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[jaredbloom]

I was thinking it would be a pretty cool idea to organize some sort of monthly game making competition. If some of the active shareware game developers were to chip in we could make the prize an assortment of their games.

A game making competition would at least be an organized incentive to encourage people to make more material each month. I know there are a lot of small competitions on various websites, but TIGSource is a popular website that a lot of people visit. Something as centralized as this would get the word out pretty quickly.

Feel free to post your thoughts/ideas here.

[Derek]

That is a very cool idea!  That could really be a lot of fun... and a great way to get people worked up about games.  Especially since we have such a great community of people here.  Getting some sponsors from the indie game community would be cool, too.

I wonder if we'd want to set some kind of size limit.  I know it's very easy for people to submit unfinished work for these compos, but I'd like to see more well-thought out, small, polished, and FINISHED games.  Kind of like Buster's Mini01, or something like that.

Great idea, jared.

[jaredbloom]

Unfinished submissions could be curbed by being more concise with rules; completed games only, and so on.

It would also be interesting to do some sort of themed competition each month, such as games with zombie's or comic book style games.

Overall I think some really cool stuff could come out of this, especially considering how many cool people visit here already 

[konjak]

Make some graphics limitation and I could enter. Graphics always make me quit games. 

[Impossible]

Sounds cool. So a monthly theme for games with a small scope?  It might be a good idea to actually define what "finished" is with a full feature list.  This might help people with getting out qualified games and polish aspects in general.

[relsoft]

This is a really nice idea. Although I have one point to share with you guys.

Re: 1 month limit.  This maybe a good idea if we are using game maker sofwares and pre-built engines; but some of us use programming languages to make games (C,C++, BASIC, etc.). That would give engine users an overwhelming edge in regard to dev time. Don't get me wrong, I have made a working game in 2 hours and 15 minutes in a speed competition using basic but it looks like crap.

[Alec]

Strict guidelines to technology and content would make it a lot more fun I think, like if you had a compo based around making a certain themed game that would fit in the NES era for example. Then you could set limits like resolution, music type, # of colors etc. and people would be competing more on a gameplay/design level.

[Slash - Santiago Zapata]

You mean a competition for each month or just a competition lasting a month?

In roguelikes we have the 7DRL challenges, which are just a week, but then happen 1 or 2 times over a year... I find it hard to produce more than 10 games a year!

I think however this is an interesting idea, though I doubt I would be in (time constraints)

[lowpoly]

Strict guidelines to technology and content would make it a lot more fun I think, like if you had a compo based around making a certain themed game that would fit in the NES era for example. Then you could set limits like resolution, music type, # of colors etc. and people would be competing more on a gameplay/design level.

Taking that one step further, how about everyone works from a predefined pack of assets? Someone would donate a few sprites (character, couple baddies, rocks, trees, etc.) and that way people can spend more time on gameplay if they're worried about getting bogged down in art. If you want to add more art, you are free to but at least everyone gets a semi-level playing field.

[Xion]

Taking that one step further, how about everyone works from a predefined pack of assets? Someone would donate a few sprites (character, couple baddies, rocks, trees, etc.) and that way people can spend more time on gameplay if they're worried about getting bogged down in art. If you want to add more art, you are free to but at least everyone gets a semi-level playing field.

I like that idea. It'd be cool to see how many different gameplay ideas people could come up with from a single set of graphics. How many people would make similar things? How many people would completely go beyond expectations?

[Alec]

That's kinda interesting... its almost like remixing?

[DanDanger]

Oooo! I love the idea of everyone getting the same assets and comming up with different games, i've not heard of that being done before and it sounds really interesting.

Lets do it!

We could use Keith Goes Painting (www.wolfysgames.com) assets if you wanted, to get us started?

[wonderpus]

i saw something like this before with Mario Assets ..
where the compo gave you 3 sprite sets and some tiles and said GO make game
more details here http://javaunlimited.net/mario/index.html

the best one in my opinion was shrooms from here

http://www.cokeandcode.com/

i love the idea , especially cause the hard part for me is assets creation

- Wonderpus

[Arne]

Taking that one step further, how about everyone works from a predefined pack of assets?

Sounds cool, but will people be allowed to edit/add stuff? If not, the pack needs to be pretty diverse.

