[Competition] E : 5 Minute Warning!

Comments

  • Everyone "enjoys" story and art, but story and art doesn't make a fun game. If the original makers of Tetris and Pong had to get story before they showed the world their game, they wouldn't exist. We're shooting for fun here, story and art can come later :)

    If you haven't posted a playable, you're not making progress :P
  • [quote = RickyGC]Prototype going down without issues.[/quote]
    Build or it didn't happen. :P
  • I have engineering test week at the same time! Prototype is taking shape. Will share once its playable and I figured out how to make one of those web players haha

    Can someone please link me to a 2D character animation tutorial... I just can't find anything that makes sense
  • Thanks @Rigormortis, I also got a solution for my animations :) will run the sprites from an array function. Just need to start designing and then test and release! Need to study for another test tomorrow first :(
  • @Fengol hey sorry I should have said :P LURKER replaces RUN! same thing, just a better name
  • edited
    So many people perpetuating this weird concept of "fun". Games do not have to be fun. But hey, if the idea of "fun" is your schtick, Ian Bogost had some interesting ideas on the concept here:


    EDIT: Making a thread, since this is likely to veer off-topic quite a bit. :P
  • Question, what is the latest time I can release my build for the comp?
  • I'm assuming it's 12AM tonight. @dislekcia?
  • Yeah, deadline is tonight :)

    There's usually a leeeeetle bit of leeway, but it's a weekend! You can stay up late :D
  • Welllllll we should have something to show by the end of tonight, but hey, it's really for ourselves more than anything else!! :D
  • I finally got my pc back today, so I will retract my entry to the comp (haven't really worked on it). I will try submit something soon anyway :)
  • I wish I'd had time and/or motivation to work on my competition entry, but... Anyway, I've got better ideas to work on now, as soon as I have time again.
  • Is there still going to be judging on this compo?
  • Yeah. I'm just recovering from being ill. And tired. Very tired.
    Thanked by 1Nitrogen
  • I'm just wondering...what happened to the results for this comp? (being the first one I have ever done, I'm am/was rather eager to hear the results)
  • Judging is horrible. I procrastinate like hell when I'm not working so that I avoid doing it.

    Which is kak because I don't feel good launching a new competition until the old one is "judged".
  • edited
    Is there a reason why you choose to judge each game by hand rather than by crowd/poll type judging? Would it not help to do a hybrid type judging system to make things easier/faster for you? Kind of like borrowing features from the Ludum Dare system of making the participants vote/give feedback to each other.

    Just curious.

    [Edit:] I'm curious in the sense that I've been thinking of something like that for the sound challenges too.
  • edited
    Is there a reason why you choose to judge each game by hand rather than by crowd/poll type judging? Would it not help to do a hybrid type judging system to make things easier/faster for you? Kind of like borrowing features from the Ludum Dare system of making the participants vote/give feedback to each other.

    Just curious.

    [Edit:] I'm curious in the sense that I've been thinking of something like that for the sound challenges too.
    That's a good question. My logic previously was that the competitions were all about encouraging people to keep producing stuff - so the game-by-game judging has to be pretty in-depth to take into account where each game came from and what their creators could benefit the most from hearing. It's really hard trying to walk the line between picking the best games and encouraging people to keep trying, those are pretty opposed viewpoints.

    Every time I tried doing a voting system back with Game.Dev (where I ran way more competitions) the winning aspect took over and the competitions that directly followed those voted results were much poorer in terms of entrants. There might well be scope for designing a voting system that produces more useful feedback and motivation that just ranking games against each other, but that would probably mean motivations and more text, like asking "What did you like about this game and why?" "What didn't you like and why?" for each entry. I'd still have to read through all of that feedback and pick the best ones to highlight for the judging, I'm not sure that would take less time than just playing all the games myself ;)

