3rd Annual PGD Competition due to start Feb 1st...

[Traveler]

On the subject of engines, you could argue that those using an engine have unfair advantages over those without their own engine.
So in that light, I wouldn't be surprised if there are a few restrictions about using them, unless they are available to the general public as well.

[dmantione]

People not having their own engine can download one of the existing ones. You can try to regulate this, for example nobody could be allowed to use an existing engine, but this would hurt the quality of the games produced in the compo, and getting good games should be one of the goals. So I think not regulating it is better. Some people will use their existing engine, some will download one, and some will write their own.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Not that I'm competing this year, but I tend to agree with Traveller on the subject of pre-written engines. I could have spent months (years even) writing an engine, it could encapsulate a lot of the functionality that someone who is starting from scratch will have to contend with. All I have to do is pump in control logic and content. By anyones definition that would give me one hell of an advantage in the competition.

For that reason, from a personal perspective, I'd like to see a ban on pre-written engines.

Just for clarity... I don't consider Asphyre or DelphiX etc. to be engines as such. By engine I mean a more fully featured tool set.

As for the quality of the games... I would say Tanx was pretty dam good... that was Dirk on his own using Asphyre as a base... pre-written engines do not necessarily mean a better finished product. I was also chuffed to bits with what I managed to achieve (given it was my first client side game), and there wasn't a single line of code in existence before the start of the competition... except of course for unDelphiX.

However, I suspect there would be a lot of people complaining if engines were banned... reinventing the wheel and all that, so maybe a good solution is to use one of the Pascal engines that are available. And, to try and make it a fair fight, the authors of said engine can't compete in the competition in which their code is being used. Thats kind of a nice halfway house. Those people who want to use a pre-written engine can use one... the same as everyone else is using, or they can write their own.

Just my $0.02

[cronodragon]

For that reason, from a personal perspective, I'd like to see a ban on pre-written engines.

I think it would be hard to determine what to ban. For example if I use something "basic" like DirectX libraries, I would have advantage over people using OpenGL, since there are a lot of helper classes like D3DSprite and so. Also some platforms are harder to develop than others. The only way to be fair is to set the platform, compiler, IDE, tools, etc, and in such case people used to those settings will have the advantage, for example I have never done anything for Linux, if that was the platform I would have to spend weeks learning how to deal with it. It's difficult if not impossible to be fair in these competitions. :?

[jdarling]

My personal view on the subject of pre-existing engines is this. PGD's main goal is to get a winner that stands a change at IGF. To be honest, most of the entries in IGF have been working on their entries for years. This is not jus the engine its everything; engines, storylines, graphics, music, sound, etc...

PGD is a short turn competition, and a pre-built engine allows the developers to focus on polishing; storyline, graphics, music, sound, etc...

Tanx started from scratch, this is true (at least its been posed as true). It went up against many entries that started with existing engines, and won. Not because of its engine, because it was fun, semi-stable, and had a good storyline to go with it.

Last year I started on JumpStart, I plan on using it for this years compo as well. I've spent ALOT of time on it to make sure that I can focus on my entries polishing points. Wasting time on re-inventing the wheel isn't something I want to do again, nor is it something I will do again until I start playing in 3D.

In short: An engine does not a game make.

One final note: I would say that using Asphere, GLScene, or DelphiX is the use of a pre-existing engine. They give the developer a real edge in things that take VERY long periods to create, font renders, graphics wrappers, image and texture loading, and etc... Call it what you want, but these provide more then just a simple wrapper around existing 3rd party contexts. After all, where is the DirectX API to load an MD3 model? How about the API method to automatically load a 333x231 bitmap with color key into OpenGL and make it work on most graphics cards? These are things that an Engine does, not a game. The game simply makes use of the features surfaced by the engine.

[WILL]

Ok firstly... EVERYONE has good points. So lets just get that outta the way.

Now here is how I personally feel about it.

