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savage
02-01-2005, 12:18 AM
Well I have threatened to hold one of these for long enough. Now the threat is a reality.

I would like to officially launch the PGD Dog Fight game programming competition. As you may have guessed, Dog Fight is the theme.
<blockquote>

Theme
--------
For those unfamiliar with the term, a dog fight is usually a duelling battle between 2 opponents.
Traditionally the term was associated with fighter pilots during WWII, but for the purposes of this competition we will allow any 2 fighting entities from bacteria to solar systems :).

Rules
---------
1. The game must primarily be written in Pascal and should compile with either Delphi, Kylix or FreePascal. Other Pascal compilers will be considered if we can get them working. Pascal interfacing to DLLs/SOs etc are allowed, as long as Pascal is the MAIN programming language used. Examples of acceptable APIs and Libraries are SDL :), OpenGL, OpenAL, DirectX, DelphiX, GLScene, Asphyre, GameVision SDK, GLXTreem, Project Omega, XCESS Game Development Kit to name a few. If you plan to use something else, please check with us before submitting. Usually we will get back to you within a day.

2. All Pascal source code must be included in the final distribution and released under an appropriate Open Source licence. This is so that you are correctly given credit for the code and so that others can learn from your work. The final distribution should include a Win32, Linux or MacOS X executable as well as the source code and licencing information. Also include instructions on how to compile your code and a couple of screen shots. The only acceptable distribution methods are Zip, Tar.gz or Rar compressed archives.

2a. The maximum allowable size for the compressed archive that includes executable and associated resources ( sound, textures etc ), is 10MB.

3. The Executables must be able to run on either a Sony Viao Laptop with a ATI Radeon IGP card or a Desktop machine that has an NVidia GeForce 3 Ti card. You may use more advanced techniques than what these cards support as at least one of the judges will be able to view advanced Shader/glSlang type effects.

4. The competition will run until March 15th ( which gives you 2.5 months ) at which time the competition will be considered closed. From the 16th of March the judges will be assess the entries and a winner will be announced on the 1st of April ( seriously ).

5. The game can be 2D, 2.5D ( Isometric ) or 3D.

6. Games will be judged on the following criteria and awarded a points score between 1-10 in the following 5 categories with a maximum of 50 possible points.
a ) GamePlay - How fun is the game?
b ) Usability - How easy is it to pick up and is it challenging enough?
c ) Quality - How polished is the game?
d ) Originality - How original an idea is it?
e ) Wow Factor - What makes it stand out, ( jaw dropping visuals, attention to detail )?

7. 1st Prize : Delphi 2005 Architect - value $3000 (US)
Donated by Borland ('http://www.borland.com/delphi')

and

Game Programming Gems: v. 5 - value $70(US)
Donated by Steve \"Sly\" Williams and Dominique \"savage\" Louis

2nd Prize : gameSpace - value $300(US)
Donated by Caligari ('http://www.caligari.com/gameSpace')

and

3Impact Game Engine license - value $99 (US)
Donated by www.3impact.com ('http://www.3impact.com/')


3rd Prize : gameSpace - value $300(US)
Donated by Caligari ('http://www.caligari.com/gameSpace')

and

Nexus Memory Manager - value $120 ( US )
Donated by www.nexusdb.com ('http://www.nexusdb.com/')

8. The competition judges will be announced closer to the closing date.

9. Please try and start something new, as this will be more of a challenge than just dusting off some of your old code and submitting it.

10. The judges decisions are final and no correspondence will be entered into ( I always wanted to write that ).

Prizes
----------
I am currently speaking to Borland, ATI and NVidia to see if any of them are willing to supply prizes for the competition. In either case, I will announce some kind of prizes on the 1st of February.

</blockquote>
Please use the link below to ask any questions about the competition and to post links to your entries as you work on them.

Sly
02-01-2005, 09:51 AM
Questions about the opponents:

:?: Are they to be two humans?
:?: Should we implement an AI opponent for one-player action?
:?: If two humans, must they be on the same PC or can they be networked?
:?: Any bonus points for two duelling AIs? :)

savage
02-01-2005, 12:17 PM
Hi Steve,
1. as stated in the rules section the opponents can be anything from bacteria to solar systems, so humans are acceptable.

2. Yes it is expected if the enemy/opponent is the computer that some kind os AI be implemented. It does not have to be anything as complicated as Neural Networks but something that makes the game fun and challenging.

