Contest Ideas

Make games! Discuss those games here.

Moderators: Bob the Hamster, marionline, SDHawk

What contest would you take part in?

Individual Circle Collab Contest
7
54%
Give away your unfinished game - Contest
3
23%
Intro Contest
1
8%
Engine Training Contest
2
15%
 
Total votes: 13

User avatar
marionline
Metal Slime
Posts: 673
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 9:23 pm

Contest Ideas

Post by marionline »

Hello!
The Flavor Text Adventure Contest is running and the Review Contest isn't over yet, but
here are three contest ideas I'd like to discuss:
-------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Individual Circle Collab Contest
Everyone makes a game, but the process is cut into stages: Drawing, attack&item creation, enemies&heros creation, mapping, write text, plot scripting, adding music and sounds.
Each stage the games are exchanged among the participants, (so the game goes round in a circle).
Everyone has to try to do every stage. It will be chaos! And It will be fun!
Time: 8-12 weeks

2. Give away your unfinished game - Contest
Any unfinished projects collecting dust on your computer's hard drive?
Why not give them to someone else to finish?
Here's the catch: The other person can finish your game in what whatever way they think is good.
Rules: It's give and take. Giving a game away means you also have to take an unfinished one.
You win the contest, if you finish the game.
Time: 8-12 weeks

3. Intro Contest
During the 2016 Review Contest I realized that intros are a great tool for player motivation/information.
This contest is meant to practice making good intro scenes.
Instead of a whole game, every participant makes an intro scene,
uploads is on slime salad and gets it reviewed by the other participants.
(You don't have to make an intro scene for a game.
You can make an intro scene for a game that doesn't exist as well.)
Time: 4 weeks
Rule-addition suggested by TMC: make an intro for someone else's game. Preferably one that left everything unexplained, because it didn't have an intro.

4. Engine Training Contest
Idea by Pepsi Ranger: I'd like to see a contest where James and TMC train participants to work on the engine so that they don't have to do all the work themselves. It can become a competition to see how many people can actually learn how to help them and make contributions to the engine's development. The winner would be all of us.
Time: ??

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Do you think that is doable? Would you like to take part? Would you not take part, why?
Is the time frame okay? (I'm thinking in weekends, because a lot of people
tend to be busy during the week.) Do you have ideas to improve the contest ideas?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Edit: added suggestions to the post and set up a poll.
That doesn't mean we can't discuss the suggestions.
Last edited by marionline on Mon Jul 03, 2017 5:20 am, edited 3 times in total.
User avatar
kylekrack
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1240
Joined: Mon Jun 16, 2014 8:58 am
Location: USA
Contact:

Post by kylekrack »

These sound pretty interesting! Not sure about doable, but I like the concepts.

The first one sounds like fun. It's not as much of a "designing a game" experience and more of a social experience, which I like. There could be a lot of stress, depending on how committed everyone is, but it could also be very relaxing if it were more social and communicative. I'd like to take part, if not only to see what crazy products come out of it.

The second probably isn't realistic, considering how much code and art interpretation would go into picking up someone else's project. It also sounds like something not many people would want to do. If a project got abandoned, it's probably for a reason.

If others are interested in the intro contest, I'll take part too, but it doesn't especially entice me.
My pronouns are they/them
Ps. I love my wife
TMC
Metal King Slime
Posts: 4308
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 am

Post by TMC »

So, for the 'Circle Collab Contest', the number of parts that the games are cut into is equal to the number of participants? Hmm, maybe not. People will drop out, and need to be replaced.

Speaking of which, don't we usually have a Random Collab Contest around this time of year (or earlier, actually)?

Intro Contest: make an intro for someone else's game. Preferably one that left everything unexplained, because it didn't have an intro.
User avatar
SwordPlay
Chemical Slime
Posts: 966
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:32 am
Location: London, England
Contact:

Post by SwordPlay »

I really like all of the ideas, but I think finishing someone's game might be difficult and/or take a long time.

