Okay, so I mentioned in the Official Game Contest thread that it could be good to have a community administered game developing contest. The positive side of one would be that you'd have full rights to everything, you and the rest of the community will be given much better feedback on questions regarding rules etc, and that the prizes could potentially be better than the official contest. The downside is that the prizes could also potentially be much smaller.

I think we should start by building a small team of "administrators" from the community. Just a few people who can hassle retailers regarding support in the form of monetary donations or donations of hardware, think up a proper list of well-articulated and understandable rules, and generally be the face of the competition outwards. These people will have to be able to answer questions rather swiftly through the forums (hours rather than weeks.) and they'll have to be available through one or more instant-messaging mediums (for more convenient organization. MSN, Skype, whatever.)

Since there's no poll option in this forum, I'd like everyone to start their FIRST post with a "yay!" or a "nay!", just so we get an easily get an overview of how the response is. After the initial "vote", you can say whatever it is you like. If you want to volunteer as an admin, do that. If you think it's a terrible idea, tell me why.

Non-final Impromptu Rules:

1. The game cannot be a port or otherwise based on other people's programming, and the entrants must originally own the rights to use all media and code in the program.*
2. The game can be in late beta stages when entered, but it must be finished within one month of the contest's end.
3. The game can have had public betas, but it cannot have been fully released prior to contest's end.
4. The creators of the game will retain FULL rights to their entry, bar none.
5. IF there is a corporate sponsor (like a retailer or some such) for the contest, this sponsor may approach entrants about publishing contracts, but these will be handled separately of the contest.

* if it uses, say, Squidge's MMU hack, and Squidge has allowed them to use it for whatever purposes they like, that is fine, but it must be documented in all cases. If there's a bit of code copy+pasted from someone's source without documented permission to use this, that's NOT fine. Just to avoid possible issues.

For the updated rules, check the contest site and this linked post.

Yay.


Actually, there is, you're just not looking hard enough.

I like it, sounds good (sorry, Yay!).

On the financial side, even donations in to a pot would work. With 1st place getting 50%, 2nd 35% and 3rd 15% (or whatever).

Yay !

It's a good idea and an incentive for those that work so hard to provide entertainment for the masses



Free beers for everyone that says YAY!
Note: The above line IS misleading publicity, by reading this line you have accepted this and can not take legal action against the poster.

YAY!

I would keep the rules fairly simple, heres what we usually use in the emuholic/gbax compos. We keep it simple as it means everyone can enter and it gets more people coding. Not saying you should use this but maybe an idea:

- Any software which is fully working on the GP2X hardware can be entered; a game, port, demo, emulator or application.
- There are no restrictions on the games content or filesize, although keep to a respectable size because not everyone has a 2GB SD Card
- You can enter previously released software provided it has been significantly updated.
- The winning entries will be judged Magnulus.
- Multiple entries can be submitted, but you will only be eligible to win one prize.
- You can form a team for the entry but you will be responsible for sharing the prize(s) between your team.

Change the bit about the content if you wish to (i.e. no adult games) and add in something about the author keeps full rights to their entry and you are good to go

Good luck with the compo, the official one sucks so I hope yours does well. I might even enter something myself, first time I can do so as I am usually involved with the compos one way or another.

In order to ensure rule #1 does this mean it has to be open source ? This would deter me as I would be embarrassed to allow anyone to see my poor, hacked together excuse for code.
Otherwise this is definately a Yay.

Yay. I don't have time to take on another project so I'd not be an administrator, but I would contribute to the prize pool. I'd contribute more if the context excluded ports, but either way seems ok.

Sorry, but I feel rather strongly about this. If one is to win an actual prize, it'd be unfair if for example Dzz won with Nethack. While he no doubt spent a lot of time making it, it's not HIS game. It's his PORT, but the fundamentals of the game do not belong to him, so for him to earn money on it would be unfair to both the other contestants and the original creators of the software. Hence the first rule as stated in my post.