In the case of a shooter, there'd have to be a lot of hero ships and enemies / enemy parts or we'd see a bunch of rather similar games where everyone "shoots the core" or whatever. We don't want to level the playingfield to the point where everyone is doing the same game with slightly different movement mechanics and enemy wave formations. (I guess you could vary gameplay a lot though, despite limited gfx assets.)

Now my fingers are itching to do 4 color GB schmup graphics...

Edit: A while ago I made a game in 128x128, 4x2y interlace, 16 colors total, and 1 color per every 2 vertical pixel for the 8x8px sprites in a 16*16 tile table. Kinda fun and easy to draw.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

Taking that one step further, how about everyone works from a predefined pack of assets? Someone would donate a few sprites (character, couple baddies, rocks, trees, etc.) and that way people can spend more time on gameplay if they're worried about getting bogged down in art. If you want to add more art, you are free to but at least everyone gets a semi-level playing field.

I once participated in a contest like that, it was in the Ohrrpgce (a pretty unknown game engine, but relatively large back in 2001 or so) community. Someone came up with a bunch of maptiles, sprites, music, and so on, and everyone had to make a game using only that stuff. It was really fun, so if there's another one like that I will probably participate in it.

As for it being diverse, it's probably better if it's *not* very diverse, that would add to the challenge. It'd be less interesting if it contained fantasy dragons as well as spaceships, and more interesting if it was consistent and stylistic.

[lowpoly]

Sounds cool, but will people be allowed to edit/add stuff? If not, the pack needs to be pretty diverse.

Def should be able to edit/add stuff, people shouldn't be handcuffed from being creative. I think the idea of a 'pack' would be so everyone can hit the ground running.

[jaredbloom]

Everybody is making some good points I haven't considered. Concerning preset sprites, I don't really like this; an important part of the judging would be unique art style and whatnot. As for the problem with heavier programming languages that take more time to create games in, I'm not really sure what we can do; a monthly competition seems more fun and less time consuming, and simple games made in Game Maker or Multimedia Fusion can be churned out quickly.

In hopes of getting this started pretty soon, does anyone want to suggest some standard guidelines and themes?

Here are some of my guideline ideas:
-You must have a complete game; no works in progress.
-The game must be started and completed within the given time limit.

Theme ideas: Zombies, Survival, Post Apocalyptic, Humorous, Bodily Function Based (Like "What A Fart" which is hilarious), Comic book style... All I can think of right now.

[Xion]

Zombies is so overdone. I think the comic book one is cool though.
A few more:
Discovery, Freefall, Cyclic, Ancient Greece, Seek and Destroy, Exhale.

As for it being diverse, it's probably better if it's *not* very diverse, that would add to the challenge. It'd be less interesting if it contained fantasy dragons as well as spaceships, and more interesting if it was consistent and stylistic.

I thought that, by diverse, he meant a single theme and style with a wide variety of actions for each sprite maybe? Like, instead of a generic space ship facing right, have all directions, and instead of just a bunch of space ship enemies and debris, maybe some trees and stuff...?

[Akhel]

Why not divide it in several steps so everyone can participate and show their talent?
For example, the judges determine the graphics are going to be: Rocks, Wood, Grass, Evil Alien and Jesus. The first stage is for the artists; the one who make the better Rocks+Wood+Grass+Evil Alien+Jesus wins. The second stage is for game designers; the judges determine it is going to be an RPG. The best game design entry involving Rocks, Wood, Grass, Evil Alien and Jesus wins. The last stage is for programmers; the best RPG involving R+W+G+EA+TehGuy wins. New stages could be introduced for musicians, level designers, porn actors and whatnot.

Maybe a silly idea, but if well organized I think it'd be very very fun.

[jaredbloom]

Why not divide it in several steps so everyone can participate and show their talent?
For example, the judges determine the graphics are going to be: Rocks, Wood, Grass, Evil Alien and Jesus. The first stage is for the artists; the one who make the better Rocks+Wood+Grass+Evil Alien+Jesus wins. The second stage is for game designers; the judges determine it is going to be an RPG. The best game design entry involving Rocks, Wood, Grass, Evil Alien and Jesus wins. The last stage is for programmers; the best RPG involving R+W+G+EA+TehGuy wins. New stages could be introduced for musicians, level designers, porn actors and whatnot.

Maybe a silly idea, but if well organized I think it'd be very very fun.

I like the idea, but it kind of defeats the whole individual competition aspect. If all goes well we could always try it at a later time, because it's a unique concept.