I like the idea for creating intros and I have loads of ideas already :p

The collab contest sounds cool, but I'm really worried that I'll let other people down :( still I'd give it a shot
User avatar
marionline
Metal Slime
Posts: 673
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 9:23 pm

Post by marionline »

The first one sounds like fun. It's not as much of a "designing a game" experience and more of a social experience, which I like. There could be a lot of stress, depending on how committed everyone is, but it could also be very relaxing if it were more social and communicative. I'd like to take part, if not only to see what crazy products come out of it.
I hope for this contest to be social and communicative! That's what I like about contests.
The second probably isn't realistic, considering how much code and art interpretation would go into picking up someone else's project. It also sounds like
something not many people would want to do. If a project got abandoned, it's probably for a reason.
You're right, it might be difficult to make a game out of someone else's game, as well as giving away a game idea. Somehow code interpretation alone sounds like an discouraging lot of work! :o
Anyhow I thought it's a bit more of an extreme from of the first idea. I still think it could also be fun. But it might be difficult to make sure every one has the same amount of work.

In both cases 'Individual Circle Collab Contest' and 'Give away your unfinished game - Contest' it would be fun to see how people interpret and build of the work of others.
So, for the 'Circle Collab Contest', the number of parts that the games are cut into is equal to the number of participants? Hmm, maybe not. People will drop out, and need to be replaced.
Someone would have to do one stage twice. I'm not sure about a solution for this. Any ideas? :???:
peaking of which, don't we usually have a Random Collab Contest around this time of year (or earlier, actually)?
I think there often was a collab contest about this time of year. It would usually collide with the time where tests were written.
(Or maybe that's the time I remember best, because it's the most annoying if you have to learn for test if a contest is going on.)
Intro Contest: make an intro for someone else's game. Preferably one that left everything unexplained, because it didn't have an intro.
Cool! That sounds like fun challange! :D I'll add it to the rules.
The collab contest sounds cool, but I'm really worried that I'll let other people down Sad still I'd give it a shot
The contest is not meant to make people worry, it should be a fun experience. Good to hear you're interested in taking part! :)
User avatar
Pepsi Ranger
Liquid Metal Slime
Posts: 1457
Joined: Thu Nov 22, 2007 6:25 am
Location: South Florida

Post by Pepsi Ranger »

Even though this wouldn't get much more traction than the original idea, one way that a contest about finishing someone else's game could work is if you turned it into a remake of the other person's game contest, in that they get to start from scratch using the other person's general idea. You'd still have to agree to take each other's games, though.

But yeah, it's a long shot. The only way it would work in any form is if each contestant has an abandoned game worth saving and interesting enough to get the interest of another designer who has his or her own projects to work on.

It would be interesting to see how it plays out, though, if it did work.

I'd like to see a contest where James and TMC train participants to work on the engine so that they don't have to do all the work themselves. It can become a competition to see how many people can actually learn how to help them and make contributions to the engine's development. The winner would be all of us.
Place Obligatory Signature Here
User avatar
MorpheusKitami
Slime Knight
Posts: 218
Joined: Wed Nov 30, 2016 8:23 pm
Location: Somewhere in America

Post by MorpheusKitami »

I like the ideas for the first two contests, but there are a few problems I can see:

1)Seems like if drawing, attack and hero creation are separate stages someone could run into problems quickly if they envisioned a hero with a particular attack. Maybe a few of the stages should be merged?

2)Looking at my own collection of unfinished games, most of them are either txt files or barely started RPGs. I can't imagine other people's collections being much better. Maybe instead it could be taking someone else's idea and making a game around it? Kinda like Pepsi Ranger's suggestion.

I don't know if I would be able to take part in either though. I'm already planning a pretty big horror project for later this year that's a bunch of different games to begin with, so it's a question of whether or not I feel up to juggling one more.

