Gp2x Community Game Contest!

[Magnulus]

Okay, so I mentioned in the Official Game Contest thread that it could be good to have a community administered game developing contest. The positive side of one would be that you'd have full rights to everything, you and the rest of the community will be given much better feedback on questions regarding rules etc, and that the prizes could potentially be better than the official contest. The downside is that the prizes could also potentially be much smaller.

I think we should start by building a small team of "administrators" from the community. Just a few people who can hassle retailers regarding support in the form of monetary donations or donations of hardware, think up a proper list of well-articulated and understandable rules, and generally be the face of the competition outwards. These people will have to be able to answer questions rather swiftly through the forums (hours rather than weeks.) and they'll have to be available through one or more instant-messaging mediums (for more convenient organization. MSN, Skype, whatever.)

Since there's no poll option in this forum, I'd like everyone to start their FIRST post with a "yay!" or a "nay!", just so we get an easily get an overview of how the response is. After the initial "vote", you can say whatever it is you like. If you want to volunteer as an admin, do that. If you think it's a terrible idea, tell me why.

Non-final Impromptu Rules:

1. The game cannot be a port or otherwise based on other people's programming, and the entrants must originally own the rights to use all media and code in the program.*
2. The game can be in late beta stages when entered, but it must be finished within one month of the contest's end.
3. The game can have had public betas, but it cannot have been fully released prior to contest's end.
4. The creators of the game will retain FULL rights to their entry, bar none.
5. IF there is a corporate sponsor (like a retailer or some such) for the contest, this sponsor may approach entrants about publishing contracts, but these will be handled separately of the contest.

* if it uses, say, Squidge's MMU hack, and Squidge has allowed them to use it for whatever purposes they like, that is fine, but it must be documented in all cases. If there's a bit of code copy+pasted from someone's source without documented permission to use this, that's NOT fine. Just to avoid possible issues.

For the updated rules, check the contest site and this linked post.

 

[nickspoon]

Yay.

Since there's no poll option in this forum

Actually, there is, you're just not looking hard enough.

 

[Wite_Noiz]

I like it, sounds good (sorry, Yay!).

On the financial side, even donations in to a pot would work. With 1st place getting 50%, 2nd 35% and 3rd 15% (or whatever).

 

[X-Code]

Yay !

It's a good idea and an incentive for those that work so hard to provide entertainment for the masses B)



Free beers for everyone that says YAY!
Note: The above line IS misleading publicity, by reading this line you have accepted this and can not take legal action against the poster.

 

[Guyfawkes]

YAY!

I would keep the rules fairly simple, heres what we usually use in the emuholic/gbax compos. We keep it simple as it means everyone can enter and it gets more people coding. Not saying you should use this but maybe an idea:

- Any software which is fully working on the GP2X hardware can be entered; a game, port, demo, emulator or application.
- There are no restrictions on the games content or filesize, although keep to a respectable size because not everyone has a 2GB SD Card
- You can enter previously released software provided it has been significantly updated.
- The winning entries will be judged Magnulus.
- Multiple entries can be submitted, but you will only be eligible to win one prize.
- You can form a team for the entry but you will be responsible for sharing the prize(s) between your team.

Change the bit about the content if you wish to (i.e. no adult games) and add in something about the author keeps full rights to their entry and you are good to go

Good luck with the compo, the official one sucks so I hope yours does well. I might even enter something myself, first time I can do so as I am usually involved with the compos one way or another.

 

[Mr.Jabberwocky]

In order to ensure rule #1 does this mean it has to be open source ? This would deter me as I would be embarrassed to allow anyone to see my poor, hacked together excuse for code.
Otherwise this is definately a Yay.

 

[Dzz]

Yay. I don't have time to take on another project so I'd not be an administrator, but I would contribute to the prize pool. I'd contribute more if the context excluded ports, but either way seems ok.

 

[Magnulus]

- Any software which is fully working on the GP2X hardware can be entered; a game, port, demo, emulator or application.

Sorry, but I feel rather strongly about this. If one is to win an actual prize, it'd be unfair if for example Dzz won with Nethack. While he no doubt spent a lot of time making it, it's not HIS game. It's his PORT, but the fundamentals of the game do not belong to him, so for him to earn money on it would be unfair to both the other contestants and the original creators of the software. Hence the first rule as stated in my post.

Clarificating rule:
It does NOT have to be open source, but the contestants are held fully responsible for any "stolen" source code, and will have to provide a list of source code they have been ALLOWED to use that was made by people outside the contestant's team (like the MMU hack). This will NOT be used against the contestant, it will only be used to make sure no theft is going on. If, for example, Squidge comes in and says "Anyone can freely use my hack for all entries" then that code is free to use for all contestants, but documentation of said use will still have to be provided.

On the financial side, even donations in to a pot would work. With 1st place getting 50%, 2nd 35% and 3rd 15% (or whatever).

That was exactly what I was thinking of doing. I hadn't thought about the specific percentages, but I had that exact same thought. I'm glad we're on the same page here.
I'm thinking a Paypal account and a page with a list of contributors. Maybe a tiered system that gives bigger contributors more attention, in order to lure ensnare get some interest from corporate sponsors.