3. The game can be networked. As there will be more than 1 judge, we should be able to test this out.

4. Convincing duelling AIs would be nice but is not essential. The emphasis is on one player against another player or against another AI controlled entity, rather than 2 AI's battling it out. There has to be some kind of interaction.

{MSX}
02-01-2005, 12:27 PM
I think i will partecipate :D
(and almost surely win :mrgreen:)

savage
02-01-2005, 12:40 PM
Look forward to seeing your entry. I hope it does not impact your work on funcky cars :).

Traveler
02-01-2005, 12:45 PM
Cool initiative!

A few questions:
:arrow: Not that I plan to, but can it be a team effort?
:arrow: Also, is there a filesize limit? ie. can we include fancy intro's/music whatever, resulting in huge downloads?
:arrow: Does dog fight mean, you have to kill/destroy your opponent? Or can you also beat him by finishing an objective before the opponent does?


Hi Steve,
1. as stated in the rules section the opponents can be anything from bacteria to solar systems, so humans are acceptable.


I think Sly was talking about players :)

tux
02-01-2005, 01:35 PM
ive got an idea :)

:arrow: must there be ai/multiplayer?
:arrow: im not good at modeling / art, are we allowed to borrow geometry / art ?

savage
02-01-2005, 01:37 PM
Yes teams are allowed, you will just have to fight amongst yourselves if you win the prizes :).

There is no file size limit as such, because I would expect to download the entries from the competitor's websites. Just make sure you use high compression in whatever archive format you choose to use.

Yes you can defeat the other opponent by completing a task. I think dog fight implies intense game play. Usually that would entail a battle to the death, but I agree that is could be 2 opponents trying to complete a task under duress.

savage
02-01-2005, 01:46 PM
tux,
If you do not have AI or multiplayer, who are you playing against? I am not sure about a dogfight with yourself. You may have to clarify a little more, what you are getting at.

Any models, textures, art used, must fall under some kind of distribution licence. So get permission from the author before using it in your game.

tux
02-01-2005, 01:48 PM
If you do not have AI or multiplayer, who are you playing against? I am not sure about a dogfight with yourself. You may have to clarify a little more, what you are getting at.

i guess you have a point :P

{MSX}
02-01-2005, 03:18 PM
btw, is one allowed to use code he already developed ? For example, the basis for a 3d engine or similar?

savage
02-01-2005, 04:16 PM
Hi Nicola,
There is nothing stopping you from using your own base code.

Maybe in a future competition we might have one were everyone has to use the same base code.

savage
02-01-2005, 04:38 PM
For those looking for free 3D models, there are some @
http://www.3d02.com/3d_model_index.asp?hddFree=1
http://www.3dheaven.net/models_main.htm
http://www.lowpolygon3d.com/

NOTE : I have not used these models, so cannot vouch for their quality.

or for 2D you might want to try
http://www.flyingyogi.com/fun/spritelib.html

If anyone has some other texture, sprite libraries, that others can use, please post a link on this thread.

LP
02-01-2005, 08:18 PM
I would participate but since I don't like OpenSource model (many of the libraries I've made will be used for commercial apps), maybe I'll pass this one up... :cry:

savage
02-01-2005, 09:29 PM
LifePower,
The OpenSource part only applies to the game not the libraries that you use. I could hardly expect people to supply the source code of DirectX for example.

The aim of the contest is to produce a game, but it is also a way of helping the Pascal game development community by sharing code with up and coming Pascal developers in the future.

If you have libraries, I would think that this is a way to showcase how good they are. You could just supply a DLL/obj/dcu of your library under a licence that would only allow your libraries to be used for non-commercial games.

It is a pity you cannot take part. I hope you reconsider.

LP
03-01-2005, 01:48 AM
Thanks, that's actually what I was going to ask (just occuried to me, to provide all the required DLLs with the game with non-commercial license). I might have a chance to participate ;)
As a suggestion, you might want to consider size limits, whatever they might be. 64k is really challenging, but if you don't want to limit the developers that much, why not having like 3 or 5 Mb size limit? My point is that it's relatively easily to make like 300 Mb-sized game (uses a lot of movies, music, whatever) which might be good or not but will be really annoying to download (and I think it's not the point of the contest). As an interesting example, our TMDC7 entry which occupies a little less than 2.8 Mb in final build - the entire project (tools, source code, etc) occupies 160 Mb. Another point is, if the size limits are infinite or big, the teams that have good artists, 3d designers and the specific tools will have much more advantage; for instance, there're some ppl who are not very good at art, while there're teams that have ppl working in 2D/3D artwork with powerful tools which I think will give advantages especially in game competition and thus is unfair - this is Pascal game contest, not 2D/3D art contest (as a note, our team *has* 2D/3D art ppl :wink:). I hope this is enough to think about. :roll:

Finally is there any idea about the minimal physical requirements (CPU, memory, etc), system specs, DirectX version, etc.