Clarificating rule:
It does NOT have to be open source, but the contestants are held fully responsible for any "stolen" source code, and will have to provide a list of source code they have been ALLOWED to use that was made by people outside the contestant's team (like the MMU hack). This will NOT be used against the contestant, it will only be used to make sure no theft is going on. If, for example, Squidge comes in and says "Anyone can freely use my hack for all entries" then that code is free to use for all contestants, but documentation of said use will still have to be provided.


That was exactly what I was thinking of doing. I hadn't thought about the specific percentages, but I had that exact same thought. I'm glad we're on the same page here.
I'm thinking a Paypal account and a page with a list of contributors. Maybe a tiered system that gives bigger contributors more attention, in order to lure ensnare get some interest from corporate sponsors.

The reason I'm talking so much about these corps is that they have the ability to donate much more than us regular people. In the Windows on Mac campaign (before the Boot Camp days) there were two or three retailers who donated 1000 USD each.


Really? Damn, I'm so used to phpBB by now. When I tried editing the original post, I couldn't find it either, so either I'm STILL not looking hard enough, or it disables itself once you've posted. I'll keep looking.
Not that it seems like it will be necessary, since most people seem positive towards it so far.

EDIT: Found the poll option. Oh well, too late now.

Now this is more like it . Thumbs up from me.

Thumbs up from me. I would love to be an admin on this contest as stated in the other thread.

I had a feeling you might volunteer!

I'd probably be up for it.

Yay.

This is a great idea and it can easily work. If anyone remembers the DS wifi bounty to crack ds wifi. Donations made it into the $1,000s. It wont be that hard to Pump up a donation from this scene. I really hope that someone decides to make an epic rpg or turn based strategy game though. Good apps would be welcome too especially if they take advantage of the BOB.

Well, there's my handheld type RPG Bork: In Your Pocket, and there's that Realtime Strategy game, so two halves out of two.

I like this idea, and I'd like to enter, but this bit bothers me. If it's not a pretty far-off release date, I seriously doubt Stargazer will be a fully finished, polished ready-for-sale product-- I'd rather release some sort of polished demonstration version as a contest entry. I would hope the rules could be adjusted to make this acceptable. Given the sort of scale we're working at (not exactly your typical small-scale homebrew project so to speak) we're not in much of a position to just bang things out (no offense meant to anyone; but when you work to the maximum potential of the machine, it isn't fast going.)



The plan is to utilize USB capabilities to support 2+ players simultaneously though the use of USB gamepads/arcade sticks. This naturally would be most effective used in a console-like environment on a TV (TV-Out will of course also be supported.)

I don't like that rule for a different reason -- it pushes criteria for winning prizes off for a month. Do we wait for a month to release the prizes? What happens if none of the winners have "finished" their entry? Is the judging started over? What does "finished" even mean?

I would say just eliminate that and judge the entries on the merits of how good they are, assuming that nothing else is ever done to them. If a "demo" or intermediate release is fun in its own right it could do well. If it is too crippled to be fun then it won't.


One thing that seems a little odd is this:

> The creators of the game will retain FULL rights to their entry, bar none.

Surely the entry will be freely downloadable by all gp2x owners to enjoy... so in a sense a right has been given up by the creators. I'm not trying to niggle over an obscure wording issue, i'm just making sure that the entries will go on the archive for everybody's entertainment.

I think that it should be limited to finished versions of games/apps, submitting a demo of an unfinished product doesn't guarantee that it'll ever be finished or released ... And I'll point out that the title of the topic is "Gp2x Community Game Contest!", think of an unplayable rolling demo of a game that simply looks great but offers no control... Kinda pointless .

How do you define "finished"?

Complete finished product in final beta stages if you wish, mainly a playable game that only needs some minor touch-ups, not a nice little demo of something that may never happen .

Ok, I agree that the winners should be fun playable games, but I still don't see how you make a rule about whether they are finished. At some point there is a line between finished and not finished. Who judges whether that line is crossed? What is a minor touch-up? How playable is playable? Seems to me that if it's finished enough to be fun (and therefore win because it is a good game), that's good enough.