And is it just me, or does Pepsi Ranger's contest idea sound like a really weird reality TV show?
User avatar
Matokage
Slime Knight
Posts: 275
Joined: Sat May 26, 2012 11:48 pm
Contact:

Post by Matokage »

marionline wrote:You're right, it might be difficult to make a game out of someone else's game, as well as giving away a game idea.
I gave a game of mine to a random collab contest and it turned from a well minded critic of the NPCs limited behavior to a joke game.
Last edited by Matokage on Sun Jul 02, 2017 3:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"I can't buy food with glory"
User avatar
BMR
Metal King Slime
Posts: 3310
Joined: Mon Feb 27, 2012 2:46 pm
Location: The Philippines
Contact:

Post by BMR »

I'd be up for a random collab contest again, those are always interesting.
Being from the third world, I reserve the right to speak in the third person.

Using Editor version wip 20170527 gfx_sdl+fb music_sdl
User avatar
marionline
Metal Slime
Posts: 673
Joined: Sat Feb 26, 2011 9:23 pm

Post by marionline »

I'd like to see a contest where James and TMC train participants to work on the engine so that they don't have to do all the work themselves. It can become a competition to see how many people can actually learn how to help them and make contributions to the engine's development. The winner would be all of us.
Geat Idea! I really like that. I'll add it to the list.
@TMC and James: What do you think about this?

The "remake of the other person's game contest" also sounds good.
Does that mean the other person has to have a finished game?
Seems like if drawing, attack and hero creation are separate stages someone could run into problems quickly if they envisioned a hero with a particular attack.
It could be a problem, but only if you think the hero has to have an specific attack. You could look at the attacks in the game file and draw a hero that suits them.
I'd be up for a random collab contest again, those are always interesting.
Cool!
I could add a poll to see how many people are interested in which
contest, the one with the most votes is held first. (This sounds like a constet contest?)
TMC
Metal King Slime
Posts: 4308
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 am

Post by TMC »

I think some people would enjoy the intro contest, though they haven't turned up yet. It's basically a sequel to the OHR Film Festival Contest we had a few (yikes... make that 6) years ago. However I don't think it's for me.

Working an existing game is really an inverse-intro contest: instead of creating the beginning of a game, you're creating the end (and probably most of the rest too). Finishing a game is likely to be heaps of work. I don't think it's a practical idea unless you really do make it an inverse-intro contest, by giving people a specially-created template game to finish.
Someone would have to do one stage twice. I'm not sure about a solution for this. Any ideas? :???:
You can also do the opposite instead: make fewer games than needed for everyone to do every part once. That way, if some people don't do everything they're assigned, their parts can be reassigned to someone else without duplication. It's not really better though.

The Circle Collab idea is similar to several collab contests that have been run over the years. Unfortunately I think most of the ones with more than two people working on a game didn't end well.
Morpheus­Kitami wrote:And is it just me, or does Pepsi Ranger's contest idea sound like a really weird reality TV show?
You would think that, wouldn't you!
Pepsi Ranger wrote:I'd like to see a contest where James and TMC train participants to work on the engine so that they don't have to do all the work themselves. It can become a competition to see how many people can actually learn how to help them and make contributions to the engine's development. The winner would be all of us.
The primary problem with this idea is that it's not a contest about making games, so few people would be interested. And when you're just starting, the steep learning curve sucks the fun out of it.
Last edited by TMC on Mon Jul 03, 2017 2:08 pm, edited 2 times in total.
TMC
Metal King Slime
Posts: 4308
Joined: Sun Apr 10, 2011 9:19 am

Post by TMC »

