My 2 cents on rules for a new competition:
1) I think it's obvious by the previous one that the 6 months limit was hardly enough for everyone involved. Out of 17 initial entries only 5 made it to the finish line and from those only a couple were considered complete. Given the above I think a new competition should run for much longer.
2) I agree with Kikkems that puting limits is a bad idea. We're a rather small community and we don't have a lot of people (at least compared to other platforms) that are involved with game making. Therefore it is important to include as many developers (old and newcomers) as possible. The previous competition dodged the spiky issue of restricting the format and specs of each game commited, but it fell into a different trap (imho), demanding exclusivity. Furthermore, this exclusivity rule (games had to be substantially new work) turned out to be too unclear and shady. The problem here is that what is indeed "substantially new work" is very subjective and not easily quantifiable, so the rule makes little sense overal as it cannot be enforced properly (and in hindsight -if we want to be honest- it wasn't).
3) In regards to a points system, I partially agree, with some asterisks. I think developers and artists should freely be able to choose their target platform and preffered tools and not be penaltised in any way (cause such penalties serve as a serious counter-incentive for everyone further down the ladder, so it's another non-sensical restriction). Someone that chooses -f.e.- Backbone to make something is already at a serious disadvantage gameplay and performance wise compared to a properly coded ASM production. So what's the point in penaltising him even more? And choosing a specific platform more often relies on the type and scope of the project or restrictions posed by your tools or skill than anything else. Given this fact, I really don't see why it is an issue to pit an OCS game against an AGA one or a 060 vs a 000. The further you push the specs, the more the expectations the public has skyrockets and Amiga people do tend to factor both specs and performance by default. Take for example the latest Revision 2019 demo compo. Loads of high spec 060 and AGA productions there together with more traditional ones. And yet, guess what? 2 OCS a500 demos came out on top eventually. So what does this fact tells us?
Other than the above there could be a point system for non original work and material. But it needs to be kept simple. F.e. code base, graphics, music, gameplay/level design could recieve +5 points bonus each if they are original (means that they were made from scratch and owned by the game's developers) and none if they are not. The problem is that even this might prove a bit unclear/problematic in the long run.
Finaly judge score could also be more properly structured giving a seperate score for each of the above categories. Which could also help the developers get proper feedback about their work.
All the above apply -obviously- if the notion is to have a more general and broad Amiga game making competition. Surely not if the concept is who can do the best Flappy Bird game in 4Kb.
