2009 PlayBasic (game programming) Competition Survey

[LemonWizard]

This would be great. I'm definitely up for entering!
It would give me a great reason to push myself.
And if the duration of the compo is atleast a few weeks that's plenty of time for me!

[kevin]

       Yeah  duration wise, we're most  likely talking around the month mark.   Ideally, it'd be a bit different than previous compo's, focusing more upon of pressure environment.     

        I've got a theme in mind :) -  But as for when, that's undecided.   

[LemonWizard]

*Excitement*

Question. What kind of entry expectancy are we looking at? and also media wise...
Guess I'll have to wait to find out.

[kevin]

Question. What kind of entry expectancy are we looking at? and also media wise...

   If history is anything to go by, we're probably talking around the 10% mark.   So out of 10 people who were absolutely, possitiviely, definitely entering (and flooding my inbox), only about one actually makes into the compo. 

[LemonWizard]

alright.
Well you mentioned in the other post above that were dealing with alot of newer programmers and what not..
so, what I'm trying to do is get as much practice in as I can before the compo.
It's hard to prepare for something you don't know anything about. xp.

So am I to guess though, that the difficulty of the competition will be tailored to the people entering?
Or will it be more like the Heroe's quest competition which I actually read over fairly thoroughly. excuse my poor spelling, I'm up late . =p

[kevin]

It's hard to prepare for something you don't know anything about. xp.

  If the theme was announced too early, it'd gives keen users too much of an advantage (Ie. a big fat head start).

So am I to guess though, that the difficulty of the competition will be tailored to the people entering?

  Well, It won't be harder than previous compo's, but I wouldn't expect it to be that much easier either.
 

  I should point out also, there will be some changes to the RULES this time around. 

[LemonWizard]

oh ok.
interesting...
this is still all very exciting!

[Deano]

I thought of something today, when i was a kid in cub scouts, we were all given the same bag of goodies and told to make a science project. With all the same stuff we were all on the same playing field. My idea for the contest is that you kevin give us, maybe an animated sprite, sound wav or even a premade background and we turn it in to a game. Have  all the same media are coding will be the only difference.


Just an idea
Deano

[XpMe_v1.2]

Deano's idea sound very good.

[kevin]

      Yeah it's a good idea.    Prior to the first compo, we original idea was to make a puzzle game from the provided media.   It's always been something that i like the idea of,  moves the focus to problem solving / programming aspect, and removes the conceptual/design element.   Which seems to suit people better.

      The concept, I've  have in mind for this year is based upon the same principal.  It  would see participants needing to meet three or four small programming challenges, rather than one large one.    The challenges would be conceptually pre-defined,  with some type of base media (possibly).    You can think of it as building one large project made up of several mini games.   From a creative standpoint, how you link the themes together into one cohesive game is up to you.     

       From programming stand point,  the mini game mechanics are likely to be heavily inspired by some classic retro games :)   
 

[GameDude]

If you have enough entrants, I'd recommend having more than one category.  For example:

Action / arcade games (i.e. Galaga)
First person shooters / 3D Games (i.e. Unreal)
Simulations (i.e. Sim City)
Puzzle Games (i.e. Bejeweled)
Beat-em-ups (i.e. Mortal Combat)
Platform Games (i.e. Mario Brothers)
Word Games (i.e. Scramble)
etc.

The point being, it would be very difficult to fairly compare a word game to a 3D first person shooter.  They're so different... you'd have to use different judging criteria (though some would be common). 
For example:

Word games might be judged by:

Size and accuracy of dictionary.
Expandability / correctability of dictionary.
Proper use of prefixes, suffixes, plurals, etc.
Multi-user / Internet capabilities
GUI Design
Animation smoothness / quality

3d Shooters might be judged by:

Number and quality of weapons.
3D Rendering quality
Size and detail of virtual world.
Multi-user / Internet capabilities
GUI Design
Animation smoothness / quality

Of course, there could be some cross-over depending on the type of game.
I suppose you could allow someone to enter the same game into different categories in this case.

The difficult parts would be defining the categories and judging criteria, as well as classifying the entries.

[kevin]

The point being, it would be very difficult to fairly compare a word game to a 3D first person shooter.

  This is one of the reasons why the genre / theme are explicitly defined. 

  Another, is that via limiting the scope we reduce the ability of people to cheat.    If it's too open thematically, then people can submit something they've been working on prior to the competition opening.  Which is terribly unfair on those participating within in the spirit of the competition.

[Deano]

It's been a while Kevin, any closer to a contest date?

[kevin]

       Not really,  although it's won't before there's home page, if at all.  Sent out a few feelers for sponsorships & judging some weeks back.   A couple of  interesting tidbits concerning sponsors, but it's not without some long strings attached. 

[LemonWizard]

Argh that stinks...
It's been like... 3 months. XP.. or something...

The good thing is I've had PLENTY of time to brush up on my coding skillz. 1337 LOL
When the contest DOES start I'm going to be all over it!