! Thats an insane amount of work for, usually a solo artist. Not to mention if they insist on voice actors. It becomes a whole production and a lot of things get sacrificed along the way.

These types of entries making it through to future rounds, sets an impossible standard that others might feel like they have to follow to succeed. Less is more.

Person E:

Stricter character design requirements, like Hastilude. I find that when an OCT gives too much freedom in character design it tends to lose my interest.

Person F:

Dare to expand and flesh out the stories around them! I feel like a lot of the ones around right now are a tad vague and doesn't pull you in. Don't be afraid of rules, clear directions and a world you want to emerge yourself in!

Person G:

I am no expert here, but an idea I've had is that, since OCTs are tiring work for both participants and judges, and since I feel like downtime activities, games etc. offer some validation that has at least kept me going through the burnout. 

I think a lot of OCTs could benefit from having a specific Host role for managing the community, organizing mini events, and overall keeping the community lively through the tiring work, while the other hosts/judges are busy with the usual responsibilities.

Person H:

I think more OCTs would benefit from having an "expected FAQs" section before auditions. Page limits, character limitations, and lore/setting information should be available immediately upon the OCT launch before auditions. Hosts should be putting an active effort into engaging their population, whether it be encouraging fanart or smaller "jam" or concept events. OCTs are largely for fun and hobby, I think hosts should be leaning into that.

Person I:

Foremost I think we need something to curb the gossip that comes about every time something happens. It's rather annoying, and has escalated harm caused by events because everyone from these gossip circles suddenly wants to stick their fingers in the pie.

Second, we need more events that actually brings the OCT community together in total. Like a yearly conference, or digital expo, where certain events and coordination of the communities can take place. People can swap their rounds they'd made the past year, talk about healthy creation habits and such. Hosts could hold panels on how things have gone for their tournaments and what has and hasn't worked, and through things such as that, come to more communally agreed structures for hosting. Perhaps that's all a bit much, but I think it could be fun to organize. 

Something tough with a lot of ideas presented is that it'll take a lot of time and persistent effort to achieve these goals. 

A lot of the changes suggested are not quick fixes and will involve experimentating with the current systems of OCTs currently in place.

A host giving more time and energy might not be feasible with the current structure of a tournament, but I think that an implementation of longer breaks between rounds is an easy and achievable goal. It'll help in making sure both competitors and hosts don't get burnt out. School, work and other events in life will often have to take priority, particularly in exam season, so I think lessening the burden of having to work consistently for incredibly short bursts of time is vital.

I do think that Person G's suggestion in other comments is a really good one - having staff specifically for helping with events and community management could be a lot of fun and let people who want to help but not judge still have an impact on a tournament.

Systemic problems

Issues such as bad blood between individuals, the need to help spectators be more involved in the community, the difficulties of moderation and having a site outside of Discord are all really difficult to tackle. These require coming up with new ideas and trying to reflect on the current culture of OCTs. 

I'm not certain what the best way forward for this, since this is a far reaching issue which isn't going to be solved by a single person. It'll take time and experimentation to see what works and what doesn't.

Regarding the topic of short OCTs vs long OCTs + professional and strict premises vs looser more freeform OCTs.

I think that its such a difficult balance to strike. I feel like there’s definitely a line you need to balance of being professional but approachable if you’re hosting a tournament. A host deserve to enjoy their time running the tournament as much as people enjoy competing. 

I don't think OCTs will ever be restricted to being only strict or only freeform. Each tournament will have its own culture and level of freedom when creating and I think that's a brilliant thing.

Overwork and Burnout

Real life takes priority over these tournaments and I think having measures in place to ensure people do not overwork themselves or compete at the cost of their health, life, motivation etc is vitally important. 

I think both page limits and more creative restrictions (like mentioned in OCT Format comment 4) could be fun ways to avoid competitors overworking themselves.

Newcomers and accessibility

Particularly for pre-established tournaments there can definitely be a feeling of not knowing how to understand an existing OCT world. I can understand why newcomers might find the idea of joining a tournament can feel rather daunting.

Outside of allowing newcomers to learn the important points of a world's lore, I think my only advice to people new to the community is: don't be scared! Jump into a tournament and see how it goes. There will be plenty of people willing to explain concepts you might not understand.

Cross-Pollination in the wider OCT Community

I do feel like cross-pollination and careful experimentation are some of the things which could help OCTs in the future. Making things both accessible for newcomers and exciting for existing fans. 

No OCT is an island and I feel like encouraging these different communities to mix would be a nice way to foster a greater sense of a wider community rather than a tournament having to rebuild itself from the ground up trying to find people.

There is an etiquette of people not allowing other tournaments to be mentioned in servers which is understandable, but for tournaments with a limited audition period I think is rather limiting to not allow people to find other tournaments they could join.

Experimentation and format

I think that one reason War For Rayuba gets held in such high regard (outside of its absolute colossal once-in-a-lifetime size) was its willingness to experiment and play with the format using its map based system with things such as impacting the playspace characters fought in, or having matches which permanently impact the characters.

There's a playfulness to the "game" aspect of OCTs which doesn't always get capitalised on. The rules, premise and other traits of OCTs can be morphed, it's how we got things like Rayuba and the non-elimination format in the first place.

World Beast's Song got mentioned a few times in the "OCT Ideas: Other Comments" section as a good example of this. 

Overall there seems to be some people calling for more niche fandom OCTs and writing OCTs.