Ideas For A Gp32X.com Summer Competition


Magic Sam

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gp32x.de COMMUNITY COMPETITION

WHEN ???

Theme: ???

RULES

- Submitting arcade, puzzle/board, ported games and applications is PROHIBITED

(games belonging to two or more genres,like puzzle-platformers for example, are authorized)

- Contestants MUST team up (at least two people) for their entry to be accepted.

- Entries must run on at least one gp32x.de Community handheld (GP32, GP2X, WIZ, CAANOO, DINGOO, PANDORA) and their sources must compile on desktop computers (Windows, Linux, MacOS, etc...) for judging purposes.


u9i's scoring proposition:
Scoring
How would it be if everyone who submitted scored the entries themselves? You can vote for everything but your own. No need for judges (unless very few enter). What are the pros and cons? I think we had this up at PACC also, where everyone (except me) agreed that the people submitting should not judge. What i am thinking is if everyone judged everyone else's entry, would it be ok? Another thing we could do is have like an open Poll on this community where the members vote for their favorites... hmm, that simplifies the votes to only one score, and only one game, also there is the problem here of which platform people vote for.

We could also make some kind of web page where members of gp32x (with more then, say, 40 posts to avoid fakes) could score on some criteria, and we sum up the normalized score. I can implement this if needed.

From crow_riot:
i'd like to see a voting roster, what categories the judges need to vote (like creativity, gameplay, and so on) i think i've seen such listings on the ludum dare competitions - but i can't find a decent link atm.

From OrR:
Seperate score categories only make sense if there are separate categories to win in, IMO.

I'm all for another coding competition. IMO, it should be split into platforms and a select few categories per platform (original game/software, port of existing game/software, improved game/software). Then everyone could donate to the platform and category that's of most interest to them. If you enter a multiplatform game, you could win in multiple categories. There should be at least 3 significant prizes per category & platform, maybe something like this:
1. 25%
2. 20%
3. 15%
4. - 7.: 10%
(% of donated money)

From Alex:
Alex. said:
Here's a small idea. If a submission scores above 70% on average, then it should automatically qualify for a small honorary prize (maybe reserve 20-25% of the pot for this). I think this will encourage participation and reward quality software, since there are always more nice applications than there is space on the podium.

TO DO List :

- Quickly set up a web site to advertise this competition (Jan-Nik !)
- Find a trusty Community member to deal with the donations
- Find members for the jury ?
 
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Magic Sam said:
This competition could take place this "Summer", from end of June to September or something...


I like the idea of a summer competition. But there's already a gp32spain competition running until the end of july. so if you start such a competition will start, it might be good to set the start date to august 1st.
 
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sounds like a good idea.

Magic Sam said:
What about a competition where submitting arcade and puzzle/board games is PROHIBITED ?
Why?
I like those games.
 
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mr.miyagi said:
sounds like a good idea.

Magic Sam said:
What about a competition where submitting arcade and puzzle/board games is PROHIBITED ?
Why?
I like those games.
There are already so many of them out there.
 
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Yes, wait until the Spanish combo is done. But of course, preparations can begin now though. I like the idea of populating the empty categories. I have plans on making something for one of the empty categories myself, so a competition will motivate more.

Making it for all platforms though has some drawbacks. Most people don't have all the consoles. So just finding judges is difficult. Also, i found the judging extremely skewed across platforms in the PACC 2010 competition, so the results should definitely be normalized across platforms somehow.

Personally i would prefer a competition for one platform. It gives everyone equal grounds to compete on. With that, the rest of the suggestions become moot. I like the 3D and recording bonus though :)

/Uni
 
u9i said:
Personally i would prefer a competition for one platform. It gives everyone equal grounds to compete on. With that, the rest of the suggestions become moot. I like the 3D and recording bonus though :)

i agree
 
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So what do you mean by the "puzzle" genre?
Are puzzle-platformers allowed?
 
mr.miyagi said:
Why?
I like those games.
So do I, but we already have a lot of these arcade and puzzle/board games available. And a good competition has to have some restrictions IMHO ;)
Bye, Magic Sam
 
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i need to agree with uni, that multiplatform is kinda ... boring/unfair. i think i also expressed that concern while participating in PACC.

i'd like to see a voting roster, what categories the judges need to vote (like creativity, gameplay, and so on) i think i've seen such listings on the ludum dare competitions - but i can't find a decent link atm.

another point - disallow ports. please - original games is what i look for. and it's much more work to create a new game from scratch than porting an existing one. or at least 2 categories - one for port, one for original.
 
