Competition I: Mysterious [blank]

Competition I: Mysterious [blank]

If there’s anything that human beings love, it’s satiating our curiosity. It’s a core component of our monkey-brains to strive to uncover the unknown, learn how and why things work, and divine the deeper purposes behind things (assuming there is any purpose at all). Whether it’s for the pure joy of discovering something nobody has ever seen before, or to a more focused end (scientific research or a crime investigation, for example), we all love peeling back the layers to see what’s scurrying underneath. And we may not always like what we find…

Your mission, should you dare to accept it, is to create a game with some mysterious aspect. What is that mysterious aspect? It’s totally up to you, anything goes, even mystery itself!

Rules
  • Competition starts on Monday 5 September 2016.
  • Deadline for entries is Sunday 2 October 2016, 23:59 (UTC+2).
  • Use whichever language, tool or development system you are comfortable in.*
  • Ask for help when you get stuck.
  • Your game must follow the theme.
  • Your game must contain all files needed for it to run and should not require other bulky systems to be downloaded or installed, exceptions are browser plugins like Flash and self-contained DLLs distributed with the game).
  • Your final game entry must include a readme.txt that EXPLAINS THE CONTROLS, RULES and any other information you want to get across to your users. If you have web builds, make sure the page serves as a readme.txt!
  • Competition is open to entry for South African citizens, current residents of South Africa and South African passport holders.
  • You retain all copyright to your work.
  • The use of copyrighted material will not be tolerated. Do not steal!
  • All risk or liability in case of copyright infringement or other legal issue resides with the entrant, MGSA takes no responsibility for entered games.
  • The organisers’ decision is final and no negotiation will be entered into.

Entering

To enter the competition, start a thread titled "[Comp I] NameOfYourGame" in the “Online Competitions and Jams” forum category, and post your design ideas and game releases there. As you release files, edit your first post to point to the most recent version available.

Please do not upload your entries or playable prototypes to these forums as post attachments. Kindly make use of one of the many other dedicated hosting services available to you instead, such as Dropbox or itch.io. Aside from preserving the MGSA forums’ precious bandwidth and storage, you’ll also ensure that your game is archived somewhere you can reliably find and distribute it from in the future.

Other people will reply to your post with their feedback and ideas. Please do your best to take any and all feedback as positively as you can and use it to make your game better. Consider releasing your source code and/or original files, it helps us pinpoint problems that you might be having and benefits the community as a whole.


Advice

Well MGSA, you asked for an open-ended theme, and you’ve got it. You may already be halfway through writing an interactive episode of CSI: MGSA in your head (which is totally valid, btw), but try to think further. A challenge here isn’t just to look at the theming, but also to consider novel mechanical tricks whereby the player can be kept in the dark, or rewarded mechanically for uncovering truths. Ambiguity in your presentation? A gradual shift in the player’s perception of the world (Bloodborne or Silent Hill-style)? A sandbox area full of super neat gear and rarer trinkets to find the further the player explores? There’s a lot that can be done with this theme both narratively and mechanically, and we encourage you to explore the possibilities in the most creative ways you can conjure.

As always, we encourage people to approach the creators of entries that they feel they want to contribute to, or for entrants to seek out people in the community who have skills they feel they're lacking. Teamwork is good, and your entry will be the better for it!

Good luck to everyone and enjoy the competition!

* (Downloading and using Game Maker is recommended for beginners or if you've never prototyped a game before)


Final entries

EDEN - @krazysh01
Fireflies - @Manikin
Kings - @vince
Mysterious Keypad - @Fengol
Preschool Paradox - @Disarray_Ducks
Sourcery - @Pierre


