Pack200. Should it stay or should it go? :o
It should be in.
Kev
That all sounds fine to me. I have no idea how I’d go about making a persistent server using an Applet, though. I assume you just mean peer-to-peer?
Looks good to me!
I sincerely hope I can find the time to enter. I don’t really have any time to work on 4k games in the foreseeable future, but we’ll see. Somehow I always seem to find the time… :>
My reaction on the first three readings was this should say “or later” rather than “or lower”. I think I’ve worked out now why you chose “lower”, but I wonder whether this line could be improved. You could just leave it at “Target JRE is 1.5 (Java 5)” given the commitment that all judges will test with that.
Off to find an installer for a 1.5 JRE for testing purposes…
Edit: Wow. It’s been EOL’d.
Looks pretty good and fair to me…
What would happen if you added a main class method to an applet. Maybe the same class would work as both applet and command line server. I haven’t tried this. Just thinking aloud.
Rules look fine to me. Thanks Appel.
Edit: fixed typo 
Ok, it’s done. The rules are up, and the contest has been opened for submissions. I’m still hardening some code there, (e.g. editing game), but everything should be working now.
I have a query about the submission and html… will the java4k site simply ask for the applet jar, the dimensions of the applet and some information text when submitting or will it be allowed to provide user defined html?
edit: cant get to java4k.com at work so sorry if this has been answered… will look when i get home
I think you mean “a main method”. It works as applet and application, as you would expect.
Sorry if this has been answered but do all applets (which aren’t Client/Server Networked apps) have to be hosted on java4k.com or can we still just use our own hosting if we have it.
Perhaps this wasn’t explicit enough. All applets should be hosted on java4k.com, for posterity purposes.
If for special reasons it cannot be hosted on java4k.com, that can be accommodated by contacting me.
Slight confusing:
Does that mean you are only allowed to vote on 20, no matter what, or that you must vote on at least 20, but you can vote on as many as you want?
If you mean the former, then I think that’s pretty detrimental because then many games (the least interesting-looking ones) will not get voted on at all. If you mean the latter, then you should probably rephrase the wording to “at least 20 games.” Also you should mention what’s requiring them to do it. For example, “Each participant in the community voting will be required to grade at least 20 games, or their own submission will not be counted.”
Typo:
Therefore is missing its e.
I am still unsure what you mean about networking stuff. In a peer-to-peer scenario, obviously the same applet must have the capability to be either the client or the server, so that’s a no brainer. However, the case of having a persistent server is more confusing. Do I need to make an applet that can be started via command line as a persistent server, and can also run as the client? That’s what I assume it is, but your line “Both Client and Server must be submitted to Java4K.” is a bit confusing, as it implies that you could have separate jars submitted for each.
That actually makes me think of something else, too. What if you could submit a separate server and a separate client, and they were separately under 4k, and yet each had some separate redeeming value. For example, you could put an incredibly simple (and cheap) implementation of pong in your server as the face of the thing in Java 4k, then you could have the rest of the 4k be spent as the server information for the client. I’m guessing this would violate the “spirit of 4k” rule.
Regarding community voting, I am still thinking about the best way.
You are correct about the networking rules. I’m still ironing out some things there, so comments are welcome. I’ve already updated it to clear out some ambiguity. In any case, it shouldn’t be too complex. Networking is surely allowed, everything just needs to be counted towards those 4096 bytes, and the user shouldn’t have to do anything special to run the game.
how about every person who submits a game is given number of random submitted games (non-authored) to review/vote in order to be an elligble contenstant?
That’s a good idea, and would surely solve the problems I mentioned above.
Not sure if that’s the best way.
Perhaps giving each user 100 points, which he can use to assign to his favorite games. The maximum amount of points any one game can receive from the same user is 10 points. This ensures that the user votes on at least 10 games, but can vote on up to 100 unique games if he wishes.
Let’s just face it, the reality is that people will never go through all the games, one by one, as the judges do. That’s why we also have a judging process, to ensure all games get a fair shake.
Allowing people to hand pick out their favorite games will draw out the best community games. I think this best reflects the opinion of the community.
What about a combination?
10 randomly assigned games, and 10 chosen games. I just want to be sure that all games get at least a little bit of community vote. This way, the best looking games will still be chosen the most, but, on average, every game will be voted on at least a little bit. One thing I didn’t like about JGO Comp 2009 was that the voting spread between popular and unpopular games (in terms of look and the user who created them) was pretty massive. Even though I think the better ones clearly won, users who were unable to create pretty art or who were relatively unknown in the forums would have very very few reviews, which I don’t feel is very helpful for people who are just starting out.
Make that most people. The year they did a community vote I went and played all 68 games before choosing my top 5. That was the same year that most people went through alphabetically and stop halfway before evaluating most games. My best game to that point started with “T” (Tank War) so was never even looked at by the community at large. That is why I hate community votes. But as long as there are regular judges along with the community vote then I have no problem.
PS I didn’t expect to win that year, but thought I was at least top 20.