I think instead of 'finished', the entry should be solid. Basically a bug free (atleast not hindering gameplay) entry with decently sizable playable content. If someone feels like selling their game it would be silly to put the full version in the contest, then it becomes donationware. I like the idea of not using ports. Would this include voboo's emu, since he built it up?

Great idea.

(I NEED LACUNA Woogal...It would be interesting on the new stick)

speaking of, would it not be a port if its your old code from gp32 making the transfer? There are some homebrew gems on gp32.

*Sigh* I really must learn how to program better soon.

For those of you who don't know, my "big contribution" to this community (albiet for the GP32) was the GP32 CGC (Crap Games Competition) entry, "The Winking Man Game". I think I put it on the GP32 file archive somewhere, if you have a GP32, check it out. Then you'll know how bad a programmer I am (although I did manage that in C which is quite an accomplishment for me, as I don't know any).

The title of the thread is a game contest. It could be an open contest for applications of different types as well... that would certainly have some value. I would personally be less interested in entering or contributing since I'm not interested in emulators or apps myself, but I'm certainly in the minority in that and maybe other people would pitch in more if emulators were included.

Hmmm, yes, I agree, it isn't easy to decide if a game is finished, but let's just say, that the game looks and feels finished or mostly finished, IE. it works, is fun, and is graphically pleasing to say the least... Well, you know what I mean, no rolling demos, no demos of games or apps, only finished / nearly-finished games and apps.

As for who decides if a game is finished or even ready for the contest, that is up to the judges to decide... I'm sure that they will do their job well and filter all unwanted stuff out

I disagree.
Let everyone submit, if what they submit is rubbish then it won't get a prize, but no harm will be done.
Some people just aren't as good programmers/artists/musicians as others here, if they submit it and you don't think the game has enough features or the drawings look very poor, or has no music etc... What does ejecting them from the contest do other than destroying their enthusiasm to try?
I do think that we should have some rules about having no rolling demos though.

When I said graphically pleasing, I meant finished , not all games require good graphics, some are great... Not all games require sound, but it's nice sometimes ... I didn't suggest ejecting anyone from the contest... I'm just trying to suggest that seriously crippled stuff shouldn't be allowed in.

Pong didn't have great graphics or great sound but it was a hit in the old days .

Why? As others have said, if it is rubbish, it won't win anything but if it is good, it will. Also, you can't really define crippled in that sense - it is too subjective. There is no point adding unnecessary complication to the rules.

What is complicating the rules?, I simply said that the game must work, and be mostly if not totally finished ... Don't forget that some people will have to try it, would you enjoy trying a truckload of crap?, would it not be easier for the judges to have a pre-filtered list of candidates by simply adding this rule and only have to test a couple of good games / apps that ARE worthwhile? ...

Anyway, I'm only thinking out loud, I don't care too much about the rules and I do intend to participate in this contest at some undefined point in time .


Regards,

X-Code.

- Crippled is messed up, buggy, useless or near useless software... If it's entertaining or useful, it's good, if not, not.

But surely, in order to check if a program is crippled, someone would have to try it.

What I meant is that some people wouldn't submit that which deep down they know is not suitable for the contest ... Others evidently not, there is always a margin of doubt

Wow! A lot of interesting and important questions are being discussed here. Well, mainly three that I can see.

The rule of "finished" games, the subject of judging, and the types of apps.
I'll try to adress these as best I can right now.

First of all, the set of rules I smashed together in that first post was, as is stated, impromptu, meaning they are thrown together off the top of my head with no real planning. I figured it was best to just get on with it and let the community be part of defining the final set of rules.

So! On to the issues!

I agree that it might be better to simply have a rule about PLAYABLE games, or to just let everyone submit as they please. As some of you said, I think this will regulate itself because if a game is more fun to play in its unfinished state than a finished game, then that unfinished game probably shouldn't be excluded on the grounds that it is not finished.
I'm defining finished right now by having a 1.0 release, in a sense. That it has "Gone Gold" as they say in the industry. Of course, in the homebrew "market" the definition of finished and unfinished is very difficult. Nethack has a 0.51 release, but I'd say it's a much more entertaining and playable game than some that are considered "finished".
So the best thing would probably be to let people submit their game in ANY form, alpha, beta or Gold. In most cases, alphas will be so riddled with bugs and shit that they're not even playable at any practical level, so they'll naturally end up in a sort of "discard" pile pretty quickly.

