Ideas For A Gp32X.com Summer Competition


I like the idea of a competition for all the platforms represented here. The only problem I'd see is with judging all different platforms. Do you have different judges for each platform? Or maybe a seperate award for each platform?

Also, I don't like the idea of bonus points for certain things. I'd prefer an overall score but with guidelines for the judges like taking off points for bugs and such. With scores in too many categories it seems like a game would win on a technicality and fulfilling requirements instead of actually being good and noteworthy itself.

I like the idea of ports being prohibited. In general, I think ports are great and add greatly to a systems library. However, for a contest its just not fair to judge something based on someone else's work against something made from scratch. Compos are great for creativity and new ideas and prohibiting ports is a great way to support that creativity. Obviously a port of a game that was made over years time is going to be more complete than a game just started for a compo and make in months or less.

The theme of the compo should be well defined as far as what genres are allowed instead of just prohibiting 2 popular genres. Having certain elements that all games must use seems to work well for compos. Maybe require a mix of a certain amount of genres in the game.
 
Iorgy77 said:
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.[/quote

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.
No problem Iorgy, no harm done! I see your point about scoring so I guess MagicSam will just have to make that decision. Peter's right though, good job on bringing everything together. :D

Not sure how this post got screwed up. Can a mod fix this?
 
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Platforms / Community
I understand the wish to get all platforms involved. But Orion4874 does have a point. There are very few pandoras out and about. What does everyone else thing about it? Do we have any pandora owners who would like to participate in the non-populated categories?

I DO like the idea of a community competition. My only concern is that it must be fair to everyone entering. Magic Sam as you only have an F200 at the moment, i understand having it on all platforms is a requirement, as you otherwise would not have much incentive to organize this. Maybe we should put the platform talk behind us and discuss HOW we do it fair for everyone.

Forcing people to team up is also a cool new idea. I like it. It is a bit risky, especially if people don't know each other and could cause some tension. E.g. if one feels he works more then the other etc. etc. Personally i would probably try to find an artist, musician or game designer, and do the programming myself.

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.

The game
I have nothing against ports, but to be honest, it is very difficult to vote on how much of an achievement it is to port something compared to making something from scratch. Therefore i too think no ports. Also, no applications. Judging an application against a game is even more difficult. The competition should be a little restricted such that we all compete on equal (and comparable) grounds.

Iorgy77 has gained a lot of experience with PACC, so his advice is very valuable, and he did a great job organizing it.
 
Hi guys :)

Thanks for your input so far !

I've edited my first post with some of your ideas :)

I have some more questions though:

- Should we split the competition into platforms, and allow people to donate money to some platforms only ?
- Jan-Nik and u9i, do you want to work on the web site ?
- Judges: do the contestants judge the entries themselves ? Or do we judge the entries with a public poll here on gp32x.de ?

Just to be clear, I don't want to run this whole competition on my own. I just wanted to start rolling the ball, that's all. I can help gathering ideas and putting this competition in shape, but not much more :( I'm not sure to be available in August, I have very little experience in organizing such events, and I'm just afraid to fail I guess...

And I'm sorry for the "Summer" thing, I didn't want to insult people living in the southern hemisphere :)

Bye, Magic Sam
 
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Magic Sam said:
- Submitting arcade, puzzle/board, ported games and applications is PROHIBITED

I agree with the no ports thang, but arbitrarily restricting those genres is bizarre. A good game is a good game, if judges don't like those genres or the games are derivative, then they simply mark them down.

Instead, why not just award marks based on innovation?
 
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Magic Sam said:
Hi guys :)

Thanks for your input so far !

I've edited my first post with some of your ideas :)

I have some more questions though:

- Should we split the competition into platforms, and allow people to donate money to some platforms only ?
- Jan-Nik and u9i, do you want to work on the web site ?
- Judges: do the contestants judge the entries themselves ? Or do we judge the entries with a public poll here on gp32x.de ?

Just to be clear, I don't want to run this whole competition on my own. I just wanted to start rolling the ball, that's all. I can help gathering ideas and putting this competition in shape, but not much more :( I'm not sure to be available in August, I have very little experience in organizing such events, and I'm just afraid to fail I guess...