u9i said:
Yes, wait until the Spanish combo is done. But of course, preparations can begin now though. I like the idea of populating the empty categories. I have plans on making something for one of the empty categories myself, so a competition will motivate more.
That's some good news, and I have edited my first post about the starting date :)
Making it for all platforms though has some drawbacks. Most people don't have all the consoles.
Making a game multi platforms is only an option. I only have a GP2X F200 (waiting for my Pandora...), but I'd like to play games made for other handhelds on it :)
So just finding judges is difficult.
Any volunteers ?
Also, i found the judging extremely skewed across platforms in the PACC 2010 competition, so the results should definitely be normalized across platforms somehow.
What could be the results and scoring system for this compo, in your opinion ? Please share your ideas, let's imagine the rules :)
Personally i would prefer a competition for one platform.
Don't you like the idea of a gp32x.de "community" competition, spread across all the platforms represented here on these boards ?
I like the 3D and recording bonus though :)
Thanks :) I had an idea yesterday: what about a game à la Vib-Ribbon (PSX) for the Dingoo ? Depending on the radio you're listening to with the FM tuner, the generated levels are different...
Bye, Magic Sam
 
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Don't you like the idea of a gp32x.de "community" competition, spread across all the platforms represented here on these boards ?

hmmm just another idea - if you want to enforce the 'community spirit' - maybe different people from the community need to team up to create an entry? let's say - at least 2 people of a team need to have an account here?
 
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Some of things I learned running the recent PACC2010 compo that could maybe help this compo and the next PACC if I ever run one again...

1.) No ports. Judges will rate a port higher than an original entry either because it looks more polished or plays nicer, but that doesn't always mean the author put as much effort in. The winner of the PACC2010 competition won using a SDL tutorial he found on the net and not one of the judges who judged this entry bothered to read the description saying exactly that or didn't bother to deduct points for originality which was one of the categories. In the end I had to award him the 1st place because it was no fault of his the judges didn't do their job properly... This will also work against devs who spent a massive amount of time and effort on a port just to have a judge say... pfft he just ported it... May as well just not include them in my opinion.

2.) Choose your judges carefully and before the competition starts. I was so desperate for judges at one point I was accepting people I had never heard of. Some of the judges didn't understand the criteria or just didn't care. All category points were out of 100 and I had some judges judging everything in the high 90s and others judging under 10. It really messed up the averages. Especially when the person judging everything in the 10s could have been a fan of a rival platform and was just doing so to slant the results.

3.) If you accept help with the webpage, make sure you have editing control. My webguy was a great help at the start but then was unable to update important info when requested, hard to contact and eventually vanished into the real world. :)

4.) Set deadlines for everything: entries, judging, results, file uploads and prize distribution. People get very upset when they feel things are being delayed around here...

5.) Get all judges to write a small review and feedback. I didn't even think about this until it was too late. The things devs crave more than anything in my opinion is feedback. What did you like about the game? What didn't you like? What could be improved, tweaked etc..

6.) Ask devs to ask in public for testers. Some stuff wouldn't work on certain version firm-wares or open firm wares etc..

7.) Multi-platform is tricky. Like I said in point 2, some judges judge high and others low, this will mess up the average scores if they only judge certain platforms...

8.) Ask devs to provide at least two screenshots of their entry in a set format and size to be decided by yourself.

9.) If people want to help, ask questions or need to contact you, make them email you on the competition email. You do not want to be trawling through five 20 page threads looking for people who offered to do stuff or asked questions.

10.) Provide entrants a questionnaire they need to fill out with vital info like: Who worked on this, real names, forum names, contact details, paypal adddress etc..

11.) Don't underestimate your competitions success, I started PACC2010 thinking I might be lucky to get 5 or 6 entries and a couple of hundred bucks in donations... I was overwhelmed at the response, something I started as a bit of fun became serious business very quickly... This is why I made it multiplatorm and open to any kind of entry, I didn't expect much.

That's all I can think of for now, If I think of anything else I will be sure to post...

This is what a judges scorecard looked like for the PACC2010. There was a slightly tweaked version for applications, emulators, games etc but all fairly similar.

scoreet.jpg
 
Oh and just a thought... its not Summer here in the Southern hemisphere, I always hate when dates are announced in seasons... Its like this whole hemisphere doesn't count.
 
I was judge at the PACC and I must say I didn't like the judging table that much. IMHO there should only be total score with a short review by each judge.

I could provide web space with an admin page where you can change the content of the page.
 
Seperate score categories only make sense if there are separate categories to win in, IMO.

I'm all for another coding competition. IMO, it should be split into platforms and a select few categories per platform (original game/software, port of existing game/software, improved game/software). Then everyone could donate to the platform and category that's of most interest to them. If you enter a multiplatform game, you could win in multiple categories. There should be at least 3 significant prizes per category & platform, maybe something like this:
1. 25%
2. 20%
3. 15%
4. - 7.: 10%
(% of donated money)
 
1.) No ports. Judges will rate a port higher than an original entry either because it looks more polished or plays nicer, but that doesn't always mean the author put as much effort in. The winner of the PACC2010 competition won using a SDL tutorial he found on the net and not one of the judges who judged this entry bothered to read the description saying exactly that or didn't bother to deduct points for originality which was one of the categories. In the end I had to award him the 1st place because it was no fault of his the judges didn't do their job properly... This will also work against devs who spent a massive amount of time and effort on a port just to have a judge say... pfft he just ported it... May as well just not include them in my opinion.