Comments

  • Will try my best if I end up thinking of a good game, quick question (which may have been said but I didnt see it) can I do something the uses only touchscreens or does it also have to have keyboard and mouse?
    Thanked by 1Fengol
  • You're welcome to create touch-based games for mobile platforms, but please prefer Android in that case (because that's the predominant mobile OS amongst the judges). If it's PC-centric, standard inputs would be appreciated in addition to potential touch stuff - we don't all have PC touch screens at home. :P
    Thanked by 1edg3
  • I saw that the latest Humble Bundle is geared towards game makers:

    https://www.humblebundle.com/gamemaker-bundle

    For those who are interested and want to use it in the comps.
    Thanked by 3Fengol francoisvn edg3
  • I saw that the latest Humble Bundle is geared towards game makers...
    if you are ung xna/c-sharp or game maker you can ask questions and I will try to answer and help...
    Thanked by 1Mexicanopiumdog
  • I'm completely stumped as to what to make. :P

    Only thing I'm sure of is that I'm using this as a way to learn UE4.
    Thanked by 1edg3
  • I'm completely stumped as to what to make. :P
    I also feel like this ;)

    If you are reading this competition and feil weird: don't worry!

  • It's cool. With an open-ended theme it can take some time for an idea to congeal. What's nice is that you've got the time to ponder and free rein to run with whatever you come up with. :)

    We're just over a week in, and as is our custom, I've started listing all our entries at the end of the OP. Feel free to check out those threads - there's some interesting stuff taking shape out there.

    Thanked by 1edg3
  • I decided to give this a shot. I've made some good progress today, but I'm still not sure this is going to go all the way towards being a good entry....
    So far it's feeling fun though... It has a kind of a "weeeee!" factor. :P
  • K! So where do we sign up
  • @Musa_Sk94: you just need to make a thread with an appropriate title and post your game there. Check the section under "Entering" in the OP :)
    Thanked by 1critic
  • Hey everyone, just a quick reminder that there's only about a week left for this one! Good luck! :)
  • Busy with final touches! Itching to submit xD (I'll edit this comment with a link as soon as i'm done).
  • @Disarray_Ducks: Woah! Surprise entrant is surprising! We're curious to see what you came up with! One thing though - rather than posting your entry link here, could you rather create a thread as per the entry instructions in the OP? Thanks. :)
  • @Gazza_N: Yeah sorry I should've clarified , I meant to say that I would link the thread if required. Thanks though :). Our entry "Preschool Paradox" is coming soon. (It's also the first game me and my co-programmer have ever completed, we're both still very young and have recently started our "journey")

    Thanked by 1Gazza_N
  • @Disarray_Ducks: Eeeeeeeeeeexcellent. Congrats on finishing your first game! That's something you two can be proud of, and we're looking forward to playing it. :D
  • Congrats to everyone who took part in this! Hope you all had excellent times making your games, I'm sorry I couldn't take part in this.

    I'm especially looking forward to checking out @Disarray_Ducks' first finished game. Hopefully it's the first of many!
  • Submitted. Good luck to all the other contestants and thanks for the opportunity! :)
  • Sourceri has been submitted. Uhlka is waiting for you. :>
  • Marvellous - entry added to the Great List of Entries.

    Thanks to everyone who's submitted so far. Don't forget, the deadline for entries is midnight tonight, so you've still got a few hours left to submit anything you've been working on!
  • I'm sorry I didn't get more time to spend of my project. The failings of joining a new company and getting caught up in work
  • Times are up. Pencils down, ladies and gentlemen.

    Thank you to everyone who entered! Even if you didn't manage to get your game finished, hopefully you got to learn something or develop some skills.

    You can expect the results in the next four to six weeks. Also stay tuned for news of the next comp!


    Thanked by 2konman critic
  • What ever happened to the results? xD
  • edited
    @krazysh01: the results are both mysterious and blank ;)

    In all honesty: other things came up for both @Gazza_N and myself. Considering the much lower interest in this compo and generally declining interest in the compos, we decided to rather stop them.

    If anyone else wants to take up the mantle they should go ahead! Feel free to ping me if you want advice on running them.
  • @francoisvn makes sense, I was just running through old posts and ran across here and got curious.
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