And I'm sorry for the "Summer" thing, I didn't want to insult people living in the southern hemisphere :)

Bye, Magic Sam


I was a lousy judge for iorgy's competition. I had about three projects due in at uni at the same time, and I only got about 3/4s of my reviews done. I've got a lot more spare time on my hands though now, as I'm off til september, so if you want me for Wiz judging, I'm here. But I'll understand if my previous 'help' makes me seem a little untrustworthy.

EDIT: That's if you decide to go the Judge route.
 
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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.
 
Alex, that is a nice idea. GunPei2x, the reason for this competition is to get some of the types of games we dont have. Right now the spanish competition is accepting games of all types, so there is still opportunities if you have a game that does not fit here.
 
I will give my votes now:

Magic Sam said:
I have some more questions though:

- Should we split the competition into platforms, and allow people to donate money to some platforms only ?
NO, that wouldn't be very community-spirited
- Jan-Nik and u9i, do you want to work on the web site ?
YES, i can help out
- Judges: do the contestants judge the entries themselves ? Or do we judge the entries with a public poll here on gp32x.de ?
Doh, i cant make up my mind. What do you guys think about this?
EDIT: And i vote for making a voting page for everyone from gp32x with more then X number of posts.

Magic Sam said:
Just to be clear, I don't want to run this whole competition on my own. I just wanted to start rolling the ball [...] and I'm just afraid to fail I guess...

You are doing fine!

Another question, should we organize a structural way for people to team up, or can people manage this themselves? We could steal the Nordic Game-Jam model where people pitch their ideas, and what skills they need to complete it, and then people can sign up if the chemistry is right. The pitch? Small sketches with a little description of the game idea. The pitching would then be on the website too. It might not be a good idea for those who like to keep their idea secret until the end. Any thoughts?
 
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[bump]

Hi guys,

I have updated my first post again :)

@ u9i: are you still willing to be in charge of the website ?

I think the simplest way would be to follow the "community vote" route, allow the contestants to team up "secretly" via PM, and make an unsplitted pot between all platforms...

Do you guys agree ?

Let's keep the ball rolling !

Bye, Magic Sam

[/bump]
 
Is the theme really necessary?
I already started designing my game, the plot, what's in the game and what's not. Wouldn't like to change everything after the theme of the compo is announced.
I think restricting the compo to no arcade & puzzle/board games is already enough.
 
First of all, I also think this is a great idea and thanks Magic Sam for getting the ball rolling!

Now about the details:
@Puzzle, arcade games:
I would not exclude these types of games. There might already be a bunch of them, but if somebody has a great new idea and creates a good, fun game, why not let him participate or even win.
If it's just another puzzle like there are millions of already it will get not points in originality and won't win anyway.

@Ports:
This is a tricky point. The points given (looks more polished, etc.) are all valid, still it's a regular game and a lot of work has gone into it already.
Personally I would like to see a competition just with original homebrew, but you have to give the devs a good amount of time.
Idea: Make two deadlines, after the first one passed entries will get rated as usual and the best 10 (5?) will move into the second round where the devs have an additional month (or something like that) to polish the game, after which they will get rated again and the overall winner will be declared.
This might be a bit too much work and not worth it, but on the other hand I know how fun it is to start creating a game and how fast the first steps are taken. But after that, especially in the polishing-phase, things get very slow and dull as you only have micro-progress, which takes a huge amount of time. You could save some devs this time by separating the good from the better and only let the latter group get some additional polish.
This of course does not mean that entries should be submitted with a lot of bugs or half-way unfinished (because, you know, you still can fix that in the second phase), but nearly finished games, which just require that little-extra until completion (and maybe some feedback).

@Teams:
Great idea, I am all for it. I also have an idea (long time planned, sorry everyone who already got involved, I will finish it soon ;) ) how to get this started and organized a bit better.

@Scoring:

I like contests where the entries are rated by "professionals" better as people can get a better feedback than just a number (you can't really judge what went wrong when you only have the % of people who voted for your entry).
That's also what bugs me about "contests" like America's idol (or similar), it's not the best one winning, but the most popular/good looking/etc. one (apart from the fact that it's rigged anyway).
So assemble a team of 8-10 judges and make them write a small review (overall or category based) about every entry, that way developers get a real feedback (not just numbers) on their stuff they can use to improve their work.
I know this is much more work, but in the end it is worth it - the review also does not need to be long or can be bullet points, it just should be clear where the pros and cons were.

