Note: This is not an official announcement! Any sign-ups and theme voting will take place once an official announcement has been made. This is for discussing your ideas for the competition.Please take this poll to voice your opinion on how themes should be handled.
Competition Starts: Saturday, September 27, 2014 00:00 GMT
Competition Ends: Sunday, November 02, 2014 23:59 GMT
This timeline - while essentially a month - gives developers 37 days and 37 nights to make their games, which also means developers get a total of 12 weekend days (or 17 if Fridays are included).
Instability
Abandoned
Illusion
Emptiness
Grotesque
Imperfect
Madness
Deprived Senses
Omniscient
Alone
Macabre
Possession
Forbidden
Ruthless
Taboo
Shadows
Underground
Reanimate
Disaster
Black Magic
Haunting
Detention
Brokenness
Machines
Invasion
Hunted
Decay
Halloween
It's been a couple of months since the last competition here (I think Kilin did something with completition after the spring competition, but I don't think anything became of that), so I'm wondering how you guys feel about having another one?
You know the drill: one month, prizes, lots of entrants, not as many entries, etc…
We all know how competitions go: 100 people can enter, but only 15 or so actually submit entries. I want to try to combat this, but I realize that some people just can't get motivated to make something or just don't have the time.
Anyway, I'm planning on a late September start and an early November finish since Halloween falls on a Friday this year, which gives people two more weekend days to apply any finishing touches to their entries or to do as much work as they possibly can to finish them knowing some of you guys. The current schedule would give entrants a total of 37 days and 37 nights to create something magnificent and spooky.
There would, of course, be a theme to follow. With themes, I'm all for something completely interpretive, but not something that could potentially be restrictive; the spring competition's theme was limited color palette, which was completely interpretive, but I felt it would most likely be interpreted into the restrictive theme it sounded like to me.
I know open themes can sometimes be counterintuitive as developers have a hard time coming up with something to make when there are so many possibilities, and sometimes it's fun to see what everyone can do within a specific set of development rules; if you know Johnny's going to be making a game based on the same idea as yours, it can sometimes trigger that competitive spirit and motivate you to make the best you can.
In the end, though, it all comes down to this question:
are you interested in a Halloween competition this year?Thoughts, opinions, etc… are welcome.
I'm a sucker for competitions, so I'm interested.
I'm up for it, as usual. Horror is my thing and it's usually the only thing I can do moderately well. I was actually thinking about this a few days ago, I got a few ideas I would like to try out. If we do this though, I really do hope the turn out is bigger than last year's. (wow it's been a year already?)
I thought Charlo was hosting S4D?
I've not heard any mention of anyone hosting S4D this year.
Prizes don't motivate people. Just doing it for fun doesn't motivate people. I wonder if there's actually anything that could motivate a person to create and finish something for a competition.
Granted, not everyone has that issue, but the turn out of all of the past competitions show that the majority of people do.I think a lot of people get into a competition without any clear goal in mind, and can't find ways to motivate themselves because they don't really know why they're entering.
Personally, I like to challenge myself. Compete against other people. The competition itself is my motivation, and winning is a nice bonus :Panother competition? i've had enough personally. i missed last year's Halloween competition prize of 200 dollars. so winning second in a prize-less F4D left a really sour taste in my mouth. somewhere in F4D i realized i'm wasting sweat, blood and tears for no one and nothing.
tl;dr i'm burned out. but that's just one person's perspective.There will be monetary prizes involved in this one, but naturally no one is guaranteed to win. If the fun of making something isn't your primary objective, competitions are definitely a gamble as far as making money is concerned.
Games entered don't have to be finished in the sense of being done forever. They can be updated, sequels made, or redone into an entirely new game and potentially sold if you've got a good game and idea on your hands, so it's not a complete loss to make something for a competition that doesn't win if in the end you have a pretty decent game. If you make something good and it wins, excellent! It doesn't have to end there, either, as the same applies whether you win or lose.Just something to consider. I'm not saying you should enter if you don't want to, as it's completely understandable if you don't.