Why hello there listeners. Some of you may have gotten the impression from our podcast and website that we play pretty much nothing but Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead (or Space Siege, but Vella’s not proud of that one). This is not the case, because we’re also massive fans of smart indie titles like Defcon and Multiwinia, to pick two not entirely at random.

You see, we love Introversion Software, that small band of British devs responsible for those games. Seeing as how our community has, you know, grown up to a certain degree since its inception we wanted to do something fun to mark our continued rise to dominance. So we thought we’d do something other grown up sites do and hold a competition. Certain J-Server members bumped into an Introversion staff member or two at last year’s PC Gamer UK Showdown, so they seemed the obvious folk to ask for some help. And help they have.

So, thanks to Introversion’s generosity and by way of celebrating our (and their) continued existence, we’re delighted to bring you the J-Server Podcast Design a Darwinian competition.

The game Multiwinia features a few variations on the traditional Darwinian lifeform. They’ve formed different coloured tribes for one thing, but players may also have been unfortunate enough to be on the receiving end of attacks by Futurewinians and Evilwinians. Clearly, there’s some space to be creative here.

We want you to design a new type of Darwinian. It can be anything, from the curly mop wearing Alan Davieswinian to the greatcoat wearing, mystery solving Jonathan Creekwinian. You can just write to tell us about it, but we’d prefer an image or scan of a drawing to go with it, plus anything else you feel like throwing in. Give your ‘winian tribe a name, give it a past, and tell us what it’s most likely to be found doing in-game.

The Darwinian in it's Natural Habitat (Polygonal hills)

The prize is a boxed copy of each of Introversion’s great games. That’s a copy of Uplink, Defcon, Darwinia and Multiwinia. Pictures here.

Send all of your entries to this email address, putting the name of your ‘winian in the subject line. If you win, we’ll contact you for delivery details.

The Rules:

• Anyone, anywhere, is eligible to enter. Naturally, all the podcast crew are excluded as we’re running the thing. One entry per person please.
• The winning entry will be chosen by the podcast crew. We’re looking for the funniest, the maddest, or the just plain most creative. Our decision is final.
• We’ll put the winning entry and the real name of the winner on our website after the judging.
• The closing date for the competition is the 31st January 2009.