Possible C4A competition format

[Mr_Loon]

I've been mulling over what would make a good format for a C4A competition here is what I'd like to see :

1. Competition runs for 1 calendar month
2. 10 Games are selected for the competition
3. Stick to either Mame Games or Other Games
4. Choose games that have a variety of people getting the top all time scores
5. Choose games that run well on a CC Pandora at 800Mhz (no pulstar, Raiden etc.) and have no known scoring problems (no games with continues where score is kept, no games with duplicate scoring problems like Super Hexagon)
6. At the end of the month award points as follows 10 points for 1st place, 9 points for 2nd Place, down to 1 point for 10th place in each game. Or however people want to see the scoring, e.g. could be 15 points for 1st, 12 for second, 9 for 3rd .... 1 for 10th etc.
7. The person with the most points at the end of the month wins.
8. You would not have to officially enter the competition just play any of the games and register a score in the top 10 to score points.
9. It would be good to see running totals throughout the month.
10. Before any real prizes are offered have a test month where people are playing for bragging rights.

It's appreciated that this would be extra work for Milkshake but my entirely uneducated guess is that it would not be a major ball ache to set up a database query that could generate a scores league table for the competition.

 

[Kumaki]

This would be a good idea.

Perhaps, just maybe ED, Link, or others might offer small prizes, like stroe credit.

Be a way to get some good publicity for Pandy, no?

 

[levi]

Sounds like a good set of rules to me


The thing I liked about the last competition we ran was how it got me playing old games I'd not come across before, and playing them properly like I used to, rather than giving them a cursory go then discarding them, as I tend to do on emulators when I have dozens of other games I could be trying. Seems to me a tournament based on these rules could do the same, and for me really doesn't need to have any other reward at the end of it.

 

[skeezix]

Modifications to the server (or running a separate server) are trivial; fancy new web frontend woudl be work for milkshake, but if we keep it minimal changes I'm sure he'd be game as well.

Good set of rules..

I was going to open up compo ASAP but I persuaded myself otherwise over concerns about i) it seemed one or two people dominate and with running scores it could dissuade peopel from competing .. or maybe it'd drive them to? depends if we have the population to get enough competitive people.. and ii) worry over cheating.

Theres a couple cool prizes I can get .. ED has already said he'd help out, and I know someone that has done some very cool retro stuff that would surprise the heck out of you, as a prize.

So really its a question if.. if people are accepting of rules (We would have to draft some more, and pick games, etc), and people accept the _risks_ of it, we could give it a trial run. I'm sort of thinking.. trial run be 5 or 10 games, and then the real run.. different games? (or different some of them to mix it up; a month is a 'long time' in some ways.)

Games that aren't the big few, just to keep it different. Like when I put Willow into the old ROT, and people really dug it... a popular, but not really popular game

jeff

 

[Jumpman]

Hey Jeff, the rules sound good so far. I can't foresee any problems thus far, but that's what the test month is for right?

Looks good, let's get it started. I've actually been taking a break from Compo, but I'm looking forward to getting back in the game and this looks like a good motivator.

Chris

 

[levi]

Out of interest, what's the idea behind rule 3 ('choose either mame games or other games')? What's wrong with having a mix so people can play a little of what they fancy?

 

[Kumaki]

Modifications to the server (or running a separate server) are trivial; fancy new web frontend woudl be work for milkshake, but if we keep it minimal changes I'm sure he'd be game as well.

Good set of rules..

I was going to open up compo ASAP but I persuaded myself otherwise over concerns about i) it seemed one or two people dominate and with running scores it could dissuade peopel from competing .. or maybe it'd drive them to? depends if we have the population to get enough competitive people.. and ii) worry over cheating.

Theres a couple cool prizes I can get .. ED has already said he'd help out, and I know someone that has done some very cool retro stuff that would surprise the heck out of you, as a prize.

So really its a question if.. if people are accepting of rules (We would have to draft some more, and pick games, etc), and people accept the _risks_ of it, we could give it a trial run. I'm sort of thinking.. trial run be 5 or 10 games, and then the real run.. different games? (or different some of them to mix it up; a month is a 'long time' in some ways.)

Games that aren't the big few, just to keep it different. Like when I put Willow into the old ROT, and people really dug it... a popular, but not really popular game

jeff

As long as it is all games I am good at..  

 

[Mr_Loon]

Out of interest, what's the idea behind rule 3 ('choose either mame games or other games')? What's wrong with having a mix so people can play a little of what they fancy?

It would be fine to me to mix and match but my gut feel was that we would see more competitors if we stuck to one or the other, perhaps month 1 : mame, month 2 : homebrew / ports, month 3 : 5 of each?

@ Jeff : As to why a month? Then I thought this would give everyone a good chance to have a go at putting down some good scores, people may be busy for a fortnight or only get an hour or 2 each week to play videogames etc. Also the score tables roll over on a monthly basis as is so it might be less work in terms of Database queries if we are querying an existing dataset to generate the competition league table.