Here's another idea, related to the circle collab idea: revive the Competitive Collab Contest! It had two halves: in the first people drew graphics, and in the second, we were going to make games out of them. Well, the first stage was never declared finished... so if the contest is revived, I guess thats's still ongoing? Which means that free graphics from the last couple years, like the community tileset project (ccTcc) as well as the huge free graphics pack by FnrrfYgmSchnish could be legal entries (actually, I suspect that Fnrrf drew some of those graphics for that contest anyway, since he said he was working on something).
Mogri set limits on the amount of graphics each person could contribute, which is very sensible (otherwise it would end up being a contest about using Fnrrf's graphics) so he could just pick a subset of those free graphics.
Mogri, in 2014 wrote:You're the first to submit graphics, so at this rate, we'll start in approximately... 2016.
Over the years, people actually contributed quite a lot of graphics to the contest! I think we should definitely hold this contest, but it doesn't have to be right now; you can try to organise something else. And Mogri should host it; it's his.
User avatar
Matokage
Slime Knight
Posts: 275
Joined: Sat May 26, 2012 11:48 pm
Contact:

Post by Matokage »

I logged in just to cast my vote :v:
Pepsi Ranger wrote:Even though this wouldn't get much more traction than the original idea, one way that a contest about finishing someone else's game could work is if you turned it into a remake of the other person's game contest, in that they get to start from scratch using the other person's general idea. You'd still have to agree to take each other's games, though.
That seems a neat ideia!
TMC wrote:Here's another idea, related to the circle collab idea: revive the Competitive Collab Contest! It had two halves: in the first people drew graphics, and in the second, we were going to make games out of them. Well, the first stage was never declared finished... so if the contest is revived, I guess thats's still ongoing? Which means that free graphics from the last couple years, like the community tileset project (ccTcc) as well as the huge free graphics pack by FnrrfYgmSchnish could be legal entries (actually, I suspect that Fnrrf drew some of those graphics for that contest anyway, since he said he was working on something).
Mogri set limits on the amount of graphics each person could contribute, which is very sensible (otherwise it would end up being a contest about using Fnrrf's graphics) so he could just pick a subset of those free graphics.
That seems to be a good ideia too. I remember that I posted in that thread without checking it's date first and I was the last to post on it, and I still are... :gonk:
And looking at them now, they are pretty silly tough...
marionline wrote:1. Individual Circle Collab Contest
Everyone makes a game, but the process is cut into stages: Drawing, attack&item creation, enemies&heros creation, mapping, write text, plot scripting, adding music and sounds.
Each stage the games are exchanged among the participants, (so the game goes round in a circle).
Everyone has to try to do every stage. It will be chaos! And It will be fun!
Time: 8-12 weeks
I liked that ideia and I would surely do music and sound for any collab game, since it's the least worst of my habilities :v:
Last edited by Matokage on Mon Jul 03, 2017 3:06 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"I can't buy food with glory"
User avatar
Bob the Hamster
Lord of the Slimes
Posts: 7658
Joined: Tue Oct 16, 2007 2:34 pm
Location: Hamster Republic (Ontario Enclave)
Contact:

Post by Bob the Hamster »

Although I like the idea of teaching people about working on the engine, but I have absolutely no idea how that could be structured as a contest.
User avatar
SwordPlay
Chemical Slime
Posts: 966
Joined: Sun Jan 22, 2017 9:32 am
Location: London, England
Contact:

Post by SwordPlay »

I'd like to see a theme contest, either by topic or by subject

Or maybe we should have a contest where we pick topics out of a hat?

So we might have pools like so:

CHARACTERS/SETTING
- slimes
- monsters
- undead
- robots
- fantasy characters
- scifi characters
- modern day/realistic characters

THEMES
- horror
- epic fantasy
- comedy
- romance
- friendship
- revenge
- futility/byronic fate

MUST INCLUDE
- puzzles
- plot points
- minigames
- at least X number of bosses/enemy types
- at least Y number of maps/rooms
- branching dialogue
- sidequests
- etc.,

Then we could choose them at random to get the outline for the contest or for each participant.

What do you guys think?
Obviously people should be allowed to add and refuse various points according to their ability... or maybe this is too complicated?
Post Reply