The summer holidays are nigh and i've been unable to take part in the previous two 48 hour comps...
who's up for a 3rd?
I'm against having a public "stock content" thing... I don't think all the games sharing the same graphics is a good thing. The programmer art in the first challenge was not a major issue.
Perhaps an alternative is to have artists involved in the challenge and they're allowed to work before the deadline. So in this way, perhaps we might allow all audio/visual game assets to be constructed ahead of time, but no code is made till the clock starts?
Is there any chance we can have more than 48 hours?? Something like a week would be nice, and would (probably) result in more polished entries.
When you consider that the last modeller challenge went for about 2 months, while we have to design a game, code it, test it and create the art & sound content in only 48 hours!! It's a tight squeeze for even the most mighty of caffeine-powered code monkeys.
quote:Originally posted by Soul
Is there any chance we can have more than 48 hours?? Something like a week would be nice, and would (probably) result in more polished entries.
When you consider that the last modeller challenge went for about 2 months, while we have to design a game, code it, test it and create the art & sound content in only 48 hours!! It's a tight squeeze for even the most mighty of caffeine-powered code monkeys.
Well.. i'd like to see more pollished entries too, but I have 2 other projects to finish over the next 3 months and at this rate I couldn't enter if the compo was much longer than 2 days.
If the comp was a week long (or more), couldn?t people who only have one weekend to spare still enter? Previous modelling challenges have been 2 months long, and while most people take all the available time, some people get their entry done in just a couple of days.
Theoretically, the programming challenge could be a couple of weeks long, but those psyched for a 48-hour challenge could just do a 48-hour caffeine induced marathon?
Wouldn?t the end result be more polished entries, and more challengers competing?
Of course I?m just sticking my nose in where it doesn?t belong because I have no intention of entering (certainly not in a 48 hour challenge anyway), but it just seems logical to me to have it over a few weeks.
Going back to the idea of having a set of graphics to work with, what if we have a couple of weeks prior to the challenge of artists submitting art based on the theme, then programmers could use whatever they want from the archive. Maybe afterwards the artists could make specific pieces on request, based on what pieces the programmers want to use?
quote:Originally posted by Kezza
Perhaps an alternative is to have artists involved in the challenge and they're allowed to work before the deadline. So in this way, perhaps we might allow all audio/visual game assets to be constructed ahead of time, but no code is made till the clock starts?
This sounds like a good idea.
However it's achieved, it would be cool to somehow have a challenge involving both artists and programmers.
Perhaps the question that we should be looking at is what exactly the competition is to be judged on. Having artists working with purely a coding competition could actually distract people from the technical challenges which should be our focus IMHO.
The modelling challenges are being used to improve peoples skills and get them some exposure to the industry, can we somehow use a programming challenge in the same way?
quote:Originally posted by Barry Dahlberg
Perhaps the question that we should be looking at is what exactly the competition is to be judged on. Having artists working with purely a coding competition could actually distract people from the technical challenges which should be our focus IMHO.
The modelling challenges are being used to improve peoples skills and get them some exposure to the industry, can we somehow use a programming challenge in the same way?
Hmm, we'd have to be careful not to turn it into a tech demo challenge. [:D]
I didn't pay close attention to the second competition, however i don't think that quality of artwork was a huge factor in the marking of the first challenge.
Although the winner wasn't the one with the most complex gameplay, but it was the one that seemed most "finished".
Nah speed as in amphetamines. Could make up lots of fun games oriented around that...from truck driving to being a bikie gang :D
If it's a game development challenge then I dunno if I CBFed - all the art/design/ideas stuff is too much of a pain in the ass to accomplish in such a small time frame - I'd never be totally satisfied with it!
quote:Originally posted by Maitrek
Nah speed as in amphetamines. Could make up lots of fun games oriented around that...from truck driving to being a bikie gang :D
If it's a game development challenge then I dunno if I CBFed - all the art/design/ideas stuff is too much of a pain in the ass to accomplish in such a small time frame - I'd never be totally satisfied with it!
well you see, ideas/design/music has always been done before the compo... that's why we called it a programming competition before, because the main work was always coding the game.
As for the art, this time round we may also let that be done ahead as well.
hmm not a lot of movement here is there ;)
so whats the consensus? 48hr comp? longer comp? a less comp structure but more of a all in "lets just write a game by a date and see what everyone else did" type of thing?
all it needs is a decision really. maybe a quick poll? technology is another biting point, with a small number of entrants its not like you can have a hardcore and open leauge (as was touted with LD last time). maybe using the rules from the last comp (anything with a binary) could work. although it rules MDIP v2 stuff out :P
ideas?
Matt D
im definately up for a third...
maybe i can try my hand at DirectX this time...[:D]