Now, who judges these games?
I admit I must not have been thinking straight when I suggested that games would be available for free download AND be eligible for release contracts while at the same time having to be complete games at their point of entry.
So I propose a system where a hand-picked jury of outstanding community members (say ten, fifteen people) are chosen to judge entries. They will be the only ones to have access to the entered games, and will be given a set of instructions on how to rate games. Think something like the Monthly roundups at www.gametunnel.com but with each reviewer submitting five scores or so based on graphics, sound, playability, etc. The exact categories are details that can be worked out later.
The judges can submit games themselves, but they will of course NOT be allowed to review their own game, and all "reviews" will be monitored by other members of the administration who will look for signs of bias in the judgings, and taking judges to task if they seem to be judging other games badly to promote their own games or a game they have a bias toward for any kind of reason. A short written text will have to be submitted with a description of what makes the game good or bad, which would make identifying bias easier.

Does that sound like a logical way about things?

regarding the types of apps... PERSONALLY, I'd like to say no emus and no apps that aren't games, but I might be of a different opinion than others on this. The good thing is that this is community based, so if the majority of the community wants emus and can argue well for them, there's a good chance emus will be included. But as of right now, I'd have to say no to emus.
My basis for this being that an emulator doesn't take into account game design, graphics, sound or playability in the same way other games do. If you make a good emulator, it has an unfair advantage in that it can play hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of games that the entrant didn't have to make him/herself, and quite a few of these might be absolute classics. It goes in the same vein as ports, really. I'm not saying it's not a lot of work doing emulators, it's just that it's different from other games, and they requires something external to actually be of any use.
Also, the goal of this competition is to give the GP2X a good library of games. Standalone games that can attract people to the GP2X. There are emus for it already. Good ones. There are emus on all the other handhelds as well. What the GP2X needs, in my opinion, is a good, solid roster of good, solid games that play well and that don't exist everywhere else. Something to attract people to purchase it.
Does that make any sense? I'm not sure. If not, tell me, and I'll try to make my point clearer.

Another thing:
This administration (currently me and psymastr) will also be responsible for making the final decisions. Yes, this means that the community won't have FULL control of EVERYTHING. No, this does not mean that nothing you say will be taken into account. It's important that the community is heard and considered when making decisions, but it's also important that a few people can sit down, have a chat, and do a vote in a quiet manner.
In my head, I'm seeing decision being made by way of unanimous votes in favour, meaning that all administrators will have to agree that the decision being made is the best one for the contest and the community. It could be difficult, but if twelve randomly chosen people (in a court jury) can come to a unanimous decision, then I'm sure four or five of us can as well. Of course, sometimes, one has to make compromises, but that's just the way things are.

Phew. That was a long post. Did I miss anything important? I hope not. If I did, I'll be around to clarify in any case. Anyone interested in being a part of the administration should contact me by PM, by the way. Psymastr, I'll contact you very shortly.

I read all and think that you use your brain quite well, when I say finished, I mean fully playable to it's end, the rest is only extra stuff ...

I like these rules mostly.

Just my opinion: If somebody is going to to publish the game commercially, they can have my money when I buy their game. When I contribute to a prize fund, it will be for entries that everybody can enjoy freely. I don't object to commercial games -- just the opposite, I hope to buy a bunch of them someday. But commercial games are a business venture not needing charity to motivate them.

I fully see your point, Dzz, but how does that relate to the text you quoted? In any case, it's a good point well made. What does everyone else feel about this?

Also: I've edited the first post of the thread with a second, updated list of rules that will keep getting updated every now and then as the discussion goes on. I'll give word when I do edit it, of course, so that you get a fair chance to see the edit.

