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 mainly enter a comp once or twice a year for the sake of finishing something. I go through a lot of time and never finish anything but entering a comp and having to race against a deadline really helps me put in my best effort and actually finish something. I never took the prizes seriously although when I won last year, I did appreciate it. I don't think the prizes should be the motivation for anyone here though.
But of course I'm interested! And I'm looking forward to play more Jared.
It's hard finishing a game. One can fail to submit a completed game despite being extremely motivated and work really hard. Especially if you're trying something new. There are so many other factors. too. I often fail because of idea drought, too high ambitions, bugs, too much time spent on graphics and changed ideas in the middle of the development. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Well, I guess I could restrict myself to do only things I know for sure I can. :| That's just not meeee. Besides, I aim to learn. I remember facing Gimbal Lock (before I knew it was called that) during a jam where I, on a whim, had chosen to make "a simple fully-3D space shooter". I mean, I had made FPS games before, how hard could it be? By the time I got it right, the jam had ended. I didn't have a game, but I had gained knowledge.I didn't complete anything for LD now either. I feel like I just never came up with a genius idea for a game, worth putting the ass on fire for. Still, I wrote 3 separate programs that did at least something, with lots of new code, made two songs, animated a pixel-dude with a gun, painted 1/4 of a 256^2 tile-sheet. Came up with story and setting for two games. Everyone values completion soo much, but I had a great time. Do you realize I think this is a fun thing to do?Restricting yourself to stuff you know you can do is tough, as almost always you overestimate your own abilities. That's my trouble: I can start with a simple idea, but before I even start on it it's grown into something that's way over my head and I overwhelm myself. I'm sure there's a trick to not do that, and I hope you can figure it out and make something.
Just remember that it doesn't matter what you make - it can be complete crap in your eyes, but you are always your biggest critic. Just make something and have fun, and enter it regardless of whether it's finished in your eyes or not as long as it's playable.With the themes you showed me, remove all doubt, I'll finish this fucking comp even if nobody else does.
fawkesescycoonsfawkescycloonsi want to make a small game for the ween, but with school i dont think entering anything i make into a comp is a good idea
never happens on 64dis a separate conversation, and i didn't want to derail this. :P