Where exactly was this description your talking about because I missed it. It wasn't on the PACC site or included in the Judge's files I downloaded. If it is in an obvious place, fine..... but I think it's very uncool that you're here basically calling all the judges incompetent.

2.) Choose your judges carefully and before the competition starts. I was so desperate for judges at one point I was accepting people I had never heard of. Some of the judges didn't understand the criteria or just didn't care. All category points were out of 100 and I had some judges judging everything in the high 90s and others judging under 10. It really messed up the averages. Especially when the person judging everything in the 10s could have been a fan of a rival platform and was just doing so to slant the results.

This wasn't the judges fault either. The points should have been 1 through 10, 1 through 100 is just too much. This is why the results varied so much, so my advice to anyone would be to keep it as simple as possible. The scorecard was fine IMO.


Back on topic.........

For this contest I think ports should be allowed as they still add to the targeted handheld. However, anyone that enters a port should realize that they're going to lose points for originality and have less of a chance at winning, let them decide.

Iorgy's right, definately make the judges comment on every entry. Devs love feedback!!!

OK, now at the risk of being flamed to death..... If this ends up being multi platform I wouldn't include Pandora entries in this contest either. I don't think there's enough Pandoras actually out there to warrant their inclusion, at least not until the first batch has been completely finished. And I don't think it's going to be done by August! Plus they seem to have a steady stream of releases unlike the other handhelds and at this time wouldn't necessarily gain anything from a contest, but in the end I guess that's your decision. Please don't think I'm anti Pandora, I do have a preorder of my own.
 
Magic Sam said:
Hi,

Had a look at the Archive recently ? Seen all these nearly empty game categories (adventure and RPG, beat them up, jump'n'run, racing, sports, strategy, etc...) ?

What about a competition where submitting arcade, puzzle/board, and ported games is PROHIBITED ?

Bonus points could be given if:

- The game runs on all gp32x.de handhelds
- The game uses both GP2X CPUs
- The game runs on poor little GP32
- The game uses WIZ 3D capabilities
- The game uses Dingoo audio capabilities (FM tuner and/or digital recording)
- The game runs on the Pandora

This competition could take place from end of June to September or something...

EDIT: This competition could start August 1st, when the other competition at gp32spain.com ends.

EDIT: Contestants MUST team up (at least two people) for their entry to be accepted.

TO DO List :

- Quickly set up a web site to advertise this competition
- Find a trusty Community member to deal with the donations and prizes
- Find members for the jury
- Find prizes

Any thoughts ?

Bye, Magic Sam
Some of your bonus items are mutually exclusive. If it runs on both gp2x cores, it won't run on wiz or gp32, if it uses the wiz 3d hardware, it won't run on the gp2x or the gp32 etc.
It would be nice to bring in some new material. Unfortunately, anyone who sponsors it is going to want to limit it to the wiz and pandora because they are the only systems still for sale.

Chris
 
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Orion4874 said:
1.) No ports. Judges will rate a port higher than an original entry either because it looks more polished or plays nicer, but that doesn't always mean the author put as much effort in. The winner of the PACC2010 competition won using a SDL tutorial he found on the net and not one of the judges who judged this entry bothered to read the description saying exactly that or didn't bother to deduct points for originality which was one of the categories. In the end I had to award him the 1st place because it was no fault of his the judges didn't do their job properly... This will also work against devs who spent a massive amount of time and effort on a port just to have a judge say... pfft he just ported it... May as well just not include them in my opinion.

Where exactly was this description your talking about because I missed it. It wasn't on the PACC site or included in the Judge's files I downloaded. If it is in an obvious place, fine..... but I think it's very uncool that you're here basically calling all the judges incompetent.

You are absolutely correct actually, I just checked and the only place he mentioned it was in the original submission on the webpage which was transmitted to me via email. I didnt even check his entry to see if he included the required info.txt file and just assumed it was there. I should have disqualified him or asked for the required txt file. Completely my fault here and I am sorry it went down like that.. Also sorry I jumped to the conclusion the judges didnt read the info.txt file and posted the above in frustration when it was clearly my own fault.

Orion4874 said:
2.) Choose your judges carefully and before the competition starts. I was so desperate for judges at one point I was accepting people I had never heard of. Some of the judges didn't understand the criteria or just didn't care. All category points were out of 100 and I had some judges judging everything in the high 90s and others judging under 10. It really messed up the averages. Especially when the person judging everything in the 10s could have been a fan of a rival platform and was just doing so to slant the results.

This wasn't the judges fault either. The points should have been 1 through 10, 1 through 100 is just too much. This is why the results varied so much, so my advice to anyone would be to keep it as simple as possible.

This wouldnt have made a difference if some judges gave everything a 9 out of 10 and others 1 out of 10. Doing it out of 100 meant you could have 73 (7.3) or 86 (8.6) for example and less chance of two entries with the same score.

I have cut my teeth on this compo and if I ever do another it will be very different, just trying to pass on some of my experiences to MagicSam or anyone thinking about running another compo.
 
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