Cheers,
Lifepower

savage
03-01-2005, 02:41 AM
You bring up an interesting point about file limits. I will have to sleep on it this evening and will make a decision on it tomorrow.

Please bear with me developers, this is my first competition I am trying to organise :).

tux
03-01-2005, 12:10 PM
i think a 25mb (build + media) limit is good

Sascha Willems
03-01-2005, 01:37 PM
First thing : It's great to see some activity around the pascal scene, and this compo seems to be a great opportunity.

And I'd also really like to enter it, but this is what I don't like :

3. The Executables must be able to run on either a Sony Viao Laptop with a ATI Radeon IGP card or a Desktop machine that has an NVidia GeForce 3 Ti card.

If I enter I want to do a game using newton for physics and opengl for graphics. AND I'd like to use glSlang-shaders to spice up the graphics, but since the GF3 doesn't support glSlang (and even ARB-shaders arent' supported) I won't be able to use them in my app (or better said : they won't be seen by the judges). Don't you have access to any newer graphics cards? The only work-around for me would be to write shaders using NVidias Extensions, but I don't really like using vendor-specific extensions, especially since I'm on a Radeon 9700.

And one additional thing, since I plan on a close-to-real WW2-setting : Are we allowed to let the player fight for WW2-germany, or do you consider that something too political incorrect for the compo?

Traveler
03-01-2005, 01:41 PM
i think a 25mb (build + media) limit is good

I disagree. Not everybody has adsl. 10mb is more than enough.

savage
03-01-2005, 02:05 PM
Sascha, I am not a big fan of political correctness, so my view is that the player should be able to fight for whom ever they like. Surely games should be about choice.

With regard to the graphics card question... Those are my current specs, I know they are not great, but since having a family, they take monetary priority over hardward upgrades :). I will have to ask the other judges to see if they have more up to date hardware. In the mean time the best I can suggest it to code for lower end HW initially as that will ensure that you spend more time getting the game play right rather than the eye candy. Then if your project is structured well, you should be able to add the glSlang stuff as another code path, thereby allowing your game to work on both low and high end machines, just like the professionals. Half Life 2 works on my laptop, I don't get all the fantastic visuals, but it is still very playable.

After a night sleeping on the size issue, I think that a 5MB zip is too small and a 25MB zip is too big. So have decided for the middle ground of 10MB. I will update the News page to reflect this new restriction. So to clarify, the executable and associated resources and source code must fit into a 10MB compressed archive.

{MSX}
03-01-2005, 02:09 PM
And I'd also really like to enter it, but this is what I don't like :

3. The Executables must be able to run on either a Sony Viao Laptop with a ATI Radeon IGP card or a Desktop machine that has an NVidia GeForce 3 Ti card.

Umm you're probably right. If one can do a great program, why limiting he that way ? Savage, you can always call a friend with a cool PC and see the game on his computer :P




And one additional thing, since I plan on a close-to-real WW2-setting : Are we allowed to let the player fight for WW2-germany, or do you consider that something too political incorrect for the compo?

My opinion is that it is not political incorrect.
But, how would you fit the Dogfight theme ? :P

Sascha Willems
03-01-2005, 04:04 PM
But, how would you fit the Dogfight theme ? :P
What do you mean with that? Dog fight fit's really great into WW2, since it was the last war where most of the air planes haven't had any air-to-air missiles and fought each other with machine guns. So I guess doing some dog fight with WW2 airplanes like a Junkers JU-87 Stukka against a Spitfire over some war place like berlin would give a great scenario for dog fights.

P.S. : I'm still thinking of entering this contest, but I already have a game project running and I'm still undecided on just halting it for 3 months. Besides this I had some "accidents" within the last months concerning the abuse of some of my open sources which made me rethink my opinion about giving away my sources.

Traveler
03-01-2005, 04:26 PM
Besides this I had some "accidents" within the last months concerning the abuse of some of my open sources which made me rethink my opinion about giving away my sources.

I know what you're saying.
But you also have to consider, that there's also a large group that'll praise you for making it available.
Nobody is asking you to give away your newest secrets. Your entry could also be a mix of old code neatly tied together.

savage
03-01-2005, 04:43 PM
Hi Sascha,
I understand your concerns about Open Source being abused and this is certainly something that could happen, but by enlarge, most developers are honest and will give credit where credit is due. There will always be a minority who think that certain rules do not apply to them.