The reason I'm talking so much about these corps is that they have the ability to donate much more than us regular people. In the Windows on Mac campaign (before the Boot Camp days) there were two or three retailers who donated 1000 USD each.

Actually, there is, you're just not looking hard enough.

Really? Damn, I'm so used to phpBB by now. When I tried editing the original post, I couldn't find it either, so either I'm STILL not looking hard enough, or it disables itself once you've posted. I'll keep looking.
Not that it seems like it will be necessary, since most people seem positive towards it so far.

EDIT: Found the poll option. Oh well, too late now.

 

[yaustar]

Now this is more like it . Thumbs up from me.

 

[PSyMastR]

Thumbs up from me. I would love to be an admin on this contest as stated in the other thread.

 

[Magnulus]

I had a feeling you might volunteer!

 

[daclassicgamingmaster]

I'd probably be up for it.

 

[tshroom]

Yay.

This is a great idea and it can easily work. If anyone remembers the DS wifi bounty to crack ds wifi. Donations made it into the $1,000s. It wont be that hard to Pump up a donation from this scene. I really hope that someone decides to make an epic rpg or turn based strategy game though. Good apps would be welcome too especially if they take advantage of the BOB.

 

[Magnulus]

I really hope that someone decides to make an epic rpg or turn based strategy game though.

Well, there's my handheld type RPG Bork: In Your Pocket, and there's that Realtime Strategy game, so two halves out of two.

 

[Epicenter]

[*]The game can be in late beta stages when entered, but it must be finished within one month of the contest's end.

I like this idea, and I'd like to enter, but this bit bothers me. If it's not a pretty far-off release date, I seriously doubt Stargazer will be a fully finished, polished ready-for-sale product-- I'd rather release some sort of polished demonstration version as a contest entry. I would hope the rules could be adjusted to make this acceptable. Given the sort of scale we're working at (not exactly your typical small-scale homebrew project so to speak) we're not in much of a position to just bang things out (no offense meant to anyone; but when you work to the maximum potential of the machine, it isn't fast going.)

Good apps would be welcome too especially if they take advantage of the BOB.

The plan is to utilize USB capabilities to support 2+ players simultaneously though the use of USB gamepads/arcade sticks. This naturally would be most effective used in a console-like environment on a TV (TV-Out will of course also be supported.)

 

[Dzz]

[*]The game can be in late beta stages when entered, but it must be finished within one month of the contest's end.

I like this idea, and I'd like to enter, but this bit bothers me. If it's not a pretty far-off release date, I seriously doubt Stargazer will be a fully finished, polished ready-for-sale product-- I'd rather release some sort of polished demonstration version as a contest entry. I would hope the rules could be adjusted to make this acceptable. Given the sort of scale we're working at (not exactly your typical small-scale homebrew project so to speak) we're not in much of a position to just bang things out (no offense meant to anyone; but when you work to the maximum potential of the machine, it isn't fast going.)

I don't like that rule for a different reason -- it pushes criteria for winning prizes off for a month. Do we wait for a month to release the prizes? What happens if none of the winners have "finished" their entry? Is the judging started over? What does "finished" even mean?

I would say just eliminate that and judge the entries on the merits of how good they are, assuming that nothing else is ever done to them. If a "demo" or intermediate release is fun in its own right it could do well. If it is too crippled to be fun then it won't.


One thing that seems a little odd is this:

> The creators of the game will retain FULL rights to their entry, bar none.

Surely the entry will be freely downloadable by all gp2x owners to enjoy... so in a sense a right has been given up by the creators. I'm not trying to niggle over an obscure wording issue, i'm just making sure that the entries will go on the archive for everybody's entertainment.

 

[X-Code]

I think that it should be limited to finished versions of games/apps, submitting a demo of an unfinished product doesn't guarantee that it'll ever be finished or released ... And I'll point out that the title of the topic is "Gp2x Community Game Contest!", think of an unplayable rolling demo of a game that simply looks great but offers no control... Kinda pointless :lol: .

 

[Dzz]

I think that it should be limited to finished versions of games/apps, submitting a demo of an unfinished product doesn't guarantee that it'll ever be finished or released ... And I'll point out that the title of the topic is "Gp2x Community Game Contest!", think of an unplayable rolling demo of a game that simply looks great but offers no control... Kinda pointless :lol: .

How do you define "finished"?

 

[X-Code]

Complete finished product in final beta stages if you wish, mainly a playable game that only needs some minor touch-ups, not a nice little demo of something that may never happen .

 

[Dzz]

Complete finished product in final beta stages if you wish, mainly a playable game that only needs some minor touch-ups, not a nice little demo of something that may never happen .

Ok, I agree that the winners should be fun playable games, but I still don't see how you make a rule about whether they are finished. At some point there is a line between finished and not finished. Who judges whether that line is crossed? What is a minor touch-up? How playable is playable? Seems to me that if it's finished enough to be fun (and therefore win because it is a good game), that's good enough.