[size=9px](Dom is the all mighty high grand lord --with sprinkles-- of the PGD Annual this year so it's all his call. Not mine this time.)[/size]

The purpose of the competitions are to help grow the Pascal game making world as a whole. And it's also for fun, but we have that anyways, don't we?

A person can have a pre-made game engine and the game still sucks. ie. Star Trek Armada 2 [size=9px](had Armada 1 as a code-base, but screwed the game up in 2. Sorry if you liked it.)[/size], Star Wars Battlegrounds [size=9px](used AoE2's engine)[/size], etc... I'm sure you have your own crappy games lists out there, but these ones were done for at least half a year's time with a budget.

Which leads me into my second point, the Independent Games Festival. I believe as Jeremy just mentioned most if not all of the other games presented there have a much longer development time-frame, Some are even over a year or more. Going up against these guys is sort of becoming the main theme and your top prize since last year. [size=9px](along with whatever super cool version of Delphi Borland/CodeGear has been juicing up the prizes with :thumbup: --Thanks sponsors! )[/size]

So if we want the winning entry to stand out in the IGF with the best possible chance there, making them start over is kind of a rough rub, no?


Here is my whole underlying ethos on this... The more experienced developers/teams that take part in the PGD Annual are going to have an edge anyhow. New people will want to participate to learn from it and have fun. If they are talented then they may win a few prizes or not.

So as I've said before a crappy game can be made off a good engine and a fun game can be made from nothing all the same. But what we want to do is build up the competitions from year to year and this means not only participation, prizes and cool new ideas for the competitions, but also have each year's teams come back more experienced. And in time they will come back with more punch from last year so that it becomes an ongoing thing, not just something that we do each year to win a free copy of new Delphi and bug the IGF people about Pascal.

[WILL]

Oh... and just for edification, this is not to say that a game's design should not be from scratch as it should but the underlying engine and (graphics, network, input, sound, etc)code-base it's self is what I'm referring to.

[Traveler]

The purpose of the competitions are to help grow the Pascal game making world as a whole.

But what we want to do is build up the competitions from year to year and this means not only participation, prizes and cool new ideas for the competitions, but also have each year's teams come back more experienced

While I agree with some of your points, I also believe we should think about those who are just starting out, those who dont have the experience.
I mean, if we are the experienced ones, why should we also have the benefit of 'our' pre-made engines?

Here is my whole underlying ethos on this... The more experienced developers/teams that take part in the PGD Annual are going to have an edge anyhow. New people will want to participate to learn from it and have fun. If they are talented then they may win a few prizes or not.

It is unfair to the lesser experienced to expect them to compete against someone who uses his own premade engine.
Because where the latter can spend his time creating content and perfecting gameplay, the new guy worries about why his sprites aren't moving like they should (no offense Wizard).

If the experienced have an edge, at least let them start on equal ground.

[NecroDOME]

I also believe we should think about those who are just starting out, those who dont have the experience.

Isn't that where these forums are for? I mean, ppl who just get started ask a lot of question as we can help them here.

For pre-made engines, I released also an engine ppl can use.

ps 1. I vote "YES" for using pre-made engines
ps 2. wasn't this discussion already at the previous compo, so we have some sort of dedja vu?

EDIT: Those who pre-made an engine could also just "copy there code" and pretend nothing happend, so ppl always WILL use pre-made stuff...(a whole or part of an engine/content/whatever)

[technomage]

As a Judge in last years competition I played all of the games thoroughly. I have to say it did not make any difference if someone use a pre-built engine or wrote something from scratch. One of my faviorite games was written from scratch uisng just the Directx headers, the winner just used Asphere as a base. The previous year the winner used GlScene which is a much more complete engine.

I agree people starting from scratch have a lot more to code that people using engines, but it is a choice at the end of the day. I'm sure there are teams who competed last year who will enter this year and do things differently (use an different engine etc), this means they have learnt from the experieice.

Also there is nothing stopping people from asking for help during the competition , as long at the Judges don't get invloved thats OK. It also encourgages more traffic on the site.

I think that that fact that all the competitors help each other out in the competitions shows what a great community this is.