I suppose it comes down to whether you have faith in the most humans doing the right thing by you or not. Is the glass half full or half emtpy?

Sascha Willems
03-01-2005, 05:22 PM
Sorry for confusing, I don't want the compo to be closed source or so, and I don't have problems with releasing my sources to the public (see my recent newton demos ;) ). It was just a sidenote.

{MSX}
03-01-2005, 06:18 PM
But, how would you fit the Dogfight theme ? :P
What do you mean with that? Dog fight fit's really great into WW2, since it was the last war where most of the air planes haven't had any air-to-air missiles and fought each other with machine guns. So I guess doing some dog fight with WW2 airplanes like a Junkers JU-87 Stukka against a Spitfire over some war place like berlin would give a great scenario for dog fights.


Ahh ok! For some unknown reason i was thinking about a game like command and conquer, with an army to lead, that would have nothing to do with dogfight :P

In fact, dogfight is perfect for airplains in the WW2 :mrgreen: That's going to be a great game :P

Just to put ideas on the table, i was thinking of a 1 vs 1 spaceship battle in a small area (somethink like a city, not in open space). That's the idea, i hope i can work it out (time permitting :P )

PS I am an active open source fan, and so i hope you will think again about oss. Think of all oss program you use freely :D

Traveler
03-01-2005, 08:29 PM
i was thinking of a 1 vs 1 spaceship battle in a small area

Ahh shoot, I had a similar idea :(

Chris Burkhardt
03-01-2005, 08:43 PM
Hey, this sounds great! Though suspiciously like uDevGames (http://udevgames.com/) :wink:. I am going to do my best to make time to participate myself. I'll get the word out to the idevgames (http://idevgames.com/) crowd as well.

One question. Rule number 2 allows for a Mac OS X executable, then rule number 3 requires that:

The Executables must be able to run on either a Sony Viao Laptop with a ATI Radeon IGP card or a Desktop machine that has an NVidia GeForce 3 Ti card.So is that desktop an Apple machine?

- Chris

{MSX}
03-01-2005, 09:06 PM
i was thinking of a 1 vs 1 spaceship battle in a small area

Ahh shoot, I had a similar idea :(

:mrgreen:

Dont' think it's a problem anyway :P Mine will surely be better :clown: :toothy:

savage
03-01-2005, 09:49 PM
Please guys, let your submissions do the talking :).

Chris, I knew that uDevGames had a competition, but I did not know that they also used a Dog Fight theme. Btw, thanks for the getting the word out to the MacOS community.

No my desktop machine is not a Mac, but a friend at work has one that I can test games on.

Sly
03-01-2005, 10:13 PM
What do you mean with that? Dog fight fit's really great into WW2, since it was the last war where most of the air planes haven't had any air-to-air missiles and fought each other with machine guns. So I guess doing some dog fight with WW2 airplanes like a Junkers JU-87 Stukka against a Spitfire over some war place like berlin would give a great scenario for dog fights.
I've been playing Battlefield 1942 online,in particular the Battle of Britain map, as ...uhh... research. Yeah, that's it. Research for this competition. 8)


P.S. : I'm still thinking of entering this contest, but I already have a game project running and I'm still undecided on just halting it for 3 months. Besides this I had some "accidents" within the last months concerning the abuse of some of my open sources which made me rethink my opinion about giving away my sources.
I have a game project currently underway as well. The engine that I'm developing for it can easily be used for this competition though. I'm planning on using Newton as well. Guess I've got a bit of a learning curve in front of me, so I'll be studying your Delphi Newton demos well. :)

Chris Burkhardt
03-01-2005, 10:16 PM
No, uDevGames has never had a Dog Fight theme, that is unique to PGD.

> No my desktop machine is not a Mac, but a friend at work has one that
> I can test games on.

Oh good, thanks for clarifying.

WILL
04-01-2005, 12:25 PM
Firstly, Welcome to PGD's forums Sascha and Chris! :)

I am in no way in charge of the compitition rules so none of this is a part of the official rules. Just an idea and some possibilities to consider.

As I have read and understood, some of you guys may want to use your own 'closed-source' engines and libraries in the competition. Well, this is still very possible without having to release the source of your engine or library. It is after all a seperate product is it not? :) It can easily be thought of as using a popular Graphics API or Physics engine, if it's a seperate product and is of your own design. The line to draw on this is obviously, it can't be for something you made just for this game.


