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TIGSource ForumsPlayerGeneralIGF Thread 2012
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #1160 on: February 24, 2012, 10:22:22 AM »

This happens every single year. A controversial game is submitted (last year it was Minecraft, this year it was Fez) (note that I don't think these games should have been submitted), and someone who felt their game didn't get the judging it deserves posts an angry diatribe that explodes into drama. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. It would be nice if we could go one year without somebody getting pissy.

when something keeps happening every year, doesn't that usually indicate something is wrong? you seem to be implying it's the fault of the people who see something wrong that they repeatedly see something wrong, rather than something actually being wrong

it's like a doctor who says: my patients! every year it's the same thing, someone sues me for malpractice. what's wrong with them!
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Matthew
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« Reply #1161 on: February 24, 2012, 10:25:27 AM »

You pay 95$ to enter a compo where your item is completely ignored by those in charge to review it.

This is that hyperbole you were called out on (emphasis mine).

Missing Judge Scores

I'm going to try one more time to explain how the system works, and then I give up.

- All games are scored by multiple judges

- Some percentage of judge/game combos are never scored (compatibility, scheduling, judge gets busy, whatever)

- Games are over-assigned to judges to account for this

- Multiple admin-only scripts exist to show games sorted by # of scores.  If a game is holding steady at zero scores, someone looks into it (usually a broken build or upload--although in recent years judges are encouraged to email directly about such issues).

So yes, not all judges score all of their assigned games.  BREAKING NEWS:  Thankless volunteer workers sometimes inconsistent! But this is just a statistic, and it's an easily viewed, easily controlled statistic.

To my knowledge, no game has ever gone unscored without the explicit permission of the entrant (a couple of people have been contacted about broken builds and replied with "never mind", which is what I mean by that).

Judge Score Quality

This is a separate issue, and a harder one to quantify.  Is 5 minutes too little?  60 minutes?  23 minutes?  It's obviously a spectrum (and if 60 minutes is fine, what about 59 minutes)?  Focusing on time spent playing is a distraction, in my opinion.  Many, many games couch themselves in the trappings of very particular styles and genres which, for better or worse, speeds up the process.

There are a lot of divergent opinions here.  I encourage anyone with the passion to write up their thoughts to also contribute that passion to the judging pool!  The IGF needs more people like you.

Moving On

Weirdly, Rotting Cartridge has actually focused on the first issue.  From their update:  "Judges not playing a game they are assigned to judge, for any number of minutes, is simply not acceptable."

That's the wrong approach to strengthening the IGF judging process.  If, out of 150+ judges, 20% always flake out, then you need 20% more judges.  This is already built in to the system.

In fact, if you push judges to 100% their assignments, you're going to degrade score quality as more and more people phone in scores.  This is dangerous, because I (as a backend coder) can't just pull queries showing Brandon et. al the status of things.  I would be massively suspicious of the results if 100% of judge assignments were scored.

As much as I think entrant feedback is a red herring for the IGF, having it there probably increases score quality (by lowering the total number of scores, actually--it prevents casual scoring).

For Developers

BTW, there are a couple things you can do as an entrant to ensure your game has more judge scores:

- Be proactive!  The single biggest reason for low scores on a game is compatibility.  Check your installer on a fresh system (keep a clean Windows 7 install on VirtualBox or something).

- Be responsive.  If a judge emails you about a broken build, don't wait to fix it.

- Don't be boring.  Watch this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCCbRBPWiZ8#t=9m52s

P.S.  To Greg:  Yes!  I definitely feel like some tipping point is reached in these conversations where it goes back curious questions and probing for more data/answers, and ends up looking like a malicious "damn the man" insistence of conspiracy.  I almost just fried this whole reply because I feel like all it will do is provide new "openings" for people to pick at.
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Matthew Wegner
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« Reply #1162 on: February 24, 2012, 10:27:10 AM »

when something keeps happening every year, doesn't that usually indicate something is wrong? you seem to be implying it's the fault of the people who see something wrong that they repeatedly see something wrong, rather than something actually being wrong

it's like a doctor who says: my patients! every year it's the same thing, someone sues me for malpractice. what's wrong with them!

No.  If you aren't generating controversy you probably aren't doing anything important (or nobody cares).

It's more like a team doctor treating zero injuries.  At some point you might want to question if your players are even getting off the bench.

