Amiga Game Development Contest

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Regarding teams:

I think it's very possible for someone to provide music for more than one game on the competition. Same as with gfx. I doubt a coder would be able to submit more than one game, but I see no reason why se should limit that.

And I also think we should let teams decide among themselves how they split any prize they may win. Someone may see unfair that a guy who made a mod for a game in a week should get the same share of the prize of a coder/designer who worked on the game for months. I think the decision of how to split the prize should be made by the team.

I think that would be OK, I do still think it should be distributed from the source paypal account rather than dished out to one person. This could be included in the game information forum post.

To many stories of people not being paid in the community for work done to want to contribute to it, although I would hazard a guess most entries will be via a single entrant.

[Predseda]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Genre is free and I don't think we will even have a theme.

Okay, if there is not a theme set, I think there should be some small connecting condition, for example: "the game must contain a banana in any form". Something that tells the game was really made for this particular compo, easy to implement and not limiting. This rule would be revealed when the contest starts. What do you think?

[Ian]

Dont think that will achieve anything, it'll be easy to add anything even if the game was started several years ago.

I don't think it particularly matters if they have been coding the game for years, as long as the competition motivates them to get it finished in time for the competition closing, then all is good as long as it's not been released in any form previously. Time is not going to make a game good, just look at Duke Nukem Forever.

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by Ian

Dont think that will achieve anything, it'll be easy to add anything even if the game was started several years ago.

I don't think it particularly matters if they have been coding the game for years, as long as the competition motivates them to get it finished in time for the competition closing, then all is good as long as it's not been released in any form previously. Time is not going to make a game good, just look at Duke Nukem Forever.

I agree with this. If a game is been in the making for a while then home brew developers tend to advertise it, so part of the judging should be to see if there's news articles about the entries - simples.

[alpine9000]

Can you enter a sequel to an existing game?

[Shatterhand]

This could be included in the game information forum post.

I think that's a fair solution.

To many stories of people not being paid in the community for work done to want to contribute to it

This is so annoyingly fucked up...

[mcgeezer]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Can you enter a sequel to an existing game?

That you developed? Probably not.

If not then I can't see why not (unless the source code is kicking about)

[Shatterhand]

E-Penguin: 20 Euros
LeCaravage: 15 Euros
Alpha One: 50 Euros
McGeezer: 50 Euros
Robisonb5: 50 Euros
DamienD: 200 Euros
Amiten: 50 Euros
Sokolovic: 20 Euros
Darkwave: 40 Euros
Total so far: 495 Euros

[Shatterhand]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

Can you enter a sequel to an existing game?

Big chance I'll be doing a Quasarius sequel But I am the author of Quasarius, obviously

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by mcgeezer

That you developed? Probably not.

If not then I can't see why not (unless the source code is kicking about)

I think as with other re-use (assets/ports), judges would be able weigh up how much has been re-used from a previous game. Lots of great games come from sequels.

Be a shame to deprive gamers of potentially great games just because the author has previously released a similar game.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

Big chance I'll be doing a Quasarius sequel But I am the author of Quasarius, obviously

Well if Akira does the music again I think he needs to get 80% of the prize fund should you win

That man knows how to lay down some sick beats (I believe the kids still say that right? )

Sequels, I think they should be allowed as long as they are made by the entrant, although the original should be provided for judging too so differences can be noted. If it's virtually identical or that is the plan, then the entrant should perhaps think again about doing a sequel.

That is the risk they will take though so it will be up to the entrant.

[Shatterhand]

A Quasarius sequel is something I wanted to do even before I finished Quasarius, but it's going to be a scrolling shoot'em up instead of a fixed-screen shooter and it's going to play very differently, retaining just a few aspects of the original. I'll have to code everything from scratch basically

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by Ian

Seriously?

Yes seriously. You're suggesting that bringing a jetski to an Olympic swimming competition would be fine because the ultimate goal is to move the quickest through water. A key part of any competition is to achieve the best results within the given restrictions.

It does matter if someone has had a game brewing for years and just needs motivation to finish it off, rather than starting from scratch. Again, if all you care about is the best game of the moment then it's an award ceremony not a competition.

Shatterhand I think we're close enough in agreement to kick off the competition. Can I propose a triumvirate of you, me and one other as organisers (Ian? I think our disagreements are mostly in the phrasing)? Kick off on 1st July?

