Amiga Game Development Contest

[Tigerskunk]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

I
I’m a fan of releasing code, and have released the code to most of my games, but not everyone wants to give away their secrets and the compo should be about encouraging game dev without any limitations.

This.

[E-Penguin]

Personally I feel that in the grander scheme of encouraging game development on the Amiga, it would be better to have the source available at the cost of a few fewer games in the competition. Lifting the curtain on development secrets is a good thing, IMHO.

I get that some people wouldn't want their hard work used by others in a commercial game, so I'd suggest this licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Perhaps "mandate" open source is too strong, but how about "strongly encourage"?

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by E-Penguin

Personally I feel that in the grander scheme of encouraging game development on the Amiga, it would be better to have the source available at the cost of a few fewer games in the competition. Lifting the curtain on development secrets is a good thing, IMHO.

I get that some people wouldn't want their hard work used by others in a commercial game, so I'd suggest this licence. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/

Perhaps "mandate" open source is too strong, but how about "strongly encourage"?

I don’t think you can strongly encourage in a competition. You either accept the entries or you don’t.

Personally I don’t think there will be a flood of high quality entries due to the massive amount of work required to actually finish a non trivial game project.

If you’re confident on getting enough people that are fine with open source and can actually finish a game then sure, reject binary only entries, but I think it’s a risky strategy.

[sokolovic]

This is a great idea.

I'm not sure if having categories for the first contest is a good choice because it could refrain people from competing but otherways, I'll go for

1/ OCS/ECS 512+512KB
2 / AGA 2MB (so that it could run on a stock CD32/A1200)
3 / Any chipset / 68030, and maybe some extra ram (because the 68030 is the stock CPU of both A3000 and A4000/030 and is largely used on the expansion boards.)

[Samurai_Crow]

Originally Posted by sokolovic

This is a great idea.

I'm not sure if having categories for the first contest is a good choice because it could refrain people from competing but otherways, I'll go for

1/ OCS/ECS 512+512KB
2 / AGA 2MB (so that it could run on a stock CD32/A1200)
3 / Any chipset / 68030, and maybe some extra ram (because the 68030 is the stock CPU of both A3000 and A4000/030 and is largely used on the expansion boards.)

No Hollywood based competitors due to the RTG requirements?

[Clydos]

If Hollywood would be permitted, I would be out of the game ...

Holy, why is that so complicated!? :-) Feels like spinning the same circle over and over again. Why not that 3 nice categories we had some pages before (very minimalistic, minimalistic and whatever device you want to address)?

EDIT: Or completely open, I don't mind. But I understand that the pros want to have sth that they really compete in.

[Lazycow]

Originally Posted by alpine9000

If you’re confident on getting enough people that are fine with open source and can actually finish a game then sure, reject binary only entries, but I think it’s a risky strategy.

I wouldn't enter a competition when the game has to be open source... (not that anyone cares)

[sokolovic]

Samurai Crow, that's only a proposal of course.

But I think such a competition can also invite some former amiga devs or celebrities as judge, I'm thinking of Jon Hare for example, or Andy Davidson (and many others). I could add David Pleasance but wasn't he responsible for putting Dangerous Street in a CD32 bundle ?

And maybe the prize could also be sponsorized, even symbolically by some Amiga enterprises (Icomp, Apollo, retailers, Cloanto, Team17*, etc...

* that's not even a joke

[Ian]

We are getting into crazy town now.

There should be no obligation to open source anything.

I'm pretty sure 'secrets' that aren't already well known on our 30 year old devices don't really exist anymore.

It's getting ridiculous.

Nothing will ever be agreed at this rate.

Everything being mentioned will just put people of entering, or everyone will get €10 for winning their category.

GAMEPLAY is king, I couldn't care less if Activision entered a game, if looks great but is crap to play, they won't win.

Those donating should have the final say in my opinion.

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Ian

We are getting into crazy town now.

There should be no obligation to open source anything.

I'm pretty sure 'secrets' that aren't already well known on our 30 year old devices don't really exist anymore.

It's getting ridiculous.

Nothing will ever be agreed at this rate.

Everything being mentioned will just put people of entering, or everyone will get €10 for winning their category.

GAMEPLAY is king, I couldn't care less if Activision entered a game, if looks great but is crap to play, they won't win.

There will never be agreement that’s for sure

Someone with the time and motivation to run the contest probably just needs to go back and read all the suggestions in this thread. Then (as a benevolent dictator) start the compo. Spell out the rules, judging criteria, timelines and any other details etc. Then just open it for entries and see if it gets any traction.

Otherwise this will be a never ending thread

[Ian]

True lol.

So who's taking it on. Or would you prefer the mods to discuss it and come up with something?

We have several mods that could probably have valuable input it this if asked.

Having said that there probably won't be agreement on this either lol

[alpine9000]

Originally Posted by Ian

True lol.

So who's taking it on. Or would you prefer the mods to discuss it and come up with something?

We have several mods that could probably have valuable input it this if asked.

If you can find someone that’s passionate about running the compo it would make a big difference. It’ll be a thankless job and they’ll cop lots of flak, so you need to find the right person.

The worst outcome would be that devs spend hundreds of hours making games and the compo fizzles out and it’s all for nothing.

[Lazycow]

Yes, someone hat to take control.
Shatterhand did already sum up all the cash and he posted some drafts about the rules.
So I thought Shatterhand is our "compo-man"?

[DamienD]

Yup, sadly this thread seems to be going nowhere fast...

Let's keep it simple; 3 categories which cater for everyone:

1) OCS/ECS 512+512KB.
2) AGA 2MB (so that it could run on a stock CD32/A1200)
3) Anything else.

I don't agree with:

a) The games entered have to be given away 100% free. If someone / people are going to work for 6 months on a game then they should be able to ask for money once complete.
b) Source code doesn't need to be shared; this is totally the game creators' choice if they so wish.

Also, I'll again quote one of my posts in this thread:

Originally Posted by DamienD

meckert has run numerous competions and I also contributed funds towards this:

... 3rd RetroKomp GameDev Compo announcement
... RetroKomp/LoadError Game Development Competition
... RetroKomp/LoadError Party 2017 Announcement

meckert has done a really good job with all of the above; raised donations / support from Amiga vendors / structured the competition / arranged prizes / promoted etc...

Has anyone asked if he'd be prepared to assist with this?

[Amigajay]

[DamienD]

???

...thanks for your useful reply

[Amigajay]

Lol
It seems we were getting somewhere, then people add keep it simple and bring back the categories idea!

Simple should be, no categories, no limits on hardware - all these should be taken into account by the judges.

As for source code, it should be upto the dev not mandatory.

[Clydos]

Please, let DamienD (and meckert, if he is willing to do it) organize the event! IMHO his rules are absolutely ok. Man, we can be happy that there are guys who want to organzie, so let them do it and we see how well it will be. What can we loose?

[DamienD]

I've already pledged a fair donation to whatever transpires but can't organise this for the follow reasons:

a) I don't have experience with this kind of thing.
b) I have enough to do on EAB as a Global Moderator.
c) Most importantly, I'm going though huge personal issues ATM so am in no state to devote the required time / attention.

[MickGyver]

Nice initiative!

My two cents, take it with a grain of Himalayan salt if you want:

1. One category only, plus points if the game can be run on a "standard" Amiga like OCS/ECS 512+512KB or AGA 2MB.

2. No ports. My reasoning is that game design, graphics, music and sound are a big part of making a game. Ports are nice but for a game development competition, not so much, how can you even compare a port to an original game?

3. Open source NOT a requirement.