Hey,
Just thought i'd impart an idea i recently had (today) about the programmer challenge. It's called "24 Hour Tetris".
The basic gist is to make a Tetris clone in under 24 hours.
Rules would be as follows:
1. The game may be modified as far as graphics, sounds, etc. is concerned, but it should remain true to the originals gameplay. This
means the standard rectangle the blocks drop into and the 4 block types etc.
2. The game must be written from scratch, with the exception of...
You can use DirectX or OpenGL (or GDI) for graphics (including associated graphics or maths libraries that come with them).
You can use the windows API (makes sense :) )
You can use DirectX or OpenAL (or windows mm) for sound.
You can use DirectInput or Glut( ? Glu??) for input.
You can use the STL.
I think that should cover the neccessary api's.
3. The game must run in windows, it doesn't need to be able to run full screen or at different resolutions etc. as long as it runs!
4. Any graphics/textures etc. should be your own (programmer art!), except for fonts, which can be taken from the graphics library you used etc. Same goes for sounds, but you can use default windows sounds
if you want :)
5. The competition will take place over 1-2 weeks, however the total time spent on the game should not exceed 24 hours. You should keep a brief log stating what you did when.
6. Completed executable and resources should not exceed 1Mb (after zipping?) Should be plenty. Libraries (DX/GL etc.) don't count towards
this limit.
7. Source code does not have to be provided, however i see no reason why anyone would be against submitting it since it was all written from scratch and will probably be a complete hack :) Source code won't
count to the 1Mb limit.
I think that covers most of it. I decided that doing it over 1-2 weeks and using the "honour" system for not using more than 24 hours would allow more people who actually have lives enter the contest :)
What do the rest of you think?
Also, if anyone has ideas for games other than tetris? I chose tetris as it has very simple mechanics and does seem (at least at first glance by me) to be somewhat accomplishable in 24 hrs, i've never developed a tetris clone before though, so i couldn't say :)
Finally, developing from scratch means everyone starts on equal footing, at least as far as code quantity is concerned (everyone starts with nothing!). The only edge people who have been programming for longer will have is knowledge and experience.
If people can think of enough other ideas as simple as tetris, we could randomly assign games to people at the start of the competition.
Thoughts?
CYer, Blitz
cool, this sounds like it would be fun, i recently finished a game for a 72 hour competition (http://cpsbox.no-ip.com/chenpo/burger_uni.php), love the intense coding sessions.
as for rule number 5 "The competition will take place over 1-2 weeks, however the total time spent on the game should not exceed 24 hours.", how about we just pick a weekend and everyone can work on it then (since most ppl have jobs/uni)? also, not sure about the 1mb limit, especially if we want to have funky sound and art.
i like Kane's idea of breakout, i would prefer a breakout clone instead of tetris
anyway, i'm all for this compo!
The idea of putting it over 1-2 weeks was to give people who can't spare a big chunk of time to work on it a chance. Although, most people could probably spare a weekend, but a weekend and a solid 24 hours may eb two different things :P
The 1Mb limit was more to not hurt poor 56k'ers (like me!) as much as anything else :P this would be negotiable i guess if you want to use high res textures or something :) But i think at least keep it under 5mb, because they do all add up.
A couple other game ideas are space invaders, missile command, pong, asteroids.
We could either assign people a random game, or let them choose (probably better). Call it the "Sumea 24hr retro challenge" or something :P
Also, i'm think the original No.1 rule is a bit harsh. What i mean is that the game should obviously be a "very simiar" game, but you can add new gameplay features etc. But poeple should eb able to look at it and go "Hey, thats a clone" etc.
Another idea for this or a future similar challenge might be to get that programmer/artist double going. The programmer and artist get together (email/icq/irc etc.) decide what graphics are needed etc.
The artist has 24 hrs (?) to do the graphics, and the programmer 24hrs to make the game with the artists graphics.
I also like to think of this maybe not so much as a challenge with a winner, but more like the "Quick Activities" thing. If it's gonna be a challenge, we need a bit more specific goal than just "make game X in 24 hrs" :P
Anyway, still just throwing ideas around.
