Slime Salad

Fenrir-Lunaris

Terrible Games contest 2009 - What is Love?

OPENING

The time has come again for the Official Terrible Games contest. This year, there are a few additions and alterations to the rules, which should streamline the process of entry and also voting. I'm looking forwards to the entries this year, and have some interesting prizes to hand out as an incentive. This year's theme is perhaps its most controversial ever. Your goal is to create a game with one of two themes - "Love" and/or "SCIENCE!!"

CONTEST RULES

Previous TGC entries had rather elaborate rules regarding their eligibility, which some people felt detracted from the spirit of the contest, which was to make a terrible game. The definition of a Terrible game is intentionally vague of course. Some of us like Arfenhouse. Others have nothing but disdain for it. To each their own.

*0* The most important rule, and the theme of the contest, the "Zero Rule". Your goal is to produce a video game/s that stylistically and functionally responds and adequately adheres to either a theme of "Love" or "SCIENCE!!". I leave it to you on how to go about doing this. Dating simulation, jrpg, sidescroller, first person shooter, any game form is acceptible so long as it attempts to make an effort to stay within the theme.

*1* You MUST construct your game/s using the OHRRPGCE engine. Ypsiliform, Werewaffle, Hasta-la-QB, Voxhumana, a nightly version, or even a custom build are acceptable. If you use a version of the OHR that is in testing, or one which is no longer widely available (Yggdrasil, Zeitgeist, or the 4 map version perhaps), you MUST package a version of the game.exe so we can play it! In fact, I recommend using a nightly version so you can find and report bugs directly to James, or the other programmers!

*2* The actual opening date for the contest shall be April 1st, and will last an entire month until April 30th. If you begin work on your game within this timeframe and submit it before the deadline, you will not be penalized (obviously). For each day past the deadline your game submission is late, a single point will be deducted from that game's score, to be determined in the voting.

*3* You are only allowed to release your completed game/s to the public on April 30th. This is primarily to allow everyone an equal shot at the prizes, and also to not intimidate potential contestants into dropping out. You may however post spoilers, and screenshots, etc., so long as you do not leak your game early. If you pass it to a few friends/rivals/whatever ahead of time, then I'll be officially taking a "Don't ask, don't tell" policy, but your game must be released on the 30th of April. If you release your game before April 30th, I will deduct 5 points from your final score.

*4* You MAY rip and use ANY and ALL graphics from the game "Vikings of Midgard" should you feel four weeks of prepwork to make sprites is not sufficient for your project, or if you feel your entry will be penalized by other contestants' voting because of a lack of graphical abilities. The game is available in the Castle Paradox download list for you to use for this reason. You may also modify these graphics for your own purposes, but do not claim either the original content nor the modified graphics as your own original work. The same goes for any other games you wish, HOWEVER, you must obtain permission from the game's maker before doing so. That just wouldn't be cool.

WHAT IS A TERRIBLE GAME?

I will not be judging what constitutes a "terrible game". For example, I like Final Fantasy 8, which other people abhor like a Wisdom Tree game. Therefore, I am continuing last year's practice of allowing people to vote for which games were the "best/worst/whatever". Beauty, or in this case Ugliness, is entirely in the eye of the beholder. It is your obligation to construct your game according to your own notions on what makes a game good or bad, so long as it stays within the very nebulous constraints of the contest's theme.

A final point concerning the entries. All the previous winner/s of the contest/s actually put effort into their games - they were fun to play (more or less). This is your opportunity to make the game that you'd have to be criminally insane to produce otherwise, or for which no other contest exists to release one.

VOTING AND SCORING

Voting this time is a bit less complex, and more streamlined than in previous contests. When the contest ends, voting will begin from May 1st to May 14th, effectively giving two weeks to play each game and vote whose games were the best. This is also to collect data for Hamsterspeak Magazine, whose subsequent June issue will reveal the contest winner.

Anyone may vote on the games, and may rate each one on a scale of 1 (awful) to 5 (best). You may have games that have identical scores, if you so choose. What constitutes a bad or good "terrible" game is your decision, as is the nature of the contest. Based on the theme of this contest, you must take into account whether the game's creator successfully met the contest's theme, "Love" and/or "SCIENCE!!". I will not be checking to see whether your score is an accurate reflection of that, or upon what other criteria you have for voting the way you've chosen. As always, comments on each submission are welcome and ultimately helpful to the contestants. Your score sheet should look something like this:

Scorecard:
Put on socks - 2
Put on pants - 3
Surlaw and Order - 4
Cross the street - 5
Barely Legal Seals - 1
Wandering Turnip - 2

If you fail to vote on any one game, I will assume you DID NOT play it, and accordingly give it an automatic score of 3. If enough people fail to play one particular game, it may quickly rise to the top of the voting and be a declared the winner. Consequently, it is in your own interests to play each game, even if only for a little bit, so you can judge it yourself.

Moreover, if you release your game early (before the 30th of April), you lose 5 total points. Remember, you CAN gather your materials first, just don't put anything together before the 1st!

People who are NOT regular OHRRPGCE game creators are free to join AND vote. This means that PEOPLE FROM OUTSIDE THE INCLUSIVE COMMUNITY ARE FREE TO JOIN IN THE FUN. I fully expect outsiders to rock this contest to its foundation. The only requirement for an "outsider" to vote is that they MUST register an account on any of the previously listed websites (Castle Paradox, Slime Salad, Surlaw Forums).

