The Next PGD Annual?

[WILL]

Well I can take full responsibility for the overcomplexity of the last competition. (No pun intended) It was a bit heavy duty and could have scared some away. If there were another I'd say to make it single end deadline. Time to complete is still an issue that's up in the air as to whats best.

What do you guys think about doing a theme like 'AI' or 'Arcade'? Keeping it simple you have to make a came that is about or falls into the category of one of those...

It's been tradition that PGD Annual competitions get sponsorship from Borland/CodeGear so they would likely chip in a copy or 2 of Delphi... Maybe even Delphi Prism now that you can do .NET 3.0 and XNA game dev on it...?

I'd be willing to spot the event a couple hundred myself for the IGF sponsorship or for some hardware instead... Maybe even the prize mugs or something... (Michiel, Frank and Dirk still have and use theirs )

[WILL]

Oh and there was one thing that was good about the 2007 PGD Annual, the project plans. It let us know how many people from the start were truly interested in making entries, not just the ones that stuck it threw to the end.

[arthurprs]

"rule less" does not work ... everything need rules nowdays, but less rules would be great

[jdarling]

I think a compo based upon deadlines is a good idea. Though making the deadlines a bit more loose could be achieved as such:

Stage 1 (1 week): Define project scope and future checkpoints
Stage 2 (2 weeks): as defined by team (this could be engine, or graphics, or whatever)
Stage 3 (2 weeks): show some progress
Stage 4 (2 weeks): Show an almost complete game (only needs spit and polish)
Stage 5 (1 week): Final game

Each stage entry should have a quick progress report attached with it.

This gives the best of both worlds. Deadlines that allow the team to setup goals, this is actually how it works in the real world. The client says I want to see progress every X days/weeks/months and the team produces progress reports with a Demo where applicable.

[NecroDOME]

...
Maybe even the prize mugs or something... (Michiel, Frank and Dirk still have and use theirs )

I still worship mine!!!

Will, about AI... I know you like it, but what did you have in mind? Having zombies wandering around and hit you when you jump in the middle of it IS AI (see Uber Zombie). Well... an computer controlled pong-bat is AI (it just follows the ball), and isn't that hard to make. But making some aircraft or racing car drive around a track with physics is a lot harder to accomplish. (I would go for rather dumb enemies... make them not so strong, but put a shitload in a level, add blood, add player and viola, a game ).

About arcade: **** YEAH!!

My opinion would be to have a theme that is kinda open. Arcade is open. 'The Big Race' is an open theme, but having a 'Big Car Race' isn't that open.

@jdarling:
I like that approach, but I would take like 3 weeks for stage 2, 3 and 4. A little stretch.

[chronozphere]

Will, about AI... I know you like it, but what did you have in mind?

Well, I think he's talking about everyone writing nifty intelligent code. No pun, but I wouldn't call the examples you mention "intelligent" (except from the Drive along track with physics one). Here are a few examples:

> Make units that can behave in different ways e.g Agressive, Passive, Guard stance, patrolling, and make them change to a different state depending on the situation. I could think of a game where the player has to rob a bank full of guards. You could use this kind of AI to make the game more difficult and fun.
> If you are writing a sci-fi game with battle-ships n stuff, you could do something similair with enemy ships. For example, let them fly away when they are allmost out of fuel, or let them generate a should around themselves when they have alot of energy but no ammo etc.. Let them make smart decisions.
> AI also consists of things like path-finding, line of sight things, data-sharing between multiple "intelligent" instances/objects etc...

I think it can be a fun theme for the compo, but i also like "The big race".

[pstudio]

I think a compo based upon deadlines is a good idea. Though making the deadlines a bit more loose could be achieved as such:

Stage 1 (1 week): Define project scope and future checkpoints
Stage 2 (2 weeks): as defined by team (this could be engine, or graphics, or whatever)
Stage 3 (2 weeks): show some progress
Stage 4 (2 weeks): Show an almost complete game (only needs spit and polish)
Stage 5 (1 week): Final game

Each stage entry should have a quick progress report attached with it.

This gives the best of both worlds. Deadlines that allow the team to setup goals, this is actually how it works in the real world. The client says I want to see progress every X days/weeks/months and the team produces progress reports with a Demo where applicable.

I could accept this sort of deadlines. They're more open but I would add some more weeks to it.

What do you guys think about doing a theme like 'AI' or 'Arcade'? Keeping it simple you have to make a came that is about or falls into the category of one of those...

I personally don't like the AI theme. Sure any computer controlled player (like pong as NecroDOME mentioned) can be called AI but I suspect that you mean something a bit more advanced. I think this would only allow a little exclusive bunch of programmers to really participate. Those who are interested in AI.
The theme should be totally open and allow any person to participate. The arcade theme sounds awesome. Anyone can join the compitition for a theme like that.

[jdarling]

I was just trying to keep a 2 month timeline . I think either 3 week deadlines or adding two additional 2 week deadlines would work well (keeping the total time around 3 months).

Actually, personally, I like 2 week deadlines as they keep it interesting. Of course, that means the judges would have to work too

As for theme, I like Arcade. Since I like Retro games I can easily fit the Arcade style

[paul_nicholls]

I was just trying to keep a 2 month timeline . I think either 3 week deadlines or adding two additional 2 week deadlines would work well (keeping the total time around 3 months).

Actually, personally, I like 2 week deadlines as they keep it interesting. Of course, that means the judges would have to work too

As for theme, I like Arcade. Since I like Retro games I can easily fit the Arcade style

I vote for arcade too
cheers,
Paul

[Ñuño Martínez]

One more for arcade.