SPORTS ANALOGY
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Matthew Wegner
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« Reply #1163 on: February 24, 2012, 11:08:04 AM »

I don't know about you guys, but as far as I'm concerned, this is what I will do all the time at GDC.

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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #1164 on: February 24, 2012, 11:09:27 AM »

@mattheww - usually things which are positive but generate controversy eventually win over the opposition, though. for instance, civil rights. you can tell whether or not a controversial thing is becoming more accepted by the controversy still existing, but getting lower every year. there's still racism, and there's still opposition to homosexuality, but those things are less controversial each year, not more controversial. whereas it seems it's the opposite with the igf, each year feels like there's even more turmoil than the last
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st33d
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« Reply #1165 on: February 24, 2012, 11:09:50 AM »

I'm trying to figure out what game we have left that could be a controversial submission next year.

There isn't one is there? I mean unless EA tried to slip one in (which would be hilarious).

Can anyone think of one? Or will someone just have some kind of public melt down over submitting?

I think with Minecraft and Fez you could see it coming a mile off. But what now?
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Dragonmaw
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« Reply #1166 on: February 24, 2012, 11:11:46 AM »

This happens every single year. A controversial game is submitted (last year it was Minecraft, this year it was Fez) (note that I don't think these games should have been submitted), and someone who felt their game didn't get the judging it deserves posts an angry diatribe that explodes into drama. EVERY. SINGLE. YEAR. It would be nice if we could go one year without somebody getting pissy.

when something keeps happening every year, doesn't that usually indicate something is wrong? you seem to be implying it's the fault of the people who see something wrong that they repeatedly see something wrong, rather than something actually being wrong

it's like a doctor who says: my patients! every year it's the same thing, someone sues me for malpractice. what's wrong with them!

Except, at the same time, the doctor could be getting sued by malpractice each year because the patients know they can get away with it, especially since the more malpractice suits he gets (regardless of actual malpractice), the more he is likely to lose future suits. The analogy isn't really airtight.

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games. And that's something I think they are working on.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #1167 on: February 24, 2012, 11:14:53 AM »

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games. And that's something I think they are working on.

i see that problem as directly related to the current issue, though -- the reason unknown games aren't nominated as much is exactly because judges are not discouraged from playing a game for only a few minutes. fix one and you fix both
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« Reply #1168 on: February 24, 2012, 11:15:55 AM »

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games.
AGREE AGREE AGREE... this isn't just me defending the IGF, this is actually the truth.

Quote
And that's something I think they are working on.
This part I'm not so sure on, I wish there was more active attention to this problem.
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Pocketwatch Games - Monaco, Venture Arctic, Venture Africa
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« Reply #1169 on: February 24, 2012, 11:25:58 AM »

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games.
AGREE AGREE AGREE... this isn't just me defending the IGF, this is actually the truth.

i'm curious about what you mean by truth here -- isn't whether something is "major" or "minor" a personal issue? i don't think something can be factually important or unimportant, since ultimately / on the scale of the universe nothing is all that important, but in the correct context anything can be important

for instance, if 499 games are judged fairly and 1 game gets judged unfairly, if you're one of the 499 guys that 1 guy isn't important, but if you're that guy it's pretty important
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« Reply #1170 on: February 24, 2012, 11:36:01 AM »

I dunno man, it's not a business transaction when you pay to get into a music festival, right? You just pay and you get to go in. Maybe one of the bands doesn't turn up, or plays like shit because of too many drugs.

Allow me to take your analogy and shift it.

Say you have a band and you want to play at a music festival.  You even pay for this privilege, but hey, you're psyched because it is your chance to get discovered.  Upon arriving at the festival they tell you that you will be playing at a run-off venue because there are so many bands.  You go to the run-off venue and lo and behold no one shows up to watch you play.

None of these analogies really hold up to close scrutiny, but I hope this gets the point across.  It seems that well known games that come into IGF have no trouble being "discovered" by judges for the judging process, and games that aren't well known may or may not have a chance of being discovered by judges.
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« Reply #1171 on: February 24, 2012, 11:42:03 AM »

My point isn't that there aren't problems in the IGF process, my point is that the problems are relatively minor. The only major problem I can concede to is that popular, established games are nominated more often than relatively unknown or in-development games.
AGREE AGREE AGREE... this isn't just me defending the IGF, this is actually the truth.

i'm curious about what you mean by truth here -- isn't whether something is "major" or "minor" a personal issue? i don't think something can be factually important or unimportant, since ultimately / on the scale of the universe nothing is all that important, but in the correct context anything can be important

for instance, if 499 games are judged fairly and 1 game gets judged unfairly, if you're one of the 499 guys that 1 guy isn't important, but if you're that guy it's pretty important
What is important is finding the right finalists and winners.  What is important is promoting the importance of independent game development.

