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 consider game dev, drawing, music composition, and dodging bullets to be hobbies, yet still lose sleep to all of them reasonably regularly
…okay maybe I'm just a little intense about my hobbiesI also get a buzz from game design that I don't get from anything else. however I find that unless I am in the right mood, I just don't have the patience for it.
lets hope I feel good about this competitionI'm right there with you, Moikle. I need to be in juuuuuusssst the right state of mind. Otherwise I don't do anything at all. :(
I can, I want to, but I won't
that is how it usually goesEven if you're not feeling particularly motivated, try and force yourself to lazily add 'one tiny feature'. That usually switches your motivators on and you'll get more done than you initially thought you could. :P
@Moikle, @LAR: You'd better do something for this competition. Or I'll use the prize money to mail myself to one of you and camp out indefinitely. >:{