Well, this is an idea anyhow. But by all means I'd consult savage on this if you are unsure or want the official word for the contest.

Sascha Willems
04-01-2005, 01:54 PM
No, I'm not using any engine of mine. Since it's far more challenging to write a whole new game (except some of the basecode I use), I'll do that.

I already got the airplane physics running (thanks to the easieness of newton) and the rest shouldn't be that hard, since I also already have ideas for the gameplay and the settings.

But I have one additional suggestion for judging : Since it's an open-source compo, why not also judge the source and not only the game itself? Good programming means also writing clean, readable and well documented sources and that should go into the judgement of the entries. If clean and commented source won't give any score, then it would be kind of pointless to "waste" time writing clean code and commenting it.

LP
05-01-2005, 04:45 AM
If clean and commented source won't give any score, then it would be kind of pointless to "waste" time writing clean code and commenting it.

I strongly disagree. There are many advantages of writing clean code that are primarily related to the quality of your product as well as for the development process. Especially in terms of game contest, I believe if you put the same person to implement the same game in two versions - one with clean and commented code and another - well, the "bad" way ;) I bet the clean version will win (and don't tell me it'll be exactly the same because it won't!) ;) It might take more time to develop it, but hey - there're still like 2 months for the deadline and if you write your code well... you might even find it useful later for somewhere else ;) I think the code should not be judged but I believe it would be foolish not to write it well (even if it wasn't for the contest).

Finally, splitting this thread would be a good idea :roll:

Sascha Willems
05-01-2005, 10:33 AM
I was a bit unclear again I guess ;) I didn't mean that I don't want write the code clean and document it (since I already started working on the entry : the code is very clean and documented), but it takes time to e.g. write longer comments on how you for example do physics and so son. So since a compo gives you a limited amount of time you have to set priorities, and if comments and so don't go into judgement, then (at least I) you normally try to not write too much comments, but just enough for you to know what it's about.

So I'd still like to see the source code go into final score. Maybe not with big impact, but it should at least give some points.

BinarySpike
05-01-2005, 10:07 PM
I'm here from idevgames and had a game in mind...
(too bad I'm working on a centipede clone)

A multi-player (networked)
"Souls in the System" clone. :twisted:
It'll kick tail in udevgames 2005 :twisted:

To bad... :toocool: :fuzzy:

WICKED idevgames doesn't have these. :D

Balaras
06-01-2005, 01:34 PM
So how does one enter :)

And for the cross platform stuff. I only have a win box right now (though a linux is possibly coming soon). But I have no means of getting my stuff compiled and tested on a mac. So is it absoultely nessesary to provide binaries for all platforms ?

/Balaras

Chris Burkhardt
06-01-2005, 03:57 PM
The rules the way I read them call for either a win32, a linux, or a mac os x executable... not all three.

If you'd like to have a mac binary to distribute, though, I'm happy to try and compile people's entries on my iBook (FreePascal) 8-)

savage
06-01-2005, 06:28 PM
Appologies for the delay in getting back to everyone, I have been ill the last couple of days,

Balaras : you only need to provide one executable for either win32, OR, Linux OR Mac. If you provide more, that would also be great, but it is not compulsory.

Chris : on your iBook do you have SDL installed? If you do have FPC, SDL and MacOS X, please have a look at the FreePascal forum @ http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/viewtopic.php?t=1768 as I have a question for you.

Sascha : Coding style will not be judged in this competition, maybe next time. The reason being that I would expect most people will write fairly clean code, not necessarily commenting everything meticulously, but at least using descriptive variables and using some nice spacing, with some comments, thus making it at least readable. I believe that writing well structured code helps in the long term in allowing the code to be more maintainable. So it should be standard practise, rather then something that is done only when the "outside world" will see it.
I hope you understand my point.

lithander
07-01-2005, 12:32 PM
Hi,

I've still not decided if I take part or not. What causes me problems is the precise meaning of the word "Dogfight" and thus what kind of game-ideas meet the contests topic and what does not.

The in my eyes most fitting translation of a dogfight would be some kind of "aerial engagement between fighter planes" like i read it in an definition. But a topic like that wouldn't leave much room for original ideas!

Another definition I've read was "a fiercly disputed contest" wich would allow almost all kind of games where a player competes with another player or AI.

If anybody could help me with clarifying what kind of games are accepted and what kind of games don't meet the topic, that would be pretty cool! ;)
-lith

Eriken
07-01-2005, 12:42 PM
I'll quote something Savage wrote in one of the first posts:


as stated in the rules section the opponents can be anything from bacteria to solar systems, so humans are acceptable.