It's frustratingly easy to accuse the IGF organizers or judges of being lazy or corrupt.  This can be done without the presence of facts.  *I Know* I've been in a similar situation.  I entered Monaco in the IndieGameChallenge in 2011, hoping to win the 100K so I wouldn't have to borrow money from indiefund.  It was a finalist, but did not win, nor should it have.  Limbo won (it should have).  And in the student category a game called Inertia won.  I was really angry over both of these.  I didn't believe Limbo should have been in the compo because it was supposedly about giving unknown games exposure, while Limbo won after it was already out and had made tons of money.  I was angry that the organizers had encouraged Playdead to enter (though I wasn't angry with Playdead, they had every right to enter given that the compo organizers were encouraging it).

As for Inertia, it won an absurd amount of prizes, despite IMO being the weakest game in the competition (sorry guys, that's how I felt).  Why did I believe it won?  Because it was by a student team at the Guildhall at SMU.  Who ran the competition?  The Guildhall at SMU.  It sure seemed like a problem.

Well, I made a stink about it to friends, but before writing anything publicly, I wrote to the compo organizers, explaining my feelings, and that many others shared those feelings as well.  I talked to them about the process.  It turns out that no Guildhall people were involved in the judging.  There was no corruption after all.  All the judges were pulled from a variety of companies, including some that I respected.

Do I agree with their choice of winner?  NO.  I don't really like the way they ran the competition, nor do I really like the condescending way everyone was treated while at DICE.  I *hate* that they are unwilling to release the names of judges (they will only release the names of the companies those judges work for).  But these are things that can be fixed.  And I can choose to support or not support the indiegamechallenge in the future.

The point is that I did my work to find out the truth behind what happened.  And then I brought this to the organizers and expressed my opinion to them.  Sure, part of my emotions were related to the fact that I would have really liked to win 100K and I didn't.  But I did my part to actually find out what went wrong before I accused them of "shitting on themselves".  I think they are well meaning people.  I think the competition is too commercial for my tastes, given that Gamestop is the primary sponsor.  But all in all they are trying to do their best, and like everyone else, they are fallible.
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Pocketwatch Games - Monaco, Venture Arctic, Venture Africa
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« Reply #1172 on: February 24, 2012, 11:46:13 AM »

As an aside, Monaco should win every competition it enters because it's real great.
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AndySchatz
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« Reply #1173 on: February 24, 2012, 11:48:49 AM »

As an aside, Monaco should win every competition it enters because it's real great.
As an aside, I love you.  Also Monaco gets better every day Smiley
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Pocketwatch Games - Monaco, Venture Arctic, Venture Africa
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« Reply #1174 on: February 24, 2012, 12:07:46 PM »

I had it as one of my games in IGF2010 and I was blown away by how good it was. Why have you made me wait. WHY.
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st33d
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« Reply #1175 on: February 24, 2012, 12:42:05 PM »

The change in the lighting algorithm seems justifiably awesome for taking more time.

By the way, which fov algorithm originally was it? I found a paper a while ago which helped me decide on shadowcasting as a good fit in as3 (because it's stonking fast):

http://www.robotacid.com/flash/red_rogue/shadow_casting/fov.pdf

I had to mirror the paper because it got taken down on the original site, but it makes for very interesting reading.
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AndySchatz
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« Reply #1176 on: February 24, 2012, 12:58:04 PM »

At the time I couldn't find anything to work off of, so I invented my own:

Code:
       public bool CanSeeTile(MapPoint a, MapPoint b)
        {
           
            if (a == b)
                return true;

            if (a.X < 0 || b.X < 0 || a.Y < 0 || b.Y < 0 || a.X >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.X || b.X >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.X || a.Y >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.Y || b.Y >= Data.worldData.MapDimensions.Y)
                return false;

            if (TileEngine.VCache != null)
                return CanSeeCachedTile(a, b);