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Shatterhand

A Quasarius sequel is something I wanted to do even before I finished Quasarius, but it's going to be a scrolling shoot'em up instead of a fixed-screen shooter and it's going to play very differently, retaining just a few aspects of the original. I'll have to code everything from scratch basically

Got to get used to these mod powers, I keep clicking edit instead of quote


Anyway, I think a sequel in this instance would be fine and a good guideline for others considering it.


You are taking on more challenges (scrolling etc.) and changing gameplay elements. Even just one of those would probably be enough.

[demoniac]

Originally Posted by Ian

(Lets be honest, gameplay is key, everything else is secondary, and porting although requires skill for sure, it's definitely not as hard as designing and implementing a concept from scratch. Regarding scoring there could also be a public vote with names visible to all that can account for 20~50% of the total score, not sure how this could be worked at present, but I'm sure it will be simple enough works for Eurovision right... )

I don't agree that porting is always easier. It depends on the game and hardware specs. For instance the difficulty between porting Pong vs. Magic Sword are completely different.

Also the port will be compared to the original. Missing or not as well implemented features will be noticed fairly quickly (e.g., Shadow of the Beast Atari ST port). Would we give the port with deficiencies high marks compared to the original? I don't think so.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Yes seriously. You're suggesting that bringing a jetski to an Olympic swimming competition would be fine because the ultimate goal is to move the quickest through water. A key part of any competition is to achieve the best results within the given restrictions.

It does matter if someone has had a game brewing for years and just needs motivation to finish it off, rather than starting from scratch. Again, if all you care about is the best game of the moment then it's an award ceremony not a competition.

As analogies go, that's poor.


Bringing a jetski to a swimming competition is not ok, as you fail at the first hurdle in failing to swim.


This competition is about developing a game for an Amiga and releasing it for judging on or before a pre determined date.


Does it matter if someone has pre declared they have used public domain images, not really or any of the other rules you proposed I didn't include in some way.


No?


I really do not get your insistence that I propose an award ceremony and what you suggest is any more of a competition. Best game of the moment? No, best game submitted to the competition that has been coded by the entrant.



It can be summed up thusly:


Create a game for an Amiga before the given date.


Why does it need over complicating?

[E-Penguin]

It depends on what one is porting. A decent Fortnite port would do wonders for the Amiga community...

As long as it's clear what the submitter has done themselves and what they've reused, I think the judges can make the decision on how to compare it to other games.

[Ian]

Originally Posted by demoniac

I don't agree that porting is always easier. It depends on the game and hardware specs. For instance the difficulty between porting Pong vs. Magic Sword are completely different.

Also the port will be compared to the original. Missing or not as well implemented features will be noticed fairly quickly (e.g., Shadow of the Beast Atari ST port). Would we give the port with deficiencies high marks compared to the original? I don't think so.

I didn't say it was any easier to code, I said it was easier in the fact you don't have to design anything for it, you don't have to think of a story or game mechanic, all that is already there, even the game logic is there to be copied, you literally just have to make it work.


Again, this is very tough no doubt, but it's not as hard as doing it all from scratch and I wouldn't have thought anyone would argue otherwise.

[E-Penguin]

Originally Posted by Ian

This competition is about developing a game for an Amiga and releasing it for judging on or before a pre determined date.

No. The competition is about developing a game in a given time frame within the agreed restrictions of the competition. A game years in the making but released next month does not apply, nor should it. Incidentally the only restrictions anyone can seemingly agree on is that it runs on an Amiga, so I don't understand why you are so vociferously objecting to a ruleset everyone else more or less agrees with. You bring nothing to the discussion other than disagreement. I don't even think what you are proposing is in any way fundamentally different, beyond the phrasing.

[alpine9000]

Re picking the judging panel. I'm going to re-post this idea that no-one commented on:

As this is an EAB compo, I had an idea to link it to the Lemon-EAB game compo.

The judges for this compo are the top X EAB players on the EAB side of the Lemon-EAB compo around the time the deadline approaches.

Gives anyone a chance to become a judge, means the judges will be selected transparently and might give a boost to the games compo.

I don't really care how the judges are selected as long as it's transparent. Especially if any of the organising team are involving in picking judges and also submitting entries. That would seem a bit off.