Woops, sorry, I was going to start by saying that it seemed fine to have a pool of judges like that rather than an open voting thing -- but I forgot.

Future commercial projects shouldn't enter, I agree, this idea is to incentivate new coders into coding stuff freely for the scene, not for a corporation.

Okay, what if we simply remove any mention of possible commercial release in the rules and leave it completely up to the developers to decide whether they want to release it for free or not?

The concerns on this issue are many, and however we decide to do it, we will have to accept that it will mean that some people will either not donate or not enter. No matter what we end up actually doing.

The possibilities are:
1. Keeping it like it is, which means some people won't donate, but could end up in better prizes overall from corporate sponsors.
2. Leaving it completely free to choose for the entrants, which will still lead to some people not donating because they COULD decide to charge for it.
3. Making this a FREEWARE competition, excluding commercial projects. This would make it more enticing to donate, but less enticing to enter for those who want to try to sell their games.

Originally this contest was meant as an alternative to the GPH contest, meaning that I wanted to give the entrants the possibility to release their games commercially OR as freeware, but also giving them the absolute freedom as to how they wanted to do it. If we decide to exclude commercial titles, I'm afraid that there will be a portion of my originally intended potential entrants who will feel left out and with neither this NOR the "official" contest to turn to.

Of course, a sister-contest could be arranged where there is no donated prize, but which is rather a fully commercial contest which would be solely sponsored by retailers and publishers, but I'm not sure how easy that would be to get off the ground.

What are people's opinions regarding this?

Bear in mind that the GPH contest doesn't allow commercial entries to be sold however that creator wants, so if you want to match their rules in that area, then there would be nothing wrong with demanding everything be made available for free. However, I don't think that there would be anything wrong with an updated version being sold at a later time.

Well, the intention was not to emulate their rules, that would be opposite of the whole point. We simply wanted to make an alternative to it, with rules that were more geared toward the good of the community. So I guess you could say that ANY way we decide to do it is right according to the original intent.

The rules COULD state that all games in their submitted state must be released as fully playable freeware after the contest, but that the developers are free to build on the game after this release to create a more polished game with more features that they released for sale. This on the condition that the version they submitted for the contest remains as freeware.

This would mean that people who intend to make their game commercial can submit something like a demo or a beta version which works as a full standalone game, but lacks some features you intend to put in the final version, like two-player support through BOB, etc. It will be judged as a full game, just like everything else, so if you send in a one-level demo with half-hour gameplay, it wouldn't stand very strongly. This could encourage commercial game developers to make enjoyable "demos" that give people a full game while at the same time making them want more. (If ever SimpleRTS goes commercial, there would always be a free version, but it could lack support for higher-res tv-out mode and that sort of thing. That's what I'm thinking with this point. Note that I'm saying IF it goes commercial. I have no real say in that.)

If you have a commercial project, make a fully playable freeware version, you can add the "PRO", "EXTREME", extras and tag after ... I make "The Imploding Mutant" as freeware for the compo, a complete game, but if you go for the commercial release you get "The Imploding Mutant - PRO", which adds more gameplay, more levels, more battles, more bottles, and a big headache , yet it's complete too... That should be legal enough.

Precisely. Thanks for adding that example.

I hope you're actually intending to make a game with imploding mutants. That sounds ace.

My definition of 'playable demo' for Stargazer would include at least one level, hopefully two, full controls, graphics, music, sound effects, enemies, and bosses. The scope of characters and playable areas would be the only limited factors as level design is the most time consuming element.

That to me sounds good enough Epicenter . And yes, Magnulus, I intend to make the Imploding Mutant a reality soonish ( though it may not look like people imagine, it'll be worse, or better )

Well, Ive already setup the Email for the contest and am currently working on the site for it.

So in case that's how it was decided to be done, the rule would be as such:

Both commercial and freeware games can be entered into the contest, with the only obligation that all games have to be released as freeware in the state that they enter the contest, this being the state in which they are judged. They will also be judged on like ground, meaning that if there are many limitations to the "freeware" version of a commercial game that is entered, this could end up lowering its chances to win.