That should give you some other choices than airplanes ;)
_____
Eriken

Traveler
07-01-2005, 01:54 PM
That should give you some other choices than airplanes

True, but the idea basically is kept the same, so Erikens question still stands.
With dogfight I think of two entities chasing eachother, usually in some kind of arena, till one of them is killed or destroyed.

However, in arcade based racing games there usually is dogfight system, where the player tries to stay ahead of a cpu (or a ghost, which is actually the player, but from a earlier game)

I asked a the question earlier, if it would be considered a dogfight when the opponent was not destroyed/killed, but rather too late to reach an objective. This was also allowed.

The term 'objective' however, might be too general. For examples, I doubt, a game in which two players have to build something, say a factory and produce 5 units of product X, is considered a dogfight.

Or is it?

Eriken
07-01-2005, 02:51 PM
I think if you really want to, you can read anything into "battle" and "dog fight".. It might mean different things to different people as well.

Battle of wits, 2 opponents in a game of Jeopardy? ;)

I guess the question is what Savage's definition of the term "battle" is.

And then again, you can just create something and if it doesn't fit the rules in the end you'll have accomplished several things anyways:

1. Completed a game
2. Given something to the community in the form of ideas and source-code
3. And maybe had a good time ;)

* Eriken hands the microphone over to Savage

savage
08-01-2005, 12:06 AM
Traveller, to me a Dog Fight is intense competition or dueling between 2 things. I have tried to keep it as general as possible, but maybe it is too general. For me there has to be an element of adrenaline involved in playing the game against the competition, be it AI or human. But the intencity can be achieved in many ways either using a twitch type system or using suspense.

If others think the scope it too general, please speak up.

Huehnerschaender
08-01-2005, 02:43 AM
OK, here is my interpretation of DogFight.

Two dogs byting each other until one dies :lol:

*Dirk, get more serious please* Ok!

In my overmodest opinion, a dogfight is something like a combat one on one. There are two individuals (Spaceship, airplane, people, animals, bacterials, sperms, whatever you want) who are fighting until one is defeated. So the winners is the last man standing. It has nothing to do with RTS, RPG, Action Adventure, Racing Game etc.

All other thoughts like building up towns, factorys, etc. are fitting in other game categories like RTS or something similar.

I guess the intention of savage was to bring a contest to life which is as simple as possible concerning gameplay ( so there is not too much of programming AI), because then the maximum number of participants will raise from all those unhappy programmers who never finished a project.
And so there are many, many completed game (samples) for other programmers (newbies and advanced) to take a look at the doing and to learn (and maybe to do better in the future). Thats a very good way to keep the PGD alive and to fulfill our all dream -> Delphi is good to develop games!

The Delphi/Pascal community has nearly nothing to present. This contest can change this.

So please, make DogFight games, and don't plan to make your project as big as possible with features no one else might think of etc.
Because then you will not finish your projects until march -> no one will see it / no one wants to take a look at it.... just another unfinished game which will never be finished. We need references.... That's my point of view.

Greetings,
Dirk

PS: I recommend that we (who have already begun with the dogfight-contest) will post things like screenshots etc in the "my projects" forum. Then you can see if you are doing right, see what others think about your work (maybe some graphics are not ok, gameplay sucks, etc), and especially find help for some mind-burning questions.
Don't mind someone could steal your idea! The game will be open sourced anyway :o)

-> Wow, I think if we all work together, everyone doing his best, we could finally find out the specialties of each other and so we could work as a big "PGD-Team". One is good at graphics, one has knowledge about AI, one about OpenGL one about bla bla bla... We could and would really help each other!

EDIT:
Somewhere in this forum I found something like: "Shhhh, don't tell him the solution of his problem, otherwise he will win the contest!'"
Ok, this statement is meant as fun, I know :D
But we all should help each other because we all have the same intention. Making games in Delphi which will be successful. We will never make Halflife 3 or Doom 4 but maybe we can make games which are loved by the commonality. :wink:

