JGO Comp 2008

General Discussions
#1

The contest has officially ended.

Come be a part of the JGO Comp 2008, a Java game competition that will take place from August 22nd - August 26th. Programmers get exactly 3.5 days (84 hours) to complete their projects. Projects follow a theme that is provided upon the start, and also must use a sprite sheet that will also be provided. Please visit the site below for more details and also to vote for themes. The theme that accumulates the most votes by the start of the contest period will be used for the competition!


http://www.otcsw.com/images/JGOCompBanner.gif

http://www.otcsw.com/contest.php

This is meant to be a fun friendly competition to challenge our brains to come up with unique games and results. Please tell all your developer friends so we can have a decent showing of people!

I’ve put in a little plug for the Java Game Tome there as well - hopefully all games from this contest end up there. Questions? Comments? Let me know…

The sprite sheet:

375×627 20.6 KB

The first theme:
Apocalypse

The second theme:
White Picket Fence

Good luck!

#2

Sounds really great. I’ll try to join if possible. :slight_smile:

Should i read the following as i can’t use my own game engine?:

[quote]# Submissions cannot be worked on until the start date of Friday, August 22, at 5:00 PM GMT, and must be submitted by the end date of Tuesday, August 26, at 5:00 AM GMT.
[/quote]
While it probably seems like a fair rule, it’s almost certain i won’t join with such restriction. One of the major reasons for me to use java is the reuseable code i produce, such as my game engine. I’ll be looking forward to contest in either case :slight_smile:

  • Scarzzurs
#3

You should probably add JInput to the list of allowed libraries. Most people that use JOGL and JOAL also use JInput.

#4

Well, why not use code you’ve already written. It’s not like there’s a bit prize or anything. :stuck_out_tongue:

I’ll also add JInput. I was thinking about Slick, but decided that it probably had too much functionality to be totally fair. Think I should just allow that as well?

#5

Can’t see why you’re limiting the libraries in use. Use anything would make it far easier to have fun - after all, we’re just talking about fun here right?

Kev

#6

@Demonpants:

First, thanks for your effort and work to set up a little competition.
Although my time is very limited and I do not know if I manage to
enter - I like competition a lot in general.

About the libraries I totally agree with kevglass. There is no need
to exclude certain libraries in my eyes. From my experience I can say
that competitions like this works best when you just limit them to a
certain theme and that’s all. Ok, in this special case it is ok to limit
it to the java language - but I would not limit the use of libraries.

It exaclty like you say - why re-invent the wheel over and over again.
Libraries provide a set of (mostly) well tested basic functionalities.
Why not start coding on basis of that to create something new ?

Anyway … looking forward to see the entires … thanks again for
putting so much work into it!

#7

The color scheme of that site is so bad it almost gave me a seizure.

#8

Any libraries really should be allowable. You want people to code games, not tech demos or libraries from scratch.

Particularly you want the barrier to entry to be as low as possible so you get as many people taking part as possible (particularly as this is new and therefore doesn’t have a bunch of regulars). Every time you add restrictions or disallow people to not use their favorite API you turn someone away. Similarly these kind of things are also great for giving people a chance to experiment with a new API (like me using the Slick Inkscape loader in LD12).

Basically, since there’s no actual prizes up for grabs you can afford to be slack and forgiving with the rules. Let people use what they want and give people some leeway and it’ll be more fun for everyone involved.

#9

Bring on the games!

Kev

#10

All suggestions noted. I tuned down the red in the color scheme a bit, and all libraries are now allowed. Also I put a place that tells you how many votes have so far been cast.

#11

I voted Theivery, as I’m dying to write a game revolving around typos! ;D

#12

[quote]I’ve put in a little plug for the Java Game Tome there as well - hopefully all games from this contest end up there. Questions? Comments? Let me know…
[/quote]
That’s very cool ;D

Let me add a link back to your competition later today! If it’s not too complicated, I could probably implement something (maybe a special dropdown) for you game competition? Let me know if you had anything in mind?

#13

Auch, I always make that mistake. I before E except after C… thanks for the notice, I corrected it. :slight_smile:

If you’ve got the time, sure! It would also be awesome if you could give me a snippet of PHP that I could plug into the site in order to directly link to some limited information about the submitted games, or something like that. I pretty much want people to have to go to Tome to submit their products, but also have all game information clearly in one place. If I could pull some XML from the Tome or something that would be super, but even if I just have a link to specific part of the Tome that has only contest games that would be just fine.

#14

[quote]If you’ve got the time, sure! It would also be awesome if you could give me a snippet of PHP that I could plug into the site in order to directly link to some limited information about the submitted games, or something like that. I pretty much want people to have to go to Tome to submit their products, but also have all game information clearly in one place. If I could pull some XML from the Tome or something that would be super, but even if I just have a link to specific part of the Tome that has only contest games that would be just fine.
[/quote]
Sounds good! Let me see what I can come up with ;D

#15

64 votes is good - I was a little worried only like 5 people would vote for themes. Also, I made a quick script to tell me if there is any one option overwhelmingly higher voted than any others, and apparently there is a 12-vote difference last time I checked. So we will probably have a surefire winner. :slight_smile:

#16

Personally, i’d like to see JGO run at least 1 comp that allows NO libraries (use the JDK only), and then have all the source of the entries visible after the comp has ended.

JGO can simply run separate slick/jogl/etc comps later on leaving entrants to choose…(and keep interest up throughout the year instead of just once a year)

#17

Well, we can have another one after this one. It makes sense to allow all the libraries for this contest, then next time we can restrict it. That way we hopefully generate a few regulars for the more restrictive contests.

#18

But it’s not really a competition now is it? It’s basically: make a game with a specified theme in a limited amount of time. If you can re-use old code, the person with the best idea might not win if he’s up against well-executed but less good ideas by people who already have a game engine they can re-use.

Edit: the rules don’t mention winning… so I guess it’s a themed game creation ‘activity’? :wink:

#19

The way the Ludum Dare competitions work is to usually have several catergories for voting (like “gameplay”, “graphics”, “polish”, etc.) and have awards for the best in each category as well as an overall winner.

Regardless it usually doesn’t matter how good your libraries and base code are, the best libraries in the world won’t make your game magically look good, play well and be polished.

#20

Yeah, it was just oversight not mentioning the prizes. I was thinking of doing it based off Ludum Dare with a lot of different awards, but we will probably have around (I’m guessing) 10 entrants, so that sort of limits the possibilities.

We could have just a few, like:
• Best overall game.
• Best use of the sprite sheet.
• Most original use of the theme.

Or we can do all sorts of themes to the point that basically everybody gets an award. Could be more fun that way?