The "Finish Your Dang Game" Contest!

EDIT: The contest is over: see this thread for the winners!

I am proud to announce the commencement of the "Finish Your Dang Game" contest.

=GOAL=

The goal of the contest is to take an unfinished game or demo that you have previously started and finish it as a complete game.

=RULES=

The contest runs roughly 2 months. The deadline is September 1st

Any game that you have already started is eligible for entry. (It does not need to be an OHRRPGCE game)

Although the focus of this contest is on finishing games that you have already started, contestants are also welcome to submit new games that have not previously been released-- although new games will not be eligible for "Most Improved" voting.

=ENTERING=

To enter the contest, just post the name of the game you are going to try and complete in this thread. There is no penalty for late entry (other than that you get a little less time to work on your game)

When your game is complete (or when the Sept 1st deadline comes) post a link to it in this thread. I will add all the links to this first post. There is no penalty for early submissions.

The penalty for late submissions after the Sept 1st deadline is 4% per day.

For the judges convenience, it is a good idea to *also* post a link to the old pre-contest version of your game, so judges can easily compare for "Most Improved" voting. Contestants who are not competing for "Most Improved" don't have to bother with this.

Note also that some games have existed for years but have never been released. It is up to you whether or not you want to release an unfinished version of the game now to make yourself eligible for "Most Improved" voting.

If you just want to submit screenshots of your old game instead of a download link for "Most Improved" voting, that is okay, but it is up to the judges how they will score such games.

=VOTING=

EDIT: the voting has started, see this thread

After the contest ends there will be a 1 month judging period ending on September 30th. The voting period has been extended to Sunday October 18th.

Voting will be done in three parts. First, each voter will vote for each game by secret ballot (e-mail or PM to me, James) in the following two categories:

(1) Overall quality from zero stars (low) to 5 stars (high)

(2) Level of improvement from contest start to contest end. from zero starts to 5 stars.

Finally, each voter will publicly vote at the completeness of each game in a public thread.

(3) Complete? Yes/No. Completeness is defined as being a whole game that can be reasonably called finished. Complete does not have to mean perfect. It does not have to mean zero bugs. It just means "not incomplete anymore"

=PRIZES=

Prizes will be awarded in all three categories.

(1) Best game wins $25
(2) Most Improved wins $25
(if the same game wins both, the author gets $50)
(3) Every game that is publicly agreed to be "Complete" by the contest deadline wins $5 from James and a copy of "Immortal Defense" from Rinku

NOTE: A single author may choose to enter more than one game. Multiple entires are eligible for "best" and "most improved", but only a maximum of a single completeness prize will be awarded to each author.

NOTE: Multi-author teams working on a single game will have to figure out how to divide their prize among themselves.

NOTE: I will be supplying the cash prizes. If anyone wants to richen the pot by volunteering additional money or other prizes for any of the three prize categories, just say so. (Thanks to Rinku for volunteering copies of Immortal Defense)

=ENTERING=

To enter the contest, just post the name of the game you are going to try to complete. You might also want to post a link to any thread or development journal, if you plan on discussing your work publicly as you go.

=CONTESTANTS=

This is the list of contestants so far. If you want to see your name on this list, just post the name of the game you are entering.

* James Paige - Wandering Hamster
* Mogri - Phantom Tactics
* FnrrfYgmSchnish - Okédoké
* Surlaw - Village People: The Video Game
* RedMaverickZero - Halloween Quest 3
* RedMaverickZero - OHR House Heroes
* RedMaverickZero - Mr.Triangle's Maze
* Pepsi Ranger - Entrepreneur: The Beginning (and At the Risk of Manipulation ?)
* Fenrir-Lunaris - Vikings of Midgard (right?)
* binoal - resident evil rpg
* Rurouni Catholic - Maces Wild
* New-Gen - STRANDED
* Onlyoneinall - Bloodlust
* Obright - Local Gods
* Meatballsub - Wendel's Quest for the Sacred Stones
* Jack - Heroes and Monsters
* spoonweaver - Slimes
* spoonweaver - House Escape
* Momoka - The Wizard, the Thief, and the Lich (working title)
* Machu - Modern Magic
* Gilbert Smith - Bandit Revolver
* djfenix - Endless Saga
* Bezzy - DammitimmaD
* Blue Train - Dawn
* Minnek & Leroy - Not a Drop
* nihilocrat - vaquum
* Joe Man - Joe Man
* JSH357 - The Forbidden Forlum
* beau_rl - test of normality
* Ysoft - Kana Learning
* godsavant - Tower of Heaven

