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  • 1st PGD Challenge: Final Results

    First off I just would like to again say thank you very much to all of you who have participated in this competition. It's your continued feedback and very visual dialog that shows people what you can do with a Pascal-based programming language and the great things you can do with it. So that said, here are your results for the 1st PGD Challenge Mini Game Developer's Competition...






    Scores


    (Click on image for full view)


    1st Place := Tower by Sascha Pathe
    2nd Place := Vectored! by Paul Nicholls
    3rd Place := 2-Bit Racer by Ingemar Ragnemalm


    Judges' Comments
    (in order of final submission)



    Dragon Knight

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • great attention to level design
    • level of difficulty can be adjusted
    • nice visual effects
    Good

    • Retro feeling
    • Fun and exciting game experience
    Bad

    • glitches in graphics
    • crashed on first loading
    • runs slow on slightly older hardware
    Bad

    • Some elements in game (such as you can't hit some dragons) could have been explained better
    • A bit short

    Ascii3D

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • very responsive controls
    • simple control scheme
    • has title screen and menu with instructions
    Good

    • Nice ASCII art style
    • Easy control scheme
    Bad

    • console graphics in fixed window mode cause way too much flickering
    • repetitive gameplay gets boring over time
    • no way to save high scores
    Bad

    • Horrible flickering
    • Game speed depends on CPU speed
    • Some minimap indicating how the race track looks like would have been nice

    Moving Maze

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • innovative game mechanics
    • adjustable difficulty and size of game
    • has a title screen and menu with instructions
    Good

    • Graphics and music fit quite well
    • Compelling game concept
    • Multiple difficulty settings
    Bad

    • hard to wrap head around what needs shifting where at such a high pace
    • doesn't take full advantage of the full screen size
    • cannot get back to main menu from game over screen
    Bad

    • I would have loved a bit more of control when choosing which row/column to change
    • I think being real-time harms the flow of the game as you don't get enough time to think which move would be the best one before one of the AI players gets their move
    • The locking of the player was not quite clear to me at first; a timer which indicates how long the player is still locked could help in that regard

    Knight Fever

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • creatively designed levels and monsters
    • nice use of sound and visual effects
    • level selection is a nice touch
    Good

    • Excellent use of music and sounds...
    • ...as well as nice graphics especially the player sprite
    Bad

    • player control is difficult on platforms and obstacles and object collision is glitchy
    • game can only be closed after it reaches game over screen
    • game can get overly repetitive after a while (found a way to cheat in the castle)
    Bad

    • Too many goblins spawn too quickly making it almost impossible to kill all of them
    • The wall of fire seems a bit too overpowered

    2-Bit Racer

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • creative game concept
    • nice graphics with detail
    • full menu and title screen w/ instructions
    Good

    • Challenging race
    • Basic physics and collision
    Bad

    • poor controls
    • many glitches
    • glitchy AI
    Bad

    • Controls take a bit getting used to
    • Repetitive sounds
    • Camera angle is sometimes weird when you try to take the same shortcuts the AI does

    Castle of Thorns

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • very innovative puzzle game mechanic
    • easy to control
    • full title screen and menu with instructions
    Good

    • Interesting mix between a sliding puzzle and match 3
    • Pretty sprites
    Bad

    • game over screen auto-exits program without going back to title screen or menu
    • one of the letters (C) went missing on me part way through the game on a level
    • moving your letters through moving columns of falling symbols is a tad confusing
    Bad

    • Switching between A, B, C and D is not really necessary gameplay-wise, you can succeed by using just one of the spawn points
    • Animations are a tad too slow on the lower rows and pretty much non-existent on the top row
    • No sound or music

    Golden Labyrinth

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • good attention to detail in UI (well polished)
    • nice looking & easy to use menu and title screen
    • fun twist on a classic game
    Good

    • Beautiful graphics
    • The game gets slowly but increasingly harder the longer you play as more robots spawn
    • Nice use of powerups: It adds some variety to the classic gameplay mechanic
    Bad