//            const float maxDist = 20;

            for (int i=0; i<3; i++)
            {
                Vector2 offset = new Vector2(0,0);
                Vector2 currentPos = new Vector2(a.X + 0.5f, a.Y + 0.5f);
                Vector2 dest = new Vector2(b.X + 0.5f, b.Y + 0.5f);
                switch (i)
                {
                    case 0:
                        if (a.X == b.X || a.Y == b.Y)
                            continue;

                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        break;
                    case 1:
                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        break;
                    case 2:
                        if (a.X > b.X)
                            offset.X = -0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.X = 0.45f;
                        if (a.Y > b.Y)
                            offset.Y = 0.45f;
                        else
                            offset.Y = -0.45f;
                        break;
                }
                dest += offset;
                Vector2 slope = new Vector2(dest.X - currentPos.X, dest.Y - currentPos.Y);

                bool blocked = false;

                while (!blocked)
                {
                    float distX;
                    distX = (currentPos.X % 1);
                    if (distX == 0 && slope.X != 0)
                        distX = 1;
                    else if (slope.X > 0)
                        distX = 1 - distX;

                    float distY;
                    distY = (currentPos.Y % 1);
                    if (distY == 0 && slope.Y != 0)
                        distY = 1;
                    else if (slope.Y > 0)
                        distY = 1 - distY;

                    if (Math.Abs(dest.X - currentPos.X) < distX && Math.Abs(dest.Y - currentPos.Y) < distY)
                    {
                        currentPos = dest;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        float moveX = distX / Math.Abs(slope.X);
                        float moveY = distY / Math.Abs(slope.Y);
                        if (Math.Floor(dest.Y) == Math.Floor(currentPos.Y) || slope.Y == 0 || moveY > moveX)
                        {
                            currentPos += slope * moveX;
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            currentPos += slope * moveY;
                        }
                    }
                    MapPoint tilePos = new MapPoint((int)Math.Floor(currentPos.X), (int)Math.Floor(currentPos.Y));
                    if (tilePos == b)
                    {
                        return true;
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        blocked = GetVisibility(tilePos)>0;
                    }
                }
            }
             
            return false;
        }
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Pocketwatch Games - Monaco, Venture Arctic, Venture Africa
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« Reply #1177 on: February 24, 2012, 01:21:15 PM »

It's frustratingly easy to accuse the IGF organizers or judges of being lazy or corrupt.
Nope I believe they are neither.

I believe they (the ones who bail on their duties) have no method or just do not know what kind of mess they put themselves in. I have no beef with the IGF. Heck, let them charge 1225 grand. That's ok for me.

The judges should me more straightforward. But ultimately, it's the IGF that burns like a piglet in a roast because of it's team.

A PIGLET!
IN A ROAST!


EDIT:
I will win that shit one day.
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ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)
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« Reply #1178 on: February 25, 2012, 01:01:20 AM »

What is important is finding the right finalists and winners.  What is important is promoting the importance of independent game development.

It's frustratingly easy to accuse the IGF organizers or judges of being lazy or corrupt.

nobody was accusing them of being corrupt or lazy, that i can remember. rather i think they are rationalistic (in the sense of explaining away what a huge number of people see as problems) and uncompassionate (by not empathizing with those whose games are not judged competently), and too lenient towards bad judges. any judge who is admits to playing a game for only 5 minutes should be permanently banned from the igf judging roster, or at the very least given a warning not to repeat that behavior in the future. that one change would save the igf

even if the igf staff disagrees that the judges did anything wrong, they should still make that change for public relations reasons, since i believe the vast majority of people who enter the igf expect that judges should play their game for more than 5 minutes. if a person puts a year into a game, a judge can put an hour into playing it
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« Reply #1179 on: February 25, 2012, 02:40:28 AM »

How about the IGF just improve the judges.

Keep some metrics on them. Weed out the bottom percents.

Instead of assigning a list of games to people, just have their current assigned games show up and nothing else when they log into the judging page (until they complete their assigned games). I fathom some judges just exploit the opportunity to play some unreleased indie games.

Why not require a short write-up (50-100 words) that gets sent to each entrant. Just some direct feedback in a critical environment like that is worth $100 (to me at least). Then you can have the entrant review the feedback so they can tell you if they actually played the game or not.
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