Gp2x Community Game Contest: Winners!


to answer about the gp2x.co.uk/emuholic coding compo, we have never made our scores public in any of the competitions since craig and myself started doing them some years ago and before that when I done some smaller competitions myself. as far as I can remember we have never shown any other than the top 3 or prize winning places either.
 
to answer about the gp2x.co.uk/emuholic coding compo, we have never made our scores public in any of the competitions since craig and myself started doing them some years ago and before that when I done some smaller competitions myself. as far as I can remember we have never shown any other than the top 3 or prize winning places either.
Yea, closed doors is always the best way :rolleyes: No wonder a PORT won last time. Vektar didnt win, Beat2x didn't win.. a PORT won.

- Alex
 
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come on, there were more than enough entries that could have got any of the top three places that didnt, including Lady Killers, Beat2X and Exult from the top of my head. all great games but at the end of the day theres 3 places and they have to be decided.

from memory, Vektar, wasnt a complete enough game at the time to warrant first place but its style and playability gave us alot of fun and as you know it was worked on a great deal and turned into a commercial game. i cant remember if bubble train was a port or remake but it was a solid game that we thought should win.
 
Hi deadlychicken, I'd like some details concerning the following bits:

Although neat looking, the backgrounds start to all look the same after awhile (not literally).
Well, that helps maintain a certain visual consistency, smooth abstract was the main goal.
This is hard to explain as it is entirely my opinion. I agree with the idea of a visual consistency, which you did quite well. However, in my opinion, they seem too similar. I think it may have been better to have boards that had mixes of a certain shade of color rather than the rainbow colors. You could also have blended colors together better than you did. If you don't need it to be completely abstract you could give boards a theme. Have simple themes, such as sky or woods or water. That would add a great deal of visual variability while (if done properly) maintaining a consistent visual quality. As you don't have a question here, I'm not sure exactly what detail it is you want explained. I gave you an 8 for graphics, which is the highest score I gave out. This was because I thought your game had some of the best graphics in the competition, but there is definite room for improvement. The backgrounds weren't the main problem.
The disk and the players look pretty good, but they seem to occasionally "stutter" which looks awkward and hurts the fluidity of the motion.
Most (if not all) SDL games have an occasional stutter, take a look at Dodgin Diamond II or Noiz2sa (the gp2x ports)
I know this sounds harsh, but then you either shouldn't have used SDL or you should have accepted its limitations. I'm not rating these games based off of the code behind them but on how well they run on my gp2x.
Another problem with the sound, which seems to be common with the gp2x, is that the volume is very low, even when turned all of the way up.
Yes, well, I can hardly be blamed for the hardware, can I? Try disabling the volume limit if you want loud speaker sound in a regular environment.
I will criticize a game for whatever problems it has, regardless of who is at fault. I am not blaming you. I know this sounds unfair. However, if I were to consider hardware limitations off bounds I wouldn't be able to dock points for poor controls as these can be blamed on the gp2x control stick. Your job as a developer is to make the most out of the hardware you have. Maybe you can't increase the volume, I don't know. However, your low score in the sound section isn't due to this but the lack of sound effects. As I said in the review, it makes the game feel empty, as if it isn't physically happening. Sound effects are an important part of making a game "feel" good. I think you addressed this before, saying the sound effects for bouncing into the wall got annoying. Maybe that is the case or maybe you just need to have more than one sound effect. However, there should be something in there to connect the player to the game.

As I said before, I probably made a lot of mistakes in the reviews. I'm sure they aren't all consistent, I'm sure some of my comments are picky, and I'm sure that some of my scores aren't appropriate for the game, the category, or the comments I made. I thought that Airplyr, Altitude, and Laser2x deserved the top 3 places. Only one of those three made it. In my opinion, this is due to a flawed rating system. However, it was clear from the beginning that this is the system they would be subject to. I followed the system to the best of my ability and after that it was out of my hands.
 
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We need a Zzap!2X :)

/me pictures himself in typical Zzap! 'thumbs up' picture :)

Is Newsfield even still in existance?
 
Maybe you can't increase the volume, I don't know.
His point was that the volume was not the fault of the hardware, or the fault of his code. IT was because you had the volume limiter enabled in the GP2X settings :)
MY point was that the sound was lower than that of other programs without me modifying anything. I switched the limiter off after his first comment and noticed the difference. However, I still found that with the limiter on other programs/games were able to produce much more sound. Whatever the cause, the points were lost due to other reasons.
 
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I just played a few of the games - kudos to everyone, especially barefisted fighter which is one of the most professional homebrews Ive seen, is pretty good fun, and with some minor tweaking could be the definitive 2x fighter.

Squares didnt excite me too much, however it was very professional looking and played well. Im just not a big fan of the concept.

Anyhoo, enough opinions are flying - good job everyone.
 
I'd propose for the next comp:

10 judges, who each submit their top 3 games/progs (in no order). Then tally those to work out the prize-winning placings.

No reviews from judges. Reviews can be provided by impartial users as they see fit, to provide feedback.
 
I'd propose for the next comp:

10 judges, who each submit their top 3 games/progs (in no order). Then tally those to work out the prize-winning placings.

No reviews from judges. Reviews can be provided by impartial users as they see fit, to provide feedback.

That sounds perfect except for the part about the judges not submitting their top three games in order. I think that they should submit them in order. If three games were far better then all the other games and all the judges picked those as there three top games then how would you work out 1st, 2nd and 3rd place?
 
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I guess some type of scoring system should still be set up. However, I recommend against dissecting each game in graphics/sound/gameplay/originality etc., that simply does not work for every type of game.

There should also be more prize slots, maybe 4 :D

- Alex
 
Ya, I actually wanted to get this competition onto 1-5th place, where 1-3 got most of it, but 4 and 5 still got something, but i didn't know how much we were going to raise, and the entries and such.
 
I think it should be started so it ends some time in late summer like maybe the end of august... that way school can't get in the way of orginization, coding or judging.
 
Hey

as a participant in the contest i just want to give some personal comments.

First, congratulations to the winners, they made good games and they deserve the prizes. :)

Second, some comments on the first review of my game cardmaster. I know the game isn't perfect, and in the state i entered it, it isn't complete etc. But if i read the review it looks like the judge didn't even play it more as 5 minutes. Also he didn't read the introductions in the readme. I agree with Orkie "Maybe they didn't actually read the instructions?", and this is a shame. He complains about issues which are explained in the readme or "in-game". As a homebrew developer i want to get some feedback, but if it appears the judge didn't try to spend some time to get into the game, it's just useless for me.

The second review is clearer and i accept his opinion on the game. This review is helping me more to make the game better as the first review.

kedo
 
I still think that for a 'community contest', the community should decide. Just have a public vote. That way it'll be open and will reflect what the community wants - not what a select few do.
 
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