You may only vote ONCE. Yes, you can vote for your own game. I will officially be taking your votes on a thread to be created at some point in the future in Castle Paradox, and on the Surlaw home of Squids and Walruses, and also on Slime Salad, since some of the entrants may be exclusive to one or the other. Voting shall begin May 1st and will end on the 14th, to allow people enough time to play the games and vote on them.

After the votes have been tallied and the points added up, any deductions incurred on your behalf will be subtracted from your score. At this point, a maximum number of deducted points can be 5, so if you feel you can beat out your competition by a wide enough margin then more power to you. The game with the MOST points on the 14th of May wins, and its creator gets a -PRIZE-!!

PRIZES!!

The 1st Place Winner will receive $25 USD (by check) sent by mail to your home address, OR a not-insignificant amount of $limebucks on Slime Salad's web forums. I will be coordinating with Moogle1 personally regarding this. Should Castle Paradox impliment some purchasing system like Slime Salad, then I will negotiate with Inferior Minion in this regard as well. I will be entering too, so if I win, then I keep the prize money/and or $limebucks. If you wish for some other prize instead, I will coordinate with you to get you that prize - be it artwork, or whatever. Consider it a reward for hard work.

The second and third place winners will not receive cash, but diminishing amounts of Slimebucks or Castle Paradox dollars (or their equivalent). These amounts are not to be insignificant.

All contest entries will immediately receive Slimebucks as a gratuity for entering the contest, assuming they are registered on Slime Salad. Castle Paradox is likely going to be set up the same way, but I'm jumping to conclusions.

$25!!!!

Good luck, and godspeed.

(+[]::)<GBA · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:06 am Post subject:

quick question, is the person with the lowest or the highest score wins?

8bifit · Posted: Fri Apr 10, 2009 2:09 am Post subject:

Really? It's in CAPS for Christ's sake.

Surlaw · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 2:36 am Post subject:

Reminder that if anyone wants to submit a brief preview of their TGC entry for HamsterSpeak to do so. Just one or two images and a paragraph about the game will do, I'll add links once the games are out.

Spoonweaver · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 5:13 am Post subject:

Not to burst the hamsterspeak bubble, but doesn't the contest end before the next issue?

Uncommon · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 10:26 am Post subject:

Which means you'll effectively get your game linked in an issue of Hamsterspeak if you get Surlaw the link in time.

Surlaw · Posted: Sat Apr 18, 2009 3:30 pm Post subject:

The contest ends at the same time the issue launches. Having previews will encourage slightly more people to play the entries.

Spoonweaver · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 4:48 am Post subject:

It's officially April 30th here in Florida, so I'm going to be uploading my Terrible Game TM pretty soon.

Momoka · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:16 pm Post subject:

Damn, guess I shouldn't have started on April 28th. Ah well.

James Paige · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:17 pm Post subject:

I don't think mine will be ready by tonight. :(

So, whadda you all think? Should I release now with insuficient LOVE and SCIENCE? Or should I take a few points hit from the one-point-a-day late penalty, and try to make it a little more complete?

Spoonweaver · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 2:47 pm Post subject:

I think you should do what I'm current about to. And that's release the game today. This'll be number 2 for me.

Rurouni Catholic · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 9:16 pm Post subject:

Lali-ho, my fellow slimewads! I've slimed up this contest just like the last one. Too bad I didn't find out about this contest until the 20th.

Fen, I hope you don't mind, but I prettymuch made this game by deleting the heroes, enemies, text, items, and two of the maps from Vikings of Midgard and partially re-writing the accesible parts of the game.

(I kind of had to make it this way, because OHRGFX hasn't worked for me since the default palette feature was added.)

In conclusion, slime you all.

JSH357 · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:23 pm Post subject:

JSH'S THOUGHTS ON THE ENTRIES:

MORON MISSION: I played it for like 5 minutes and I'm not sure why. It's pretty terrible, but also terribly uninteresting.
1/5

A SHOT IN THE DARK: Well, it was pretty funny, but felt really pointless and not terrible enough to be super slimy.
2/5

TECHNO SHIP FUNKOTRON: The truest to the contest's spirit so far. This game is god-awful! I particularly love how the key requirements are so far apart. making gameplay entirely unintuitive.
1/5

VILLAGE PEOPLE THE VIDEOGAME: One of the best ideas, soundtracks, and unintentional Earthbound imitations on the OHR. This one will be hard to beat, even though it's a tiny demo.
3/5

<3: What the hell?
1/5

BABIES VS ROBOTS: The scripting seems impressive, but I won in about 30 seconds.
2/5

THE POPE'S WAR ON SCIENCE: Typical Something Awful humor. It could have made for an interesting battle system, but didn't even attempt to. Graphics were pretty nice for what they were.
1/5

Is there going to be any more?
I think there were lots of good ideas this year, but nothing really followed through.

Surlaw · Posted: Thu Apr 30, 2009 11:35 pm Post subject:

James Paige · Posted: Fri May 01, 2009 3:48 am Post subject:

Behold this thing which I have wrought and weep!

I didn't get to implement everything I wanted to implement, but I managed to make it a complete game with a beginning and end, a story, a goal, and a little bit of SCIENCE and a lot of LOVE!

The SCIENCE and LOVE might not be obvious if you only play the first level, but rest assured, you cannot win the game unless you use BOTH! ... and now I have said too much! >:)