So when does it start?
Kev
Thanks for the comments. I agree about not using Java 1.5 and that the wording of the size constraint was ambiguous. See if the new wording is Ok. The TBD wasn’t intended to imply a 24 hour competition (I haven’t got a finished game… yet) and suggest that we start this coming weekend. The finish date is set on a Monday to ensure no one is caught out by time zones, if coding late into Sunday night.
[quote] Games shall be judged on:
- Gameplay (30 points)
- Graphics (20 points)
- Sound (20 points)
- Originality (20 points)
- Cross-platform compatibility (10 points)
[/quote]
As a games compo I would weigh these as:
Gameplay: 50
Originality: 25
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Cross platform: 5
Incedently, I would - for the life of someone dearly - never ever announce any points or listing per game.
I would simply announce a winner, a runner up - and perhaps mention an honorable entry.
Anything else is an invitation for dispute. Exhibit A: 4k compo
As for the license, I would suggest either using BSD, or similar (attribution, if you really want to go CC) - and use that license only. If you can’t deliver your work as that license, then you don’t participate. Since we’ll be demoing it on lwjgl.org too, we don’t want 43242 license types to confuse - and therefore we ought to just stick to the BSD/MIT license.
as for a date, june 1st to june 31th sounds like a deal. This should give us enough time to release an updated lwjgl, and setup a webstart extension. But this isn’t etched in stone - need to clear it.
The CC I’ve been using on my site (see here) is an attribution CC (Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 to be exact). But if you all want BSD that’s fine with me. No game has been officially submitted (the 4K games were archived by me) so I can still change the license to something we all agree with.
The above is Ok with me
If we went Creative Commons, only a single version of that licence would be allowed. CC is best suited to artistic works, while BSD to code distributions.
It partly depends on whether people want to allow use of third party music, which is often licensed under CC. However LWJGL uses a BSD style licence, while OpenAl & Devil use LGPL.
So… If one used LWJGL but not OpenAl or Devil, then a BSD license would work quite well. BSD does not ask for attribution so it wouldn’t be very compatible with any CC material.
Note that if you package FMOD, you will need a non-commercial only license to comply with their ‘free’ version licensing.
Not sure what is the best solution. Will wait for more comments.
[quote] As a games compo I would weigh these as:
Gameplay: 50
Originality: 25
Graphics: 10
Sound: 10
Cross platform: 5
[/quote]
I dispute the high weighting of ‘originality’. This isn’t a ‘game design’ contest; its a ‘what can you fit in 16k contest’.
In fact I dispute originality category altogether; in it’s place I propose ‘innovation’; imagine if someone were able to fit Warcraft 1 into 16k, that would not be original, but highly innovative.
Also, I’d like to see a two month contest; the 4k was 5 months and that’s the only reason I was able to participate; 16k logically should require more time, not less. One month is too much less imho.
it looks like I’m gonna go ahead and change the license agreement on the site to BSD (CC is indeed intended for artistic works, and most licenses around here are BSD anyway)
I agree with the “innovative” category instead of “originality.” If we had judged the 4K games with originality, those Tetris, Snake, etc clones would have bit the dust FAST.
Regarding the two month issue… that’s worth some debate. Java 4K did indeed last 5months after multiple extensions, something we don’t want to mess with again. The first extension (which was also the largest) was made because the contest started @ the Sun forums and nobody here really knew about it. I still think 4 weeks ought to be enough time. Part of the challenge is time management. However, we could probably call it even and just say 6 weeks, maybe?
I like 2 months as well. Like you said, “Time management”. I have very little free time to manage, so 2 months would be enough, but one month would be a maybe. Especially with people who might take vactions in June. June 1 to July 31 is not so bad. (Or Aug 1 for a Monday.)
Thanks for the input. Here is Draft C with changes to:
- timescale - Now a 2 month contest.
- Licensing - Now a BSD License.
- Scoring - Weighting as requested by Matzon, but with Innovation category instead of Originality.
Hopefully we’re there now. If this is acceptable, I’ll raise it to Issue 1 this evening which will be the final version.
The scoring could be simpler… like an X out of 10 thing for only two categories - 1. the game and 2. how impressive it is from the tech angle.
#1 is how much fun it is too play, how cool it looks, how original and the like and #2 is for balancing out the extra work, by rewarding things like… dunno… models, sound/music or generally everything which would be hard to do with that limit.
Wait… why do we have to open source the entries?
I won’t join this competition, then. =/
scrolls up
Ye, bad idea.
/me points at that draft…
http://kaioa.com/k/4kreadmedraft.txt
“This game may be electronically distributed only at
NO CHARGE to the recipient in its current state, MUST
include this .txt file, and may NOT be modified IN
ANY WAY. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES IS THIS GAME TO BE
DISTRIBUTED ON CD-ROM WITHOUT PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION.”
That’s good enough.
Who cares about the source after all. It’ll be 16k of hacked shite that’s useless to anyone else.
I too would like to cut down on the scoring, to something simple like:
FUN
TECH
and not actually rate them on a scale at all, just rank them. Then there’d be two prizes, one for the must fun game and one for the coolest tech. And it’s conceivable that one game will win both. There can be a runner up in each category, and an honourable mention in each.
By de-emphasising graphics, sound, and originality we’re keeping to the spirit of the compo which is tiny games written by programmers to impress other programmers.
Cas 
Actually, that’s exactly what happened in my case. How can you possibly ignore originality in a games contest?
The amount of effort it takes to remake tetris very well is a small fration of what it takes to do the same with a new game of your own inventing. Unless you constrain everyone to doing remakes, you will create a hugely unfair landscape.
If you read back to the earlier conversations on competitions, you’ll find many posts on the topic, and a poll.
Looks like we are diverging again 
I am Ok with simplifying the scoring. Suggest:
Looks like we don’t have a consensus on licensing. Note that the BSD license does allow source or binary distributions, and I can’t actually see anything in it making a source distribution compulsary.
:-[ :-[
I don’t see why I should have to make my entry to the competition Free (as in freedom).
I probably would anyway, but being forced to is enough to make me back out.
[quote]I don’t see why I should have to make my entry to the competition Free (as in freedom).
I probably would anyway, but being forced to is enough to make me back out.
[/quote]
It’s very doubtful that a 16k program tagged onto several 100k of library is a good balance for a saleable program. Also Woogley wants to put up the entries on his new site. I am doing my best to accomodate as many people’s views as possible, but I feel that this is contrary to the spirit of the competition and will not be taking it up.
Sorry
Alan :-/
[quote] Actually, that’s exactly what happened in my case. How can you possibly ignore originality in a games contest?
The amount of effort it takes to remake tetris very well is a small fration of what it takes to do the same with a new game of your own inventing.
[/quote]
Yeah, right. Then why did you give the tetris clone some of your highest scores when you judged the 4k entries?
edit; I also fail to see why source should be required; like Cas said its going to be 16k of shiza that will be indecipherable by anyone other than the orginal programmer (then not even by him 2 months later). It wasn’t required on the 4k contest was it? So why here?
Does it really have to get this complicated? If someone wants to give the source, good, otherwise, who cares? If someone wants to sell their game, good, if not, then who cares? The works are still owned by the creator.
You’ve got a scoring system, you’ve got a size limit, you’ve got allowed libraries, just need judges and dates and you’re ready to go.
Kev