    I'm definitely open to ideas though... I do seem to have run out of steam.
  • edited
    What about igf style voting. Cost of entry is detailed feedback on three other assigned games plus a nomination for favourite? Means you (@dislekcia) only have to judge the favourites and everyone (hopefully) at least gets some useful feedback.
  • What about igf style voting. Cost of entry is detailed feedback on three other assigned games plus a nomination for favourite? Means you (@dislekcia) only have to judge the favourites and everyone (hopefully) at least gets some useful feedback.
    So much admin! Matthew Wegner's put a ton of effort into the backend that powers the IGF. I dunno if I could produce something similar... Not sure if doing it manually would be more or less effort than judging anyway, meaning my procrastination would still be a huge problem :(

    I think something like that could work, maybe we need to try something similar and see how it goes with a massively sarcastic implementation.
  • Giant shared document/spreadsheet for the win? :P

    What if the person submitting the game gave themselves a rating and critique too?

    Or more sarcastic than that? :D
  • I think a questionnaire is a great idea, especially if applicants can review all the games; otherwise applicants must complete questions for a random subset.
  • Why not just make a first impressions video quick of first minute of each, then we all vote one your reactions! I think you would make some entertaining commentary in the video
  • Boysano said:
    Why not just make a first impressions video quick of first minute of each, then we all vote one your reactions! I think you would make some entertaining commentary in the video
    That would be about half an hour of watching... Plus making half an hour of video takes much, much longer than that. I can write faster than I can edit video. Also, that's not what the feedback was about - yes, I might be frustrated as hell with a game not telling me what to do, but if the person is new I don't want them to see me shouting and slamming at the keyboard trying to figure out which buttons are active! I want to write something like "Once I figured out the controls, the game opened up a lot more. For future reference, include the controls in the readme ;)" and be a lot more diplomatic about it.
  • @dislekcia I think you're going to have to embrace some sort of community judging - something similar to that of the sound competitions- and simply leave a space for feedback, which is required to complete the judging of a game. Honestly I think getting feedback at all is what keeps people motivated. What needs to happen is that a new competition starts relatively soon after the ending of the previous one - that'll keep people motivated and engaged more effectively, I believe.

    The competitions are only going to get bigger, and having more competitions is more valuable that infrequent, yet well-judged ones :). Rather go for a community judging system and just participate fully in that. In any case, community judging might be a more valuable system for judging: more feedback, more realistic etc. As you suggested, simply structure the judging so it emphasizes providing feedback: "What did you like about this game"; "What didn't you like"; "What could be improved" etc. This could also be quite effective for teaching the community to analyse games too. We don't necessarily need a clear winner either. I think most people could see Archer 9000 was the best two button game without any form of judging to confirm :).

    Too be blunt (sorry) I'm not sure your current system encourages continued production either. The competitions often see a lot of new people making games, but once the competition ends we don't really see them much more on the forums, or making new games. Having more competitions seems to be the most effective way to keep them producing.

    Currently the process of the competitions seems to be straddling the line between encouraging new people to make games and encouraging veterans to do the same. Unfortunately, it appears that trying to do both is just leading to a detrimental effect.

    TL;DR: Having quick, community judging and more frequent competitions is more effective for encouraging production that infrequent, well-judged competitions.
  • edited
    We have a list. Everyone who enters goes into the list. End of the comp, list order randomises, and everyone involved must do a feedback on the two games next to them on the list in a week's time :) (which is nothing, we could expand it to more than 2, but 2 is easy, and easy is good.)

    @dislekcia can give some guidelines to how to give feedback, I'm sure that'll be way quicker and easier than what is going on now.
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • I feel community judging would definitely work here. If you want proof, just look how even the most uninteresting unfinished competition games that are posted still get at least two or three posts with useful feedback even without the judging.
    Thanked by 1Bensonance
  • Personally I have found @dislekcia's in depth feedback to be extremely well thought out and more impotantly motivating. That being said: I think community judging could work, but I think such voting should be left to the more veteran members (maybe a commitee or such). That way entrants can feel comfortable that the advice given is heart felt and comes from real world experience. Also, that it is the work/game being judged and not the dev/entrant. So in short - share the workload of judging but keep it regulated.
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