CYer, Blitz
how about we don't specify what game has to be made, but just a theme, for example "trees", then we could get a bit more creative with out entries. Also, maybe instead of making it a "24 hour challenge", we make it a "weekend challenge" and just spend a whole weekend on it (as much or as little of the weekend as we like). I'm not too big a fan of the 1-2 week thing because i reckon it'll take some of the fun out of intensly trying to make a game from scratch in a short amount of time.
Also, for this one, i reckon we should just have it programmer only, the artists have had enough of their own challenges and stuff :p
Okay, so this seems to be what we have so far.
The game must be done in a single weekend (start perhaps friday night, entries in by midnight sunday)
You can use any api's etc. you want, but it must be done from scratch. However, we need to consider file sizes etc. if you use an api that others may not have runtimes for (SDL etc.).
You can use any programming language. It should compile to some sort of executable though.
It should run on windows. (Preferably without requiring an emulator! :))
You have to do your own art!, sounds etc.
You can choose any (retro?) game you want to clone, but you must incorporate the specified (TBD) theme into the game somehow. You can get creative with how you clone the gameplay etc.
Max. file size TBD
Looking good so far.
CYer, Blitz
sweet. how about we set the file size to < 5mb (zipped).
so should this be just a quick activity thingy, or like a challenge with winners and stuff? if its a challenge i reckon the programmers (and other sumeans) should vote for the winner rather than having judges and things like that.
how about "mice" for a theme?
Kezza, with the most recent printing of the rules, you can use any libs/api's you want. However, bear in mind that fmod,openal,sdl, etc. are not as common on PC's as opengl and directX. So, you *may* need to package the libs with your entry, or we'll need to have seperate downloads for the extra libs people use...
I can draw a mouse or a moose!!! Although other people may not know what it is by looking at it :(
CYer, Blitz
yeh, i wont be able to do it these next couple of weekends...starting uni and all i gotta get myself into gear...
and i reckon make it a challenge...
will we get voted on based on our source code, cos im no were near the same level of programming as most programmers on Sumea...my code will do what it is supposed to, but will be a total mess cos of my newbieishness...
Kane, i disagree
it's a 48 hour programming challenge... everyone's code will look like "100% pure ass"(TM)
because there's no time to make well designed code if you want to produce something by the end.
besides, how do you judge source code?
sifting through each person's source will be a long and painful exercise if we get many good entries
-- edit : my spelling rocks, ... no really!
Oh! another thing
no one mentioned this earlier, it's limited to one person per entry right? I'm wondering if allowing 2 person teams would improve things.
My point is that without a starting engine, most of these "solo game jam" things don't produce many finished games. This could be kinda discouraging for the newer coders amongst us.
Hey, it's not like you're trying to make doom 3 in a weekend!
You're just trying to make a very simple game ala tetris/breakout etc.
Although, i would suggest that if some less experienced coders might want to pair up (perhaps with a more experienced coder?) that would be fine.
And yeah, voting will be done on the gameplay/how bad the art is etc. :) No-one cares about source as long as it works :)
CYer, Blitz
quote:Originally posted by Souri
Just a suggestion - feel free to dismiss it since I don't really have a clue if it makes things easier or not, but what about using a local engine like Hemiware's Serenity engine? So you don't have to bother about rendering and whatever, and just concentrate on the game code and game mechanics?
Well, from my experience with 3d engines there's a steepish learning curve associated that is well longer than two days.
I'd say that the advantages of using a prepackaged engine would be greater for a project of larger size and scope than the ones we appear to be planning to do.
If you plan ahead what you're going to do before the competition starts, you'd probably be able to get a working minimalistic engine running in only a few hours that should see you though. It just wouldn't be extendable enough to write it into being a hl2 sized game that's all :)
a side note, if anyone remakes hl2 from scratch in 48 hours they should win instantly. (if they can also prove they wrote every line of code)
sounds cool...i'll join in if I have time away from Uni...
what about BreakOut? I think thats what its called anyway, where you have to destroy all the blocks will the ball and paddle...that could probably be done in 24 hours...