For download links, see the voting thread

And I shall be the first to enter!

I shall attempt to complete Wandering Hamster before the contest deadline.

Wandering Hamster development wiki page

I'm inspired! I'll step up development on Phantom Tactics and will try to finish the game by then. If nothing else, I'll have a few chapters finished by then.

I do have problems with the time-travelling portion of this contest: "The contest runs roughly 2 months. The deadline is July 1st"

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Mega Tact v1.1
Super Penguin Chef
Wizard Blocks

I'm guessing that's supposed to be September?

Anyway... wow. Wandering Hamster's getting a major update after all these years, and I can win some cash just for finishing one of my own already-started games? Maybe I'll try to finish up Okédoké! in time to enter this one (though it does seem a little odd for me to be entering the same game in two contests in a row, heh.)

Time Travel Fixed! Yes, I meant September 1st. Time travel and the associated causal paradoxes are never a good thing for a contest.

Part of what motivated me to start this contest was the hopes of maybe motivating some people to finish their awesome contest entries, so definitely don't feel bad about re-entering Okédoké

I probably won't finish it 100%, but you can expect some substantial Village People updates before this is over.

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Super Walrus Land: Mouth Words Edition

I will clarify that people are still eligible for "Best" and "Most Improved" voting even if they fail the "Complete" prize.

Sadly my game won't be making this deadline, but I hope to get the first demo out this year. I haven't even scouted for a graphics man yet, which is something I really need. :/

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My website, the home of Motrya:
http://www.jshgaming.com

This is the best contest.

Okay, a contest deadline to finish Halloween Quest 3.

You're on James!

Hmm... I wonder how the "Most Improved" category applies to a project I haven't released yet. Would I have to give people my game NOW to enter this contest?
And if so, can I elect to NOT present it and just not be eligible for Most Improved? It's somewhat presentable now, but uh... I don't wanna have old crummy versions of my game circulating the internet yet.
Even then, I could give an even older, SLIMEier version on purpose and nobody would know. Or take the current build and remove the good features.

...All of these questions are hypothetical, of course.

I would suggest that if you want to enter a game that hasn't be released yet, you have a choice of:

(1) Release a demo immediately, finish it for the contest

(2) Don't release a demo. You can still compete in category 1 and 3, but not category 2 "Most Improved"

Either way you prefer is okay with me.

I had intended to finish Entrepreneur: The Beginning by the end of summer, so this will be a decent contest to motivate me.

I was also considering re-updating At the Risk of Manipulation this year. That might be tougher to complete by September 1st, but we'll see.

There's no way Tightfloss Maiden or Powerstick Man will be ready for a new update by September 1st, but I may at least finish all those graphic overhauls that I wanted to accomplish for Tightfloss Maiden.

Funny thing was that when I first saw the announcement, I was gonna suggest you enter Wandering Hamster. Guess you were thinking ahead of the curve there, Mr. Paige.

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Place Obligatory Signature Here

A race? You're on!

I don't know if I can complete this game in two months though. There's too much to fix. Maybe I'll just release a massive bugtesting release by September 1st.



Yes, yes it is.

Actually, the only game(s) of mine that can be realistically finished in 2 months would be Mr.Triangle's Maze, and if I ever feel like getting around to it, House Heroes. But this contest is inspiring me to make a big leap into my epic rpg.

But if you can pull off all of that stuff in Wandering Hamster, then that's amazing.