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
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
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
https://www.humblebundle.com/gamemaker-bundle
For those who are interested and want to use it in the comps.
Only thing I'm sure of is that I'm using this as a way to learn UE4.
If you are reading this competition and feil weird: don't worry!
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.
So far it's feeling fun though... It has a kind of a "weeeee!" factor. :P
I'm especially looking forward to checking out @Disarray_Ducks' first finished game. Hopefully it's the first of many!
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!
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!
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.