In other words, it's advisable to submit games that work on their own, even if you intend to release a commercial version later, because they WILL be judged as full games.

Does this seem unfair in any way, or just in need of some modification?
Naturally, this is just a hypothetical rule if that's the route we want to follow.

Seems ok up to here , if someone wants a good score for a commercial game, they will make sure that it is suitable as a freeware game.

We've been quiet for a couple of days, but we're back now with some updates.

We've established a gmail account for questions, entries, complaints, suggestions, etc.
gp2xgamecon[at]gmail[dot]com
We've started work on a website (well, Psy has) and you'll get the URL to that when he's done updating.
We've registered with Paypal, and I'm not just waiting for my bank statement to give me the code I need to really activate us for real and proper. I expect we'll be ready to take donations by monday or tuesday.

Finally, we've come up with some suggestions for deadlines.

• Deadline for alterations to rules: 31st of July
• Deadline for Contest Entries: 11th of December
• Deadline for donations: 1st of January
• Contest Winners Announced: 12th of January

If they seem unreasonable, do tell. We think these dates allow the most freedom for the developers without making it so far into the future that people forget about it. You can discuss the changing of rules until a few hours within the end of the 31st of this month, at which point we will cease all discussions and cement the rules real proper-like. Not a SINGLE alteration will be made after this point unless some major discrepancy shows up that makes the whole contest illegal or useless or something similar.

The rules as currently stated on the first post of this thread (subject to change)

• The game cannot be a port or otherwise based on other people's programming, and the entrants must originally own the rights to use all media and code in the program.**
• This is a games contest, not an emulation, application or demo contest. While we respect all of these, the aim of this contest is to promote and encourage development of original game content.
• The game can be in any stage of development when entered (alpha, beta, "gold"), but will be judged as a "final" version, meaning that an alpha build will be judged on the same grounds as a "final" build.
• The game can have had closed betas, but it cannot have been released in neither open beta state nor as a full release prior to the contest's conclusion. This excludes (for now) ports of games you have made yourself for other systems (for example the GP32).
• The creators of the game will retain FULL rights to their entry.

**It does NOT have to be open source, but the contestants are held fully responsible for any "stolen" source code, and will have to provide a list of source code they have been ALLOWED to use that was made by people outside the contestant's team (like the MMU hack). This will NOT be used against the contestant, it will only be used to make sure no theft is going on. If, for example, Squidge comes in and says "Anyone can freely use my hack for all entries" then that code is free to use for all contestants, but documentation of said use will still have to be provided.

Cool. Still to be clarified:

How the judging is done

Whether the entries will be made available for the entertainment of the entire gp2x community

Rights. What if I license something? For example, for my super 3d swordfighting game I license an armor model from turbosquid.com, giving me the right to include it in my game. Am I disqualified because I do not "originally own" the rights? I don't really care, it's just not clear to me what the intent of the rule is.

yeah, the judging bit. I think we'll be going for the model discussed here in the thread with a few reviewers (fewer, though. Five, maybe. Ten, tops.), a "controller" and public release of the reviews with a "report suspicious review" button. I forgot to add it, 's all. Does that sound like a good idea?

And yeah. I also forgot to add the bit about the freeware.



This states that as long as you have aquired the right to use it for your game, you can do so. I'll see about making it clearer and more official-sounding so no one gets confused.

(See? Good thing, this community deal. You get clear answers in fluent English in a matter of hours and even MINUTES! )

Thanks to all who are making this happen. Competitions are great. I have entered them before knowing I didn't have a chance of winning so, for me at least, the prize is not an issue. Its the taking part that is fun, and it is an exciting time for all as we await the releases.
I have a few questions.

• What is the definition of a closed beta ?
• Is this saying I could port a game I wrote for the GP32 ?
• Why does it have the (for now) condition in there ?
• Does original game content mean Tetris, Pacman and Space Invader (etc) remakes are forbidden ?
• Would using sound samples from a commercial game disqualify me or need I just give credit to their source ?