    • AI would get stuck
    • robots would spawn in the middle of walls
    • controls
    Bad

    • Some music would have been nice as the sounds get a bit repetitive after a while

    Duke of Dragonfear: Deathland

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • simple and easy to use controls
    • very stable
    • great enemy and combat sound effects
    Good

    • Has a lot of potential
    • Neat art style
    • Dark and eerie atmosphere
    Bad

    • no goal / not finished
    • size characters on screen make it really hard to see far enough ahead
    • lack of features, got boring quick
    Bad

    • Fighting is a bit too monotonous
    • There is not much to do except for killing monsters (Adding some power-ups or some kind of quests would surely benefit the gameplay)

    Vectored!

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • great sound effects & music
    • nice graphics
    • simple but neat gameplay
    Good

    • Abstract graphic style
    • Female voice adds to the atmosphere of the game
    Bad

    • no title screen or menu
    • cannot replay after game over
    • couldn't tell when secondary weapon was ready to fire
    Bad

    • Replaying the game without restarting the application is not possible

    Mr. Snugglekins and the Giant Sack of Catnip

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • great graphics, music and sound effects
    • lots of features, enemies and weapons (very replay-able)
    • great menus, end game screen and title screen
    Good

    • Fantastic graphics
    • Brilliant sound & music
    • Simple but fun concept
    Bad

    • objects (the sack) will obstruct your view if you stand in front of them
    • difficulty picks up and turns into utter chaos a bit too quickly
    • when close to a turret and want to shoot it takes you to the upgrade menu instead
    Bad

    • Gets quite hectic really quickly

    Tower

    Jason Johannes
    Good

    • nice title screen & simple menu w/ instructions
    • simple, but creative single button gameplay
    • nice graphics and sound (well polished)
    Good

    • Good graphics
    • Music and sounds
    Bad

    • popup errors when set to full screen
    • not much in way of variety
    • no way to save your score
    Bad

    • The game is missing some variety
    • The game can get frustrating as timing and executing the jump can get difficult because you don't know exactly how far the character can jump, it's much pretty much trial and error (Adding some kind of special move such as a wall jump could maybe counter-effect that frustration)
    Comments 22 Comments
    1. Stoney's Avatar
      Stoney -
      There will be a showcase with links to all games up really soon in case you were wondering where you could play all of these games.

      Congratz to all the winners. I'll be contacting all winners via e-mail for them to claim their prize.
    1. Ingemar's Avatar
      Ingemar -
      Congratulations to Sascha Pathe, but also a big thank you to the judges, especially for writing detailed feedback! No matter what score we got, there are positive points, never forget that! (Especially if you got low score - in which case you should also note that the distance from bottom to middle was quite tight.)

      I have said it before, the biggest thing here is that it happened and that we managed to make contributions, in short time. Let's have a look at the comments and make the games even better!

      Finally, where can we download the games? We got some from the upload server in the past, but where can we find them now?
    1. SuperMaximo93's Avatar
      SuperMaximo93 -
      Congrats to the winners! And thanks to the judges for their hard work

      (But wasn't there supposed to be four prizes?
      Quote: Mass Effect 2 (EA Download Manager code)
      Terraria (Steam gift)
      Frozen Synapse (Download with optional Steam key)
      The Secret of Monkey Island (Steam gift)
      )
    1. Legolas's Avatar
      Legolas -
      Congratulations to all!
      You all guys are great, I'll never be able to make a working game in so little time
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      Congratulations to all from me to!
      Unfortunatly I haven't got near enough time to enter the competition myself. But I'm 99.9% sure that I will be participating in anual competition. I already have several ideas and just hope that competition rules will alow me turning one of theese ideas into reallity.

      But until then I have a preposition.
      I think it would be very nice if there would be special section of the PGD forum where it would be posible for PGD forum members to score theese entries by themselves. Offcourse this won't be part of any competition but would provide a very good general fedback to developers. It is always better getting feedback from more pepole.
    1. phibermon's Avatar
      phibermon -
      Awesome! looking forward to playing all of the entries
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      Congratulations to Sascha Pathe

      Just curious, how were the unused buttons figured out?

