List of my share done.
Compo that forces indie devs to make things they'd normally never make:- edugame compo
- advergame/sellout compo
- sequels compo
- ultra-casual games (I know this was more or less suggested already)
- sports games (what is it about indie devs and sports games, anyway?)
- games which improve your self-esteem
- uncool games
Attention Whore CompoGoal: Make a game that gets (or is intended to get) major attention on the internet or other media. You could...
* Make it topical, like a US Presidential Elections Street Fighter
* Make it about some controversial issue like school shootings or 9/11
* Get it endorsed by a celebrity (Maybe get a Youtube celebrity to blog about it. "Tay Zonday's Pro Golf Tournament 2008" or "Leave Britney Alone Chess" should do the trick!)
* Make it blatantly plagiarise so many copyrights that it gets C&D letters from Disney, Nickelodeon, etc. (This competition has no monetary prizes, so they would have better things to do than sue you. But you can still try to get C&D'd! Actually they might end up offering you a job...)
* Make it shockingly offensive to a major religion and/or ethnic group
* Make a drive-by shooter simulation that's so realistic and fun that it inspires people to actually go out and kill people. Then they will blame their actions on your game, in court, thereby attracting major media attention to this latest event in the ongoing "videogames cause violence" war
* boobs
Message gamesGames that have something to say. Something important (to the author).
Short, no goal compoA learning game competitionFull of useless (but tasteful) information.
The Cockpit Compo* Create a game played from the cockpit of some vehicle (it could be a plane, a spaceship, a boat, a submarine, a mech/walker, or any number of other things)
* The cockpit controls must not only respond to game interaction (such as if the player hits "turn left", the joystick might move), but must also BE interactive, adding to the gameplay. This means that there should be buttons, toggles, dials, gauges, needles and more. Extra points for including buttons for "eject," "fire suppression," or "windshield wipers."
* Multiple perspectives are still possible in a first-person view: maybe there could be side windows, or a "free-look" mode around the cockpit.
* Don't simply have the cockpit/dashboard be in the game, make it part of the game.
Reversed rolesYou play as the evil empire which is out to stop the player(s) (who may also cheat with lives, resets, etc). This is difficult to pull off though as the player would need decent AI. Worked in Dungeon Keeper though.
For example, you may play as the horde of zombies attacking a cottage, or the Space empire which can barely stop a single spaceship, or the ghosts in Pacman, or whatever.
"Nailing Jelly To A Tree"In almost every game you can change the world, save the world, or at least achieve some sort of positive outcome. In this compo, you are engaged in a futile exercise. Maybe you're taking on an immortal enemy. Maybe you're using sandbags to stem the tide of a rising flood. Maybe you're bailing water out of a leaky boat, and the leak keeps getting bigger. Maybe you're trying to save the life of a patient with multiple organ failure. Whatever you're trying to do, it won't work.
Tetris is an example of an exercise in futility. But simply producing a score-attack game with no ending will not fully express the theme of the compo. It would have to be Tetris where every block is a complex, 12-square puzzle piece, which doesn't fit together with the other ones.
The Early-90's Crappy Corporate Cash-In Games competition!Everyone chooses a large corporation, and makes a game based on them. If said corporation has a mascot or logo that can be used as the main character, all well and good, but if not, why not just make one up? It worked for McDonald's in Global Gladiators (Read: Didn't work)! Genre is entirely up to you, but pretty much all early-90's corporate tie-ins were platformers, so why bother putting any thought into it?
Edutainment for something entirely ficticiousCan it blend? Game CompetitionTaking a bunch of concepts from other games, and blending them together into a goo of originality.
Games that make you crumble as a human beingCreative Output CompoGames that (when being played) output pieces of art:
Be it some image, an animation, a piece of music or anything else. (a short story)
Those things should (if it's possile) be output as external files. (image file, mp3, etc.)
A self-creating GameworldSo the game has an (more or less) open world in which the player can (more or less) freely interact. The world should be expandable with content other players "created" automatically when playing the game.
That sounds weird and complicated but just check Spore:
The players universe can be populated with the creatures and constructions other players created during their own game.
These games wouldn't even need fancy network programming:
The developers could think of alternative ways like:
Exchanging certain codes or files or something like that.
This way the worlds should get even richer and more interesting.
Also: "indirect communication" between players is possible because you could tag the content with the creators name or something like that. I imagine that to be fun.
Infinite GamesGames that can be played indefinitely if the player is so inclined and skilled.
Games with graphics made from real objects (like plasticine, live human beings or real locations)Games about a tragic-comic misunderstandingCo-op gamesBackwardsYou have to put the princess back in the castle. Or take the bullets out of as many army soldiers as you can. Or travel forwards in time to solve puzzles, when time is normally going backwards.
PC-Speaker game competition, where games' only mode of output will be via the PC speakerNinjas, Pirates, BarbariansBarbarians, HobosMash-upsAudio-only gamesVoice controlled gamesE-mail gamesGames controlled via cameraGames where you play multiple games simultaneously4D gamesLocation-based games (GPS or something)Biographical GamesTIGSource Christmas Special In December or so. It wouldn't have to be just Christmas games, it could be all holidays, its just that 'Christmas Special' implies that all entries must be super corny, eg saturday morning cartoons.
Tigs Compo CollabSo basically we all work on an Indie Wario Ware Ripoff.
But each tiny portion of gameplay is the compo-entry of a certain
participant (or team).
So we all create those little portions and in the end someone takes em and MASHES THEM ALL UP to a large ball of sex.
Revenge of the Idea MenThis competition begins with people posting threads about their awesome ideas and trying to recruit people to work on them. The idea can be as detailed as you like, but you cannot actually make any of it - no code, no sprites, no music, not even concept art. The idea man has to rely on his recruits to do all the work. For their part, the recruits are not able to influence the idea at all - they have to do exactly what the idea man says.
Of course, you aren't limited to fulfilling one role, and indeed most people will be working as idea men for their own game while coding/spriting/etc for one or more other games. It's a finely balanced reciprocal relationship. On the other hand, if you really are a guy without any skills but a brilliant idea, then this is your chance to get it made. But there'll probably be a huge crowd of ideas floating around, so you'll have to work hard to make yours stand out and attract workers.
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Kept the original descritions where possible, didn't add two ideas or so (like ripoffs) that just seemed like jokes (more than usual).