LP
08-01-2005, 04:29 AM
I actually agree with Huehnerschaender and would like to suggest that games stick to the original idea of dog-fight and well, keep things as small and compact as possible. The idea is not to have a massive multiplayer game here that runs distributed across several networks with hardcore 3D graphics, etc. (it's an exaregation to show my point :wink:). I think there are infinite number of possibilites to make a game in Dog-Fight theme. With enough creativity and few lines of code you can make a good game which is *fun* to play. Believe me or not, when a person starts playing a video game which is not fun, no matter how good the special effects or the features of the game are, I can assure you that this game won't last on that person's hard-drive. It's like a Delphi2005 which with all its great features quickly disappoints you loading for like 10 minutes and then "Access violation in dcc90.dll..." message when you point your mouse at "class" keyword. (j/k :) yet, too bad I bought D2005 so quickly...)
Even though I wanted it to be more a technical challange (size limit, graphics , time limit), this contest, in my opinion, has a very wide range of possibilities and I think we should help each other here so that all contest entries will work as an example for PGD ;) Maybe even forming teams would be nice idea... (I see a plenty of programmers in here... working in a team is much more fun than doing on your own, you know ;))

Cheers,
Lifepower

WILL
08-01-2005, 05:25 AM
Alot of what you have just said Huehnerschaender, is not that far off, in fact most of it is right on the money. The whole idea of the contest was to bring a greater interest in developing games in Pascal by way of friendly competition. cuz... I know, Dom told me. ;)


We will never make Halflife 3 or Doom 4 but maybe we can make games which are loved by the commonality. :wink:

Now, now! This is not entirely true. :) It is possible just not all that probable. Afterall Mr. Carmack himself is considering releasing the source to Quake 3... The community translated 2 why not 3. ;) One day... one day. :twisted:

LP
09-01-2005, 05:03 PM
Err, didn't see this one...


We will never make Halflife 3 or Doom 4...

We won't, because these names are probably their own trademarks.


Mr. Carmack himself is considering releasing the source to Quake 3

And what's so special about it? I mean, if Microsoft decides to release the full source code of Windows, it'll be news... forgive my skeptism, but besides 3D engine I don't see any other thing we could learn from Quake3 source code (and talking about 3D engines, I've seen either on FlipCode, GameDev or elsewhere hobbyist people making 3D engines you have never dreamt of). Can we beat HL2 or UT2004? I believe we can and we will ;)

cairnswm
10-01-2005, 07:08 AM
A couple of questions.

1. Why not have the entrants mark each others entries (then Savage can enter)?
2. Are multiple entries allowed (I've got a really nice simple idea to do in a few hours and another that will take my 72hour GDC team two months to do).

I would like to say thanks to Savage for the Contest as I love these contests and have entered a number already.

WILL
11-01-2005, 04:39 AM
cairnswm, you were the first person I thought of when savage said he'd be making a compo. ;)

Possibly, in later competitions we could have more options of a more complex voting/scoring system in place, but with limited resources at this time I think this is probably the easiest and fairest way to determine the winner for now.


Why don't you guys start up a new thread to discuss ideas for the next compo's judging/voting system?

cairnswm
11-01-2005, 04:45 AM
I'm glad to know I've made an impact on someone :)

Cool - we'll discuss the next contest somewhere else.

If savage is interested in moving it to a peer marking system I am prepared to get a web site up that will allow the entering of scores from each marker.

I'm halfway through a design doc for my first entry. The second entry I have in mind has been floating around in my head for nearly 6 months now. Benji (my partner for the 72 hr GDC) and I will be working on it together. We start development this weekend and hopefully it will be my best contest entry yet.

savage
11-01-2005, 06:24 AM
Can anyone who is definately planning to take part in the competition, please send me a private message ( so as not to clutter this list ) so that I can get an idea of how many competitors are taking part. Just a simple message like "Yes I am taking part" will suffice.

The companies who are interested in providing prizes would like to know how many competitors there will be.

Thanks.

{MSX}
11-01-2005, 07:43 AM
Prizes
----------
I am currently speaking to Borland, ATI and NVidia to see if any of them are willing to supply prizes for the competition. In either case, I will announce some kind of prizes on the 1st of February.


How is this going on ? :mrgreen:

Traveler
11-01-2005, 08:52 AM
The companies who are interested in providing prizes would like to know how many competitors there will be.

Perhaps we should advertise a bit more!

I have just placed a message about the competition in the turbo section of Gamedev.net and also the left a message in the forum of http://www.remakes.org.
I also wrote something about the compo on my own website.
Hopefully we get a bit more players this way...

cairnswm
11-01-2005, 09:08 AM
I have sent a message about the contest to the GameCompo list. (Basically guys like me that just enjoy entering game development contests).

Also sent an email to the web admin of Sulaco.

Someone must get it published on the front page of GameDev (I dont know how to do that).

TheLion
11-01-2005, 09:15 AM
I have sent a message about the contest to the GameCompo list. (Basically guys like me that just enjoy entering game development contests).