@Alex' idea:
Great, do that if possible! It promotes quality over quantity and also helps devs who did not win "hey, I submitted an entry to this contest, it was good, but sadly did not win, still I got a price".
It's like a consolidation price and helps people getting out with a good feeling.

@Bonus points:

I don't like them and would drop them all.
Bonus points are always a tricky part, they are mostly awarded by free will (which seems unfair) or they are defined by some fixed agenda, which mostly is not fair either as some entries simply cannot apply to them.
Sure it would be nice to see the Pandora's full potential used, but does that make a good game? A good game also does not need to use the touchscreen or mic-input.
That are just gimmicks, which should be rewarded by points in the "technique" or "originality" categories.
A good game should be an experience, this can mean it was fun to play or did suck one in with a good story or did emotionally touch one or made one think about certain points or or or (multiple points may and should apply, too).
This experience can hardly be rated at an ordinal scale as it can be quite different. So you have to make the categories apply to the different kinds of possible experiences, which makes them broad or vague. These fixed bonus points are exactly the opposite and simply cannot be applied to all of the possible entries.
I also would like to give a personal story concerning this (so skip that part if you are not interested):
I am organizing a contest at my ex-school every year. It is about there LEGO robots (Mindstorms or NXT - you probably have already heard about them) having to solve certain objectives. Teams of 4-10 pupils (up to the age of 16) have several months to examine the objectives, making a plan and finally building, programming and testing a robot which will then try to solve as many of the 10-15 objectives as possible is 150 seconds (it's nearly impossible to solve all of them). For more details see this page: http://www.hands-on-technology.de/en
Anyway, after the NXT-system was introduced by LEGO, the old Mindstorms system was awarded extra points, because it was more inaccurate and did not have as many features (which is totally true).
The problem was, that despite the inferiority of the old system it did not matter that much in the actual game making the teams using the Mindstorms system score nearly as much points as team using the NXT system and getting an additional bonus on top.
Long story short, it's very hard to define fair and balanced conditions for bonus points and if you don't do that the judging gets unfair and intransparent.

td;dr:
Exclusion of puzzle/arcade games: Bad
Exclusion of ports: good
Teams: good
Scoring: Judges over public voting
Alex' idea: Good
Bonus points: Bad

Thanks again for setting this up (and thanks for reading that wall of test), I am up to helping as much as I can, starting with an unoffical blog coverage as this event goes live.

foxblock out
 
Hi,

@ zear: no, I don't think a theme is necessary, but others could argue about that ;)

@ foxblock: thanks for your suggestions !

categories: if someone has a great puzzle or arcade game in the works, he is free to release it outside the compo, or submit it to another one, like the ongoing Spanish WIZ competition. A good compo has to have some restrictions: if there is no theme, no categories, what's left ?

scoring: it could be based on a public poll, and members could comment about the games in the thread, thus giving feedback to the devs...

about the judges: ask iorgy77 about how difficult finding judges is... I think the community vote, though not the best one, is the easiest solution.

bonus points: I agree with you, a good game and a technically impressive game is a totally different thing. Yet I think technical achievements has to be rewarded. It makes me sad when I see all the unused potential gp32x.de handhelds have. I'm not a dev, but I know using second cores, DSP, etc... in a game is a difficult task, which should be taken into account when evaluating a game.

Let's keep the ball rolling !

Bye, Magic Sam
 
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I'm not a dev, but I know using second cores, DSP, etc... in a game is a difficult task, which should be taken into account when evaluating a game.

Sorry, I have to disagree. A good game is a good game whether it's using the full power of a machine or not.

The end-user shouldn't even know what is being used within a machine to make it do what it does. How and why should you take into account hardware while reviewing a piece of software? How can you know whether it's using certain chips and functions if the dev doesn't tell you? What if all the devs state that they are using the DSP or more than one core etc. How can you prove they're not? Even if someone is using all the hardware's extra gubbins, it doesn't mean that a competent coder can't do the same (or more) without using them. Therefore, who is the better coder - the one that needs the extras to get a game running well, or one that doesn't? Judging by your comments the competition would be about the coder and the hardware usage and not the game, so why restrict the type of game, when it's obviously no important.

Don't concern yourself with hardware issues at all - the devs will be doing this! Just play the games - judge them on the gameplay, graphics, sfx and general enjoyment. Don't judge on hardware or usage thereof (except the implementation of the controls).
 
