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[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

wow, so much nonsense.

here's MY bias - Only entered once, lost miserably, probably never going to enter again because there's not a prayer that my kind of game will ever get noticed in the IGF. That said, I'm still standing up for the judging because a lot of what's said here is just cuckoo.

a single person playing 18 games in 3 months is not an extreme number at all, i don't get why it's treated as this superhuman feat to do

The judges do NOT get three months. They get less than one. Considering how many devs don't bother getting their final builds in on time and the number of technical problems getting some games available, quite often they have one week. Admittedly a lot of judges do seem to wait until the last minute to get started and that's sort of annoying.

you forgot to mention the bias of being an igf judge :p

anyway, if it's 1 month and not 3 months, i stand corrected. i was estimating it based on the time between igf finalists being announced and the entry date, which *is* roughly 3 months. but perhaps the judges are not given their list of games early enough, or perhaps they have to decide on the games that go to the juries in one month, leaving two months for the jury process

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

since i think there are other easier things that the igf can do, like to simply stop rationalizing / being defensive and to admit it's a bad thing for indie developers when they pay 95$ and get nobody playing their game or 5 people playing it for an average of 3 minutes, to stop trying to hide the issue by discouraging people to talk about it (which is what that phone call offer was really about), and so on

This. This type of defense sickens me:
https://twitter.com/#!/psychicteeth/status/172702000444751873
The judging system isn't the problem, the problem are the judges. I'm not saying that all of them are like that, but like Paul said we should make something about that.

But the judges say that everything is ok and we just don't like losing, so who am I to say otherwise? If your game wasn't judged and you wasted $100 on it, Alex May tells you to that you should have spent it on food.

to be fair to haowan (who, as a note, kindly paid for half of my igf fee this year, along with mrpodunkian), there *are* a lot of games which are terrible being entered in the igf, games that make you wonder 'why even bother entering this??'

but at the same time even those bad games should get more than 5 minutes of a judge's time, because even the worst game in the world deserves more than 5 minutes of play and no feedback if you've paid a 95$ entry fee. as i said, it's out of respect for the developer, and out of respect for the judging process and for the igf, not for the game's sake

[Manuel Magalhães]

True, but he shouldn't use the "if you are poor don't bother" excuse. The bad games part of the tweet sounds reasonable to me.

[st33d]

I'd say the best thing to do is to just warn people off from entering in the first place.

It costs money, and you are not allowed to take people's money without letting them know exactly what they are buying.

Most countries actually implement this as a law.

If the judges are assholes, fine, they can be assholes. But don't let people pay to enter without knowing that.

[Chris Pavia]

That's why it's called an entrance fee (standard thing in most contests) and not a "get feedback from x judges on your game" fee.

While I would love it if they were one in the same, realistically the 2 have nothing to do with one another (entrance fee vs feedback).

If it says somewhere that by paying the entrance fee you are entitled to x amount of feedback from x number of judges, I withdraw this point.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@st33d - i don't blame the judges actually, from my perspective it's more the igf that's at fault by not making it clear to judges that they are expected to play a game for more than 3 minutes, and not penalizing (and instead defending) that type of behavior when it's found out. it's like blaming a class of kids in elementary school for being 'too wild' when their teacher says 'do whatever you want, you'll all get A's anyway, talk or draw or whatever'

[Fallsburg]

That's why it's called an entrance fee (standard thing in most contests) and not a "get feedback from x judges on your game" fee.

While I would love it if they were one in the same, realistically the 2 things have nothing to do with one another.

Well, by that logic, fuck judging any games.  Just pick a couple at random (or those you heard about) and call it a day.  

Expecting feedback might be a bit optimistic, but I'm pretty sure that expecting judges to at least look at the game isn't unreasonable.

[Chris Pavia]

I said in a previous post that not even playing your assigned game is unacceptable. But the point remains that entrance fees have nothing at all to do with receiving feedback on your game (although it would be great if it did).

Do Olympic Ice Skaters get detailed feedback and breakdowns of their routines from judges?

[Christian Knudsen]

This doesn't seem as much about not getting feedback as judges not even playing your game that you paid $100 to enter into a competition.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

as a point of interest, in a previous IGF (i forget which year) feedback from judges was required; but it didn't seem to work out that well and after a year of trying it they abandoned the idea. that may have been for the best

so yeah again, this isn't about judges not being superhuman, it's about doing some baseline of what they are expected to do (play the game *through* the tutorial, for instance, and maybe try out a level or two)

[Chris Pavia]

This doesn't seem as much about not getting feedback as judges not even playing your game that you paid $100 to enter into a competition.

Ah, good point. How large is the pool? I'm under the impression that it's quite large. In which case it's just human nature that some people aren't going to be as dedicated as others, and some not dedicated at all. Although I agree with the person who said that those individuals shouldn't be invited back next year.

[Dragonmaw]

I would have automatically not played Kale if it was assigned to me because virtual dpad on an iPhone makes me mad.

as a point of interest, in a previous IGF (i forget which year) feedback from judges was required; but it didn't seem to work out that well and after a year of trying it they abandoned the idea. that may have been for the best

That was the year I started: 2010.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

out of curiosity, what other ways do iphone retro games handle their control schemes? requiring that you connect a joystick? moving left when you put your finger there? i don't understand how else they could have done it

[st33d]

Mage Gauntlet uses an invisible joystick control scheme, as does Minotron. Both work pretty well. It goes off the premise that you may have virtual tap-buttons on the screen, but anywhere else is the joystick. Swipe and hold to imply a direction. Any further movement is interpreted as a new direction.

Edge and also Forget Me Not also successfully use virtual joysticks.

They trust their players.

All the ones I've tried with a static joystick on the screen have been excruciatingly painful to play because there's no haptic feedback. It's impossible to keep your attention on the gameplay without double checking you haven't slipped away from the control scheme.

[Squid Party]

phil fish re-entered fez despite already winning an award.

please don't tell me I am the only one who finds something wrong with this.

your are not, don`t worry

[st33d]

Oh don't start that again.

We're bitching about something else now. Please keep up.

[Matthew]

Regarding money!  When you enter a competition--any competition--your money goes towards:

1) Running the event

2) Shit the finalists win

If you enter, and don't win, you don't get anything (except participation in an event you helped pay for).  This is how competitions work.  That participation is still super valuable to most people, especially as a goal.  I've "lost" physical competitions where I still end up in the best shape of my life due to goal-focused training.  Judge feedback is a distraction; it's not the point.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@st33d - thanks for the explanation -- so basically virtual buttons are okay, but a virtual joystick is worse than just using the rest of the screen besides the buttons as a joystick? sounds reasonable

i wonder if there's an iphone game emulator that lets you play iphone games on windows -- that might work for igf judges who don't own an iphone who are assigned iphone games

[Squid Party]

It kinda bothers me if your game does really well because it is a very good game (e.g minecraft)and you make lots of money and then you still get all the prize money because that seems kinda of broken but there is no real way around it, does it bother anyone else?

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

@mattheww - yeah but you also have to realize that people won't be as encouraged to work as hard to win a competition if they perceive the process of judging as non-objective or random

it's one thing to try to do 100 pushups in 30 days and fail and reach 80 instead, it's another thing to try to win a game-making contest, make the best game you can, fail to get mentioned, and not know why you failed. feedback gives the "feedback" to players so they can have some idea what they did wrong, which they would otherwise be clueless about

you can sometimes infer that by playing the games that were actually chosen, but sometimes the choices are bizarre. for instance, bit trip runner was a finalist in visual art for 2011


i repeat: a finalist for visual art

what are the judges seeing that i'm not?