Could you provide us with that a link to that list? Would be cool to know what's going on in the game dev compo world :)

savage
11-01-2005, 09:18 AM
How is this going on ?

I am still emailing them and awaiting firm offers. So please tell me how many of you will definately be taking part.


Perhaps we should advertise a bit more!

Traveller, thanks for getting the word out. I have also tried increasing the site's profile and mentioned it on gamedev.net, flipcode.com and even DevMaster to name but a few as well as a few mailing lists and newsgroups.

As an aside, there seems to be a strange absence of GLScene people taking part, but maybe they are just not into competitions.

cairnswm
11-01-2005, 09:44 AM
http://www.gamecompo.com/

Very difficult :)

savage
11-01-2005, 09:47 AM
So cairns, did you announce it on that list or should I?

cairnswm
11-01-2005, 10:23 AM
I sent an email containing the whole bolded section from the news announcement.

TheLion
11-01-2005, 10:32 AM
http://www.gamecompo.com/

Very difficult :)

Thanks! :) I just subscribed! ;)

Stevie56
12-01-2005, 03:26 AM
Gosh, Gobsmacked and Bedazzled!

No Prizes.

No Judges.

Inaccurate Etymology. (A long word meaning The origin on a word or phrase).

For Dogfight see http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=dogfight&searchmode=none

Wow! Isn’t it exciting!!!

A truly awe-inspiring start to a new Community?

In the wonderful words of Cecil B de Mille:- "Count me out"


PS. I wonder if Lifepower ever finished the software he promised to (Sorry! Caused the ‘expectations’ from those he hyped into believing he would) deliver in January 2004?

Sly
12-01-2005, 03:43 AM
Gosh, Gobsmacked and Bedazzled!

No Prizes.

No Judges.

[snip]

Wow! Isn?¢_Tt it exciting!!!

A truly awe-inspiring start to a new Community?

In the wonderful words of Cecil B de Mille:- "Count me out"
As the initial post says, prizes are being worked out. Even if no prizes eventuate, I'll still be competing just for the fun of it. Judges are yet to be announced, but they will most likely be PGD staff or other highly-regarded members of the community.

A competition is not about prizes. It's about having fun while working towards a given goal. Showing the world what you're capable of. Entering a competition at least motivates me to complete a project. I don't care if I win or lose. I just enjoy putting my best effort in there and being proud of the end result. This competition has given me incentive to work on my current project which has made great strides forward just in the past week or two.

So diss the competition if you want. That's your choice. I don't think that will have any effect on people who have decided to enter.

Stevie56
12-01-2005, 04:21 AM
Your time.

Your choice.

Time is what your life consists of.

Spend (or waste) it as you choose.

Good luck (but don’t expect any).

Chris Burkhardt
12-01-2005, 04:46 AM
> Don't follow me..... I'm lost

Thanks, I won't, mister grumpy pants.

> For Dogfight see ...

Gee, that's an enlightening etymology: "from dog (n.) + fight." I never would have guessed :roll:. But the question isn't about its origin, it is about its meaning (that is, its definition). Yes, it is used to describe aerial combat of fighter planes during WWI&II (and beyond), but is often used more abstractly. It's meaning in the context of this competition is cleary stated in the very first line of the contest description: "For those unfamiliar with the term, a dog fight is usually a duelling battle between 2 opponents."

My favorite dogfight game is the battle mode of Super Mario Kart on the SNES :)

Savage, I agree with Sly in that prizes would just be icing on the cake of actually competing a game, contributing to available Pascal source code, learning, and probably meeting some cool people as I ask for help. So don't knock yourself out too much trying to get dazzling prizes.

(Sorry Steve if you were being sarcastic in your posts and I took you too seriously, I don't know anybody on these boards and couldn't tell)

Stevie56
12-01-2005, 05:10 AM
Grumpy pants!

Name calling already? That childish behaviour didn’t take long to emerge did it???

Ever tried thinking uphill?

If you are implementing a project then it shouldn’t NEED promises of non-existent prizes awarded by non-existent judges to incentivise you towards completing it.

If you are a true programmer and you feel it’s a worthwhile project, you’ll complete it anyway, regardless.

Even though tides swarm over the land or horses tear you limb from limb, the visualisation of your ideas will materialise on the screen.

If it’s in your soul, (and that’s where all good projects originate) who needs prizes as incentive?

WILL
12-01-2005, 05:21 AM
If you wish to start a pissing contest I would suggest you go somewhere else because I will settle it quickly.

Stevie