SCI Community Competitions Discussion

[Cloudee1]

So with the first sci competition winding to a close I thought we should discuss the types of competitions that we should have and anything else regarding them. I don't think anybody wants to try and make a new game every month so we should probably come up with a few alternatives. These are just initial ideas, please feel free to elaborate, disagree, or offer your own suggestions about anything.

Number of Competitions
Maybe someday when we have 100 active users there may be the support for running multiple competitions, but at this point with our low member count I think more than one competition at a time would divide the participating members up too much reducing the entries for both competitions. I think we should keep it at one competition per month.

Number of Entries
I don't see any problem with having multiple entries, but I think only one should count. So not one person can win any two places in a single competition.

Types of Competitions
Here's a quick list of some different competitions that we can have, it's a pretty basic list and we don't have to use them all. I was just trying to get the ideas up here so everyone could sound off on them or add more. But the basic idea is whatever types of competitions we all want is the type that can be sponsored.

• Game: Create a small game based on rules or theme set by sponsor
• Sprite: Dare I call them "sprite jams", creating sprites using only our ega pallette based on rules or theme set by sponsor
• Backgrounds: Create a background  based on rules or theme set by sponsor
• Music: Hmm, I don't know about this one personally. I have decided for my own projects to not support anything beyond the internal speaker. So this one is really up to you guys.
• Scripts: Create a room that meets scripting criteria  set by sponsor. Perhaps if we didn't already have Lars' keypad class, creating an onscreen keypad, or a room with a hundred views.

Competition Rules
I can't think of any limits on the rules that a sponsor can add. Really the more creative, the more interesting the competitions might be.

Trophies
I think every competition should have trophies and it would be nice if it was the job of the sponsor to make the trophies. If anyone doesn't feel up to it, others might be willing to help all you have to do is ask. If it comes right down to it, I will make the trophies since I'm the one who thinks we need them every time but I won't know I need to if you don't say something. As for the color pallette and size, it would be nice if there was some consistency so I think we should all stick to a set "template" when making them, these transparent gif images, gold, silver, bronze are the same size as the trophies I made, and include the same base I used which itself holds the color pallette. If you right click and save the image, you'll have the template.

Buckazoids
I am also thinking that as long as we have the shop mod operating, we may as well offer a few buckazoids for placing in our monthly competitions here. Since I'm such a greedy shop owner and charge so much for all of my goods, I'm figuring $1000 for first $500 for second and $250 for third place should suffice to give those members seeking an item from the shop a chance to get it besides posting.


Entry Submittal
With the completion of the remote game server, where the games are stored, and the database that goes along with it please submit any and all competition entries via the game uploader form. The game uploader only accepts .zip files, so please compress your game folder as necesary.  Upon approval, the game will be made available to public download and judging. The form automatically sends me email, but if you would like to announce your competition entry not only to let everyone else know it's done, but also to prompt me to approve it faster, I check the forums more than my email, please feel free to add whatever posts you'd like to the particular competition's thread. Please only submit finished games, if there is a bug you know of and plan to squash, don't upload your game with the intention of uploading another one later. Wait until you think it is ready. By all means I will adjust any file uploads as necesary when bugs and fixes are found and squashed, but please don't plan on having me do all that work.

Source Code Inclusion
Please include the source code for your games. In the spirit of community growth and sharing, an evergorwing collection of in game script examples is invaluable. Also it may be the judges only hope of seeing enough of your game to judge it fairly. While it may allow people to cheat, to me it is more important that people want to play my game enough to bother cheating, rather than the fact that they didn't actually think of the right item to use in whatever way themselves. Again, planning on including it later only means that your are planning to have me edit the database and spend some time changing around filenames and as I said a little bit ago, plase don't plan on having me do all that work, include your source code from the beginning.