Before I get on with the content of this blog, a few things:

1) I can't submit my game. Using files from the file manager (which are all listed as being 5.0MB and being uploaded Jan 15 2010), I get a "your file could not be uploaded" error. It's really kinda odd.

2) I'm putting this in a blog, because bug reporting also gives me an error.

Anyhow, on with the blog:

A teacher of mine who taught engineering/shop classes pulled me aside one day, and told me about a contest. Said contest was called "GOT GAME?" It was sponsored by a group called STEM FUSE, which developed a highschool curriculum to teach kids about GameMaker called GAME:IT. Not particularly high-level stuff, but I was interested. Why? Placing in the top three would earn you a cool $150-250, and a subscription to GAME:IT for your school. While it wouldn't be very useful for myself, I figured it would interest other people at my school, and get them involved in something I enjoy.

The rules of the contest basically stated that you could make anything you wanted with GameMaker, lite or paid, whatever. You also did not have to have taken GAME:IT before. So, I took a game I had been working on for a long while polished it up a whole bunch, added gamepad support, the whole shebang. It could've been a bit more polished, but I made a game I was proud of.

So, I submit the game, and life goes on.

Two weeks later, yesterday, I get an e-mail from STEM FUSE telling me that the results for the contest had come in! I was pretty excited. Either I won the contest, or I was going to be treated to some pretty good games. I click on the link for the results, and see this.

Naturally, it was a bit disappointing not to see my name. I thought I had a pretty solid hold in the competition, mostly going against people who had only used GameMaker for a year. "might as well see these games that they decided were better than mine," I thought. Try the first two games, and…

Tutorial edits. ಠ_ಠ

Okay, so I didn't quite react this violently, but it was pretty infuriating. I had written this game from scratch over the span of a year, only to be beaten out by reskins of games that shipped with GameMaker. I can understand why the people STEM FUSE may have done this, to reward the people who were doing the best in their classes, and inspire them further. A warning would've been nice, though.

I found even more irony in that the 3rd place game wasn't a tutorial edit, and actually looked somewhat interesting. The game wasn't that great, but the tech behind it was far ahead of the other two.

If you want to make your own comparisons, here is my game and here are the top 3 winners.

Also, if you missed them: Game Music Bundle 3 and Humble Bundle 5.