the contest is drawing to close now. we need judges to volunteer so we can start judging on time (by March 1st).
just a quick note, judges cannot have a game in the contest.
Even if they don’t vote for themself?
[quote=“Myself,post:2,topic:26257”]
It’s a conflict of interest. As a judge, you’re in a position to give the competing games a lower score. This can be done intentionally (sabotaging the scores to raise your own score) or unintentionally (unconciously comparing other games to your own). Thus it’s best that judges are not entered in the contest.
the best results will come from 3rd party judges. im even thinking about having some of my random friends from school do some judging. they’re not techincally savvy at all, they just know if a game is fun or not 
Unless anyone wants me not to be a judge (like if they want to see how their games does compared to mine), I’d be willing to judge. 
i personally want to see Miners4K in the compeition (particuarly against Xero)
ok then. But if you’re a judge short, let me know. =)
Yeah Markus, you have to give miners4k a chance to win, that thing deserves it.
I’d volunteer, but I still hope to get an entry into this thing… :-\
I thought you’d have some guys from industry or research, senior developers or the like, as judges. Soo … am I getting this right, contest judges are pulled from people from this board who did not manage to contribute to the contest themselves?
:o
Wolfgang
“I’m a ****ing starship, I’m allowed to cheat!”
GCU Arbitrary, Culture Craft
basically. but they’re just as good as any of the contest participants, so it works out. take for instance blahblahblahh, who would probably have submitted a 4K game if he wasn’t so busy developing a commercial game at the moment. but he says he has time to judge 
To make this very clear: It was not my intention to imply that people not submitting to the contest are somehow less qualified to sit in as judges than participants of the contest. I’m totally aware of the many reasons (including serious work ) which can hinder finalization of a submission, and I found myself hard-pressed to complete my submission, too, because of project deadlines at work.
However, recalling the discussion about the pros and cons of a public vote, I was under the impression that you had professionally qualified judges available, that people at least as adept in Java development as the best of us would judge our entries. Knowing that this is not the case, I tend more towards a public vote than before: If the outcome of the contest is to be determined by members of this community, then let it be many, if not all, of us.
Wolfgang
“I’m a ****ing starship, I’m allowed to cheat!”
GCU Arbitrary, Culture Craft
i completely agree, which is why i attempted the public vote, but there were too many complaints …
It’s a mistake to get hung up on voting in this competition. The entries are so different voting for the ‘best game’ is pretty much meaningless, imho. It’ll come down to what type of game the judge likes; if he likes shooter he may pick xero, if he likes tech, he may favor ares or frag4k, if he likes racing games he may favorer speed4k etc… You can’t win really, so there’s no point in being anal about it.
Having said that, last year blah, S. Campbell, and Chris M. were judges; Chris is a Sun VP and blah and Shawn are professional developers so I thought that was a nice mix.
“Contest: an occasion on which a winner is selected from among two or more contestants” (wordnet) Either we do a competition for the best Java4k game (and I spend the time polishing my submission, as I did), and then determine ranking by some objective criteria. Or we do an exhibition of Java4k games (and I submit a sketch, or nothing at all), and do not determine ranking. Yes, I did my entry for the fun of it, but still, we have a contest here, and we should arrive at some kind of ranking in the end. Most of us wouldn’t invest the time to finish our entries if not for the competitive aspect of the whole thing, which is why in my opinion, woogley’s choice to call it a contest is just right.
I agree that judging for “best game” ist next to impossible due to the wide variety of genres and personal preferences. However, I consider the focus to be on “best 4096 byte java code”, with the game side just being thrown in to encourage meaningful, interactive submissions. Studying last year’s results, where the entries most advanced in terms of structure, graphics and user interface were ranked top, it seems I’m not so far off the mark. Let’s simply judge number of tricks used, rules bent, paradigms thrown overboard and unbelievable stunts pulled, and subsummize it into a “geek factor”, which then determines ranking ;D
Serious again, last year’s composition of the judge comitee sounds very reasonable.
Wolfgang
“I’m a ****ing starship, I’m allowed to cheat!”
