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WILL
23-11-2012, 03:46 AM
So what would everyone think of doing a team challenge for the next PGD Challenge mini-competition?

So far some really successful competition entries have been by a team submission. Though it hasn't been necessary to work in any size group (2+) there is of course a big difference in the way you work and the amount of stuff you can get done when working in a "development team".

I'm still thinking of doing another competition sometime in the winter, though time hasn't been my friend since my daughter was been born in late Sept. Sorry for the absence! :P

Also with a "team" challenge, it would allow for slightly bigger themes that I was thinking of (inspired by games and other cool projects I've been eying like Little Big Planet, Minecraft, Black & White, some older 90s and 8/16-bit era stuff, other technical-based themes and the like) at one point or another.

So far the smaller is better format is doing just fine so I don't plan on getting too big, but I would like to encourage and have more people try out the "team experience" for making games.

What do you good folks say? Would you commit to a team up for at least one mini-compo or will you only do a challenge if you can do it solo?

SilverWarior
23-11-2012, 04:21 AM
I'm up for it.
This way I would atleast have someone to help me out with the game UI since for now I'm having most difficulties in this area.

Ñuño Martínez
29-11-2012, 04:34 PM
Well, if I'm lucky to find someone (like I do in the previous challenge) then I may join a team but right now I haven't anybody.

pstudio
30-11-2012, 12:01 AM
Personally I'm not hot on this idea. I have no problem with working in groups. Currently I'm involved with two projects where I work together with other people, but I don't think it is a good idea, to make the PGD Challenge a solely team based competition.

I think you will exclude many, if you make it mandatory to be in a group. I'm not sure if you mean the groups has to consist of PGD members or "random" people from outside PGD. If it is the former there are issues like Development Environment incompatibility (different Pascal dialects, libraries and target platforms), country and language issues and the fact we aren't many on this forum.
If it is the latter, I can't see why we must find some guy to form a group with, besides doing indirect advertising for PGD. And I don't know many (not to say noone) irl that uses Pascal.

The idea with the PGD Challenge was, that it is a small competition were everybody can participate and wont be overburden by the amount of work a half year competition would require. Making the challenge team based to allow for bigger themes seems to contradict with what the PGD Challenge is about. IMO the competition should allow for single and group submissions like the two last compos.

User137
30-11-2012, 03:48 AM
I haven't actually even tested any environment yet, where i could develop same project with another person in realtime. SVN is 1 sort of choice but never tried installing its server part, and it's not realtime. Could share through google docs too i suppose, if i'd find a partner anyway. It would mean many of us forum-goers would propably have to team up, and that will cut amount of participant projects on already small forum.

But also making it group based challenge is silently hinting of wanting higher standard end results. Well, it will greatly depend on tools each groups have in their disposal. Single person can well do far superior projects if his tools and skills are that good. I'd also vote for allowing single-person submissions.

SilverWarior
30-11-2012, 10:44 AM
Once I have done some programing with one of my friend using Remote Assistance which is built into Windows (Windows XP and newer).
What Remote Assistance offered me is to see my friends desktop the same way as if I would have been there and watchong it on his monitor. And even more it alowed me to actually temorrary take controll of his computer. I could move his mouse cursor, I could type text as if I was typing on his own keyboard. What I couldn't do is hear any sounds that he heard.
So Remote Asisstance actually just streams a video from other computer to yours and sends information about mouse movment and keyboard preses ono that computer. The only drawback is that it doesn't support capturing graphics contents shown on Overlay surfaces. Also it tends to crash on changing the monitor resolution. Also video updates aprox 2 times per second if there is not much utilization on remote computer otherwise it is even slower.

Anywhay it alowed me to find a bug that my friend had in his project and at the same time it alowed me to see how Delphi XE looked and how it is working with it. Without seeing that I would probably still be programing in Delphi 7.

I have seen some programs which offer similar capabilities (even for Mac OS if I remember corectly) but the only drawback of theese programs is the fact that you need to be registered on ther special servers and all information actually goes through that servers so security of information is questionable. Windows Remote Assistance on the other hand uses direct comunication between the two computers.

Super Vegeta
01-12-2012, 01:43 AM
I could try it. I don't really have any experience in working in a group, but oh well, since I dropped out of uni this year, I have to find ways to gather experience, unless I want to physical work to the end of my days. ;)

WILL
05-12-2012, 10:32 PM
Well the idea of the challenge is not just for "programming" a game together, but to build and develop the game together. As many, who have been involved in the indie game dev scene long enough, know there is much more than one role to play when making a game, though indies often wear plenty, if not all, hats when working on their projects.