@ iprice: I agree with you, and as most of you guys don't like them, I have removed the technical bonus points from my first post :)

Bye, Magic Sam
 
I would volunteer as a judge and I can't imagine it being that hard to find 8-10 passionate people, with some degree of knowledge and some time to judge.
These people don't have to be WIZ experts for example to judge a game - sure a hardware guru can have a closer look at the implementation, but as I said, that's not what makes a good game.
To judge whether a game is good or not, all you have to be basically is a gamer without a big genre bias. You should have played similar games to judge against and then play, having a closer look at details than you usually would (while making notes, etc.).
Having some past judging experience probably is a good thing and preferable, but not mandatory.

Still it seems like you settled on community vote - maybe we should have a poll about whether to make a poll...
(I kid, I kid! ;) )

foxblock out
 
PokeParadox' Pandora giveaway-slash-donation-drive-which-totally-not-is-a-raf*** gave me this "idea":

if you really want to have those bonus points and encourage certain technical achievements, why not give out bonus prices instead of points for this.
The advantage is that it does not affect the ranking at all (the best game still wins), but the best touchscreen-controlled game or the best looking game gets a little bonus price (should be much less than the prices for the first 10 places, though - just a little extra to push motivation).
On the other hand, sometimes it is better not to post restrictions to not push contestants in a certain direction, but to just see where it goes on its own...

foxblock out
 
foxblock said:
PokeParadox' Pandora raffle gave me this "idea":

if you really want to have those bonus points and encourage certain technical achievements, why not give out bonus prices instead of points for this.
The advantage is that it does not affect the ranking at all (the best game still wins), but the best touchscreen-controlled game or the best looking game gets a little bonus price (should be much less than the prices for the first 10 places, though - just a little extra to push motivation).
On the other hand, sometimes it is better not to post restrictions to not push contestants in a certain direction, but to just see where it goes on its own...

foxblock out
Please stop using the term "raffle"... as Gruso said it may not be good legally if someone wants to be arsey about what constitutes a raffle and what you can and cannot do. It's a Compo Donation Drive with the bonus of the chance to win a Pandora (and now a carry case)... I know that's a mouthful, but it ain't no raffle! :p

EDIT: Also want to express my interest in collaborating with this Compo. It is a possibility. :)
 
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PokeParadox said:
foxblock said:
PokeParadox' Pandora raffle gave me this "idea":

if you really want to have those bonus points and encourage certain technical achievements, why not give out bonus prices instead of points for this.
The advantage is that it does not affect the ranking at all (the best game still wins), but the best touchscreen-controlled game or the best looking game gets a little bonus price (should be much less than the prices for the first 10 places, though - just a little extra to push motivation).
On the other hand, sometimes it is better not to post restrictions to not push contestants in a certain direction, but to just see where it goes on its own...

foxblock out
Please stop using the term "raffle"... as Gruso said it may not be good legally if someone wants to be arsey about what constitutes a raffle and what you can and cannot do. It's a Compo Donation Drive with the bonus of the chance to win a Pandora (and now a carry case)... I know that's a mouthful, but it ain't no raffle! :p

EDIT: Also want to express my interest in collaborating with this Compo. It is a possibility. :)

I can call it whatever I want as I am not participating nor arranging it ;) so yeah raffle raffle raffle :p

Still I am changing it because I don't want to be hit with a trout again...
 
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Hi guys,

@ foxblock: I have not settled for anything. This is not my compo, I'm just keeping the ball rolling, and if a majority of people prefer judges over community vote, I'm fine with that :)

@ pokeparadox: nice to hear you're interested :)

Now, what do we do about this:

From craigix:

Been talking with Guyfawkes about GBAX2010. 7:24 PM Jul 21st via web

Is there still a need for such a little compo, when the **BIG** GBAX2010 is on its way ?

EDIT: I've been through this thread all over again, and I have some questions for you:

What could the "bonus prices" be ?
How much time this "homebrew only" compo should last ?
Judges: nova, foxblock ? who else ?

Do you guys agree at least with the rules on post #1, or do they need to be modified ?

Do we allow ports ?
Do we allow Pandora entries ?
Do we allow teams ?
Will it be a multi-platform compo ?
Do we need a theme ?

Thanks for your input so far, it's really interesting !

Bye, Magic Sam
 
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