GCU Arbitrary, Culture Craft
Hey, gameplay has to count for a lot! If the tech is amazing and the gameplay is sucky, I’d go find another game 
Which I imagine is what’d happen with a general vote. The really cool games that you keep coming back to (Fuzetsu and Miners have both grabbed me) would be the ones that would do best, surely?
Just my two cents…
Have lots of judges (10 perhaps) all of which have technical knowledge and know Java. Let them vote on the games based on a number of categories and don’t give them any restrictions/guidance what so ever about how to place their votes. I think that it will solve itself then. Having Joe average user as a judge is a bad idea, it’s not much better than having monkeys doing random votes if you ask me.
Edit: More seriously and to clairify my post, the best judge is someone who can apperciate both the gameplay value and the technical achievement of the games. And if we are just going to have a few judges I think all should have both of these qualities.
In this particular question, I completely disagree with you, Donald.
The average user’s opinion is worth just as much as an “expert”, if you ask me. Sure, they won’t be as good when it comes to the tech side, so perhaps a separate judging for that would be nice. On the other hands, they are all expers on gameplay. For me, gameplay has always been the most important factor in games, and still is. This is, after all, a 4k game competion - not a tech showcase. The gameplay has to play an important role here. If we just wanted to show off tech, then we could just as well have had a “4k application” contest instead (see 256b.com - they’ve pulled it off without the gaming).
I am an active member of GFXartist.com, submitting my not so good photographs, and I’ve seen the same thing over there. People disqualify themselves as judges, not placing critiques on artworks because they believe their opinions are less important. Similarly, artists disqualify people as judges because they are certain that their untrained art eyes give no better critiques than “monkeys doing random votes”, as Donald put it. The artistic value is something that can and should be appreciated by anyone. Let’s make sure that the winner of the contest is one that is popular with everyone, not just the judges.
Having said that, I’ll clarify that judges are fine since there’s no time for anything else - the last thing this contest needs is a repetition of last year (great games - poor planning). Let’s give the judges simple scales to work with, and let’s coordinate them.
Morre:
I would be surprised if we really felt that different about this, I guess it was clear the comparison to monkeys was made in a humorus context? Anyway, let me rephrase myself; I think that the focus should indeed be on gameplay, but I don’t want to skip the technical achivement all together. Which is why I think that the judges should have some technical ability, they don’t have to be experts though.
Of course I understand that deciding on what’s “techinically hard” is also very complicated, if you know an algorithm which you can fit in 4k when should it be considered technically hard? Still I think that it would be a pitty if we entierly lost the technical aspect, as I find some games to be quite poor when it comes to gameplay but still feel that the technical achievement should be acknowledged.
By the way things look I guess we should be glad to have any judges at all. I’m still positive that contestants could be judges as well and that they shouldn’t be allowed to vote for their own game. Sure statistics could get skewed. I still have a hard time imagining someone who would try to give their own game a push forward using some kind of strategical voting, perhaps I’m not taking it seriously enough (I’m in the contest purely for my enjoyment).
Yes, technology typically does not do well in this contest.
Good to know. Where can I find that other contest, the one where the better 4k Java program wins?
Seriously, I should have asked beforehand, I suppose, I was under the impression that this is a programming contest.
No, it should be considered technically hard if you fit an algorithm into 4k which everyone knows cannot be made smaller than 8k ;D
No, imho you’ve got exactly the right attitude. I considered myself to be into this for the fun of it, too, but my nevermind factor still wasn’t high enough. All fixed, after the recent discussion about evaluation criteria it asymptotically approaches positive_infinity.
It’s a 4k game competition and a tech showcase. Gameplay is important, and can be evaluated, for example, by number of interactions available to users, complexity of ingame entity behavior and so on. Techniques have to be applied to implement that gameplay in an attractive fashion. Even the “gameplay” fanatics crowd wouldn’t enjoy a lemmings clone where your cute little … white pixel digs up crumby little … brown pixels. Anyhow, most people here seem to define gameplay as “I like it”, so either we do a public vote (again, applause to woogley for proposing it), then this definition is on the spot, or we use judges, then this definition is plain wrong, and we need some objective criteria.
(Promise to myself and all interested parties: This is my last posting on the topic of evaluation, voting and judges :-X )
Wolfgang
“I’m a ****ing starship, I’m allowed to cheat!”
GCU Arbitrary, Culture Craft