The idea of the challenge would not be to share all hats or just the programming side alone, but to divide up or split certain tasks amoung the 2+ of you. There is also other aspects of working in small team that can be considered a skill too. It's not just to complete more things for a project, but to have an easier time working off each other's strengths to make a stronger result of your work.

Dan
06-12-2012, 02:47 AM
I would participate if someone would agree to join me and work on the graphics. I think it would also benefit this community if someone could find a similar community of graphics designers interested in game development and made an effort to merge it with pgd.

Ñuño Martínez
07-12-2012, 01:08 PM
I would participate if someone would agree to join me and work on the graphics. I think it would also benefit this community if someone could find a similar community of graphics designers interested in game development and made an effort to merge it with pgd.
Open Game Art (http://www.opengameart.org/)? 8)

Dan
07-12-2012, 06:50 PM
sure why not

Daikrys
07-12-2012, 07:49 PM
dont forget to check out turbosquid (http://www.turbosquid.com), there are plenty of free models you can use
might be also useful for your shooter if you search for "spaceship" ;)

maybe if the theme fits anything i like, i would make a the concept and art
then i could need someone to shape the idea with me and do the programming

pstudio
08-12-2012, 01:57 AM
Well the idea of the challenge is not just for "programming" a game together, but to build and develop the game together. As many, who have been involved in the indie game dev scene long enough, know there is much more than one role to play when making a game, though indies often wear plenty, if not all, hats when working on their projects.

The idea of the challenge would not be to share all hats or just the programming side alone, but to divide up or split certain tasks amoung the 2+ of you. There is also other aspects of working in small team that can be considered a skill too. It's not just to complete more things for a project, but to have an easier time working off each other's strengths to make a stronger result of your work.
I must admit I'm still not convinced.
Granted; you can split up work in a group, but new kinds of challenges arise. You suddenly have to coordinate your work with someone else. You need to maintain communication which can easily become an issue. I'm leading a small group on a Danish forum where we're creating a small platformer, and it is a challenge to maintain a good communication level. I can't imagine it will become better, if you have to cooperate with someone across the world.

For a one month challenge, I really don't think you can create a much better game than you can do alone. (Obviously this is subject to individual qualities)
You can extend the challenge, but then again, you loose the purpose of the mini challenge. To have a short contest so people don't loose interest or get caught by real life.
Personally I would rather see the challenge go the other way if it needs to change. Shorter periods to develop a game. Well I write game, but really we're only making prototypes/demos. It's nice if the result looks great and more polished, but I would rather have, the challenge focused on innovation and/or fun games.

I don't mind people work in groups for the challenge, but I don't see why the challenge, which marks the most active period on this forum, should force specific work methods on possible contestants. If people want to experience the pros and cons of working in a group, and I believe that's a good thing to try at least once, they should do it of free will, and not as a result of some challenge's requirements.

Cybermonkey
08-12-2012, 09:22 AM
I don't mind people work in groups for the challenge, but I don't see why the challenge, which marks the most active period on this forum, should force specific work methods on possible contestants. If people want to experience the pros and cons of working in a group, and I believe that's a good thing to try at least once, they should do it of free will, and not as a result of some challenge's requirements.
Yes that's true. If I'll find the time to take part in the challenge then possibly not in a team.

Daikrys
08-12-2012, 02:52 PM
oh i totally forgot to answer directly to the topic :)
as some people here already said it shouldnt be a "must" rule, it should as always optional but since we spoken about this thing maybe some people might team up for the next challenge

de_jean_7777
10-12-2012, 09:59 AM
I also feel it should be optional, as I don't think I can find a team to work with.

WILL
19-12-2012, 11:18 PM
Well I got what I was asking for, which was good feedback on the whole idea. pstudio especially has brought up some good points. One that seems to stick with me is the logistics factor. It can be a challenge just to keep a team together let alone create something together. I think even if I did try this one eventually, I'd have to put this one on the backburner at least for now.

You have to admit though, you notice the quality/polish difference a team game project can make. Esp. looking back at the PGD Annuals.

This idea came up some time after a bit of self reflection. I have realized that I am actually a much better "game designer" than I am a game programmer. The difference obviously is that I seem to excel at the design of the game play and game mechanics more so than the software that makes it all work it's self. This is directly reflected in my programming style. All my work seems to lend it's self to ease of design, rather than ease of constructing the software backend side of things.

As such I tend to work better in a team environment.