And a winner has been chosen, spyindian47 with the shortest entry of the whole bunch:

Originally posted by spyindian47:

Young Frankenstein by Telltale Games. Thats all i need to hear and then I start throwing money at it.

Sure it may be short but of all the games proposed it's the one I most want to play. Maybe it's just because I rewatched Young Frankenstein fairly recently so that movie is fresh in my mind but there is just tons of great material there for Telltale to spin great dialogue, puzzles, references and comedy out of. So spyindian47 watch your Steam friend requests as I'll be adding you soon to give you a code for The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing over Steam chat.

For everyone else, you all did a great job and the competition was tight with some very interesting and well thought out entries so everyone who followed the rules and put up an entry I could understand will be a getting a consolation prize from my grab bag of mystery games; they're nothing as new or fancy as The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing but you'll get something you like. So keep your eyes on your Steam friend requests as well because I'll be adding people over the next couple days to hand out prizes on Steam chat.

Okay contest bells are ringing once again, this time around we have a copy of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing to give away. It's a fun and surprisingly dense ARPG from the fine folks over at Neocore Games, and for those not yet sick of clicking things to death it seems like an awesome alternative to the Diablos and Torchlights of the world. To get a better look at it be sure to check out our Heads Up video of the game[www.hbhud.com] and keep your eyes open for our review of it which will be coming next week.

The real question though is how do you win it? Well by pitching us an entirely different game of course! You see The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing has an odd little predilection for the monsters of yore and it made me realize how few games really embrace the classic movie monsters anymore. That being the case I want you all to pitch me a game based around one/all of the old Universal movie monsters. The best entry will win a copy of The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing and random other entries will win various mystery games (AKA random codes I have lying around), so everyone could be a winner! To play just head on over to our Steam Group and put your pitch onto the discussion page marked "My monster game, IT'S ALIVE!!!!!!!!". On Monday June 3rd at 5:00 PM PST we'll end the contest and start handing out prizes.

So get out there and start coming up with some positively spookerific ideas and let's see some love for the old-fashioned frightners.

Ok, so all you people are completely insane. I was in no way expecting just how incredibly in-depth you would all get with your descriptions, some of these entries were full on essays so you can imagine how hard it was for me to choose just three winners. That being said I've picked my favorites, I'll say right off the bat that creativity definitely was a big factor in my decision as was restraint, so anything too human shaped or OP sadly didn't win. That being the case here are your winners:

FIRST PLACE: The Hletho (Designer: KaYoS)
This was longest entry at just under 1800 words and in a lot of ways the most insane. The Hletho don't just get a quick description, their entire evolutionary history is detailed along with the morphology of every form throughout. Also worth noting is how completely unique the design is, with what looks like terrifying deep sea tentacle beasts as a sentient lifeform. Also there was Youtube video of them, that was a nice touch.

SECOND PLACE: The Nocta'ar (Designer: BoneHeart)
At first I wasn't sure how I felt about letting magic explain anything with a race because it's simply too easy an answer but the idea of their entire race essentially being a parasitic relationship that flipped at one point won me over. The idea of the parasite becoming the host and vice versa is curiously interesting even though I'm not sure it's biologically sound.

THIRD PLACE: The Jovians (Designer: Rex Power Dash)
I have a soft spot for the idea of non solid lifeforms, so the gaseous Jovians struck a chord with me. Their biology (or lack thereof) makes them both incredibly advanced but at the same time very simple which worked quite well in my mind.

And those are the winners! If your name is up there then I will be sending you the appropriate Steam code for your prize over Steam chat so keep your eyes open. As for everyone else, you all did a great job and I was thoroughly impressed and amazed at the stuff you were able to come up with. So thanks for playing and we'll see you all again next time for our next contest, whatever and whenever that may be.

Got another contest for you guys, this time it's StarDrive up for grabs and we want you to create an alien species for us. You see what with StarDrive's interesting and inventive races, like samurai kill-bears and Cthulhu worshipping octopus-men, I wanted to see what awesome stuff you guys could come up with. You're all smart creative people, so I'm looking forward to seeing some interesting affronts to God courtesy of your warped little imaginations.

Entering is simple, just post a description of your alien race to the thread on our Steam group labeled "Make me an Alien", oh yes and pictures are encouraged. The most interesting and unique creation wins a copy of StarDrive courtesy of Iceberg Interactive. Just cause we're nice though we also have a runner up prize for the second and third most interesting entries, they each get a copy of Leviathan: Warships; sure that's exactly not to theme but we have extras copies of it so there you go. Oh yes and it should go without saying, but no rip-offs; if your entry is labeled "Zenomorph" and describes a bunch of spiky black phallic aliens then you will not get anywhere close to winning.

Alright, you've got till 5:00PM PST this Friday (May 10th) to enter, so get to it!

Alright, it was a tough decision but winners have been chosen. For our next two rounds of HalfBeard Survives we'll be doing....

..... drum roll.....

Batman: Arkham Asylum and Cave Story+! Congrats to antilucid for grabbing first prize and richieberry for grabbing second, your copies of Poker Night 2 and Poker Night 1 respectively will be sent in the next short while. For all those who didn't win, thanks for participating anyways and thanks for all the great suggestions, we'll probably use them to pick our next games after we finish Batman and Cave Story. Thanks again one and all for participating and best of luck in our next contest, whenever that happens to be.