      I only used 3 'buttons' during game play (left, right, space), and escape to exit the game...it says I had 3 unused buttons left with Vectored?

      Maybe I am missing something?

      cheers,
      Paul
    1. cairnswm's Avatar
      cairnswm -
      Thanks Judges - Castle of Thorns did better overall than I had expected. If I had realised I only needed one empty block a little earlier, and had added sound it might have won.

      The bonus points really show up in this scoring - from 3rd to 3rd last as I did not get bonus points was quite a big jump

      Looking forward to the Annual competition - hope I can do something for that as well
    1. Jimmy Valavanis's Avatar
      Jimmy Valavanis -
      Congratulations to all the winners and a big thanks to the judges for their detailed report.
      Looking forward for the links of all games!
    1. Winwardo's Avatar
      Winwardo -
      Great work, I knew as soon as I played Tower it was going to be one of the winners!
      I'm quite proud of my final position

      Max, what a shame you used up all your buttons
      Thanks to the judges as well for taking the time to run and judge this competition, it was fun
    1. Traveler's Avatar
      Traveler -
      Congrats to the winners.
    1. Stoney's Avatar
      Stoney -
      Quote Originally Posted by SuperMaximo93 View Post
      But wasn't there supposed to be four prizes?
      Yes they are. But I'm not 100% sure if the Mass Effect 2 code I have still works since EA changed their download manager platform to Origin. Either way, I'm sure we'll find a solution.

      As already posted somewhere else, I'll be going through the list and contacting the winners until I run out of prizes.

      So far, Sascha hasn't responded to my e-mail. I hope he does soon.
    1. Daikrys's Avatar
      Daikrys -
      woohoo never tought i would win, congrats all to all entries i really want to play all games i missed to download
      fun fact i did not know that winners recive prizes i was sure its a just for fun competition

      i moved last week and i dont have internet access there until 18. :/
      but i will answer right away Stoney
    1. SilverWarior's Avatar
      SilverWarior -
      Quote Originally Posted by Stoney View Post
      Yes they are. But I'm not 100% sure if the Mass Effect 2 code I have still works since EA changed their download manager platform to Origin. Either way, I'm sure we'll find a solution.
      As far as I know all existing games wich were available trough steam should remain available. But new games would be only available trough Origin. Therefore the code should still work.
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      It was just for fun, but if it weren't for Stoney, you'd all be getting nothing but pride.

      The PGD Annual on the other hand... the last event brought in over $3,000 in prizes given out I believe. Don't hold me to that number, but I recall numbers as such in the past, even higher actually.

      I'm trying to score versions of Delphi for top prize this year since Embarcadero has taken over, it's likely to happen again.
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      Just curious, how were the unused buttons figured out?

      I only used 3 'buttons' during game play (left, right, space), and escape to exit the game...it says I had 3 unused buttons left with Vectored?

      Maybe I am missing something?

      Anyway I have had bit of a play with my prize, Terraria (thanks Stoney!) - quite a cute little game and some pretty neat mechanics like water! I might have to see if I can do similar with The Probe

      cheers,
      Paul
    1. WILL's Avatar
      WILL -
      Hey Paul. I believe we counted one of the extra used buttons to close the game (Esc) as a used button since it was required to close the game. Also didn't we need to press up to start the game? I'd have to go back to my fiance's laptop to confirm this since that's what I used to test all the games.
    1. paul_nicholls's Avatar
      paul_nicholls -
      @ WIL: No, the game started all by itself - no button pressing required
    1. Stoney's Avatar
      Stoney -
      All prizes have been given away. (The Mass Effect 2 code worked apparently without any glitches, so I was worried for nothing.)
      I hope the winners enjoy their games and if you guys liked the prizes or having prizes in general for such an event, I'll see what I can do in regards to getting some prizes for the next PGD challenge and/or PGD Annual.
    1. Traveler's Avatar
      Traveler -
      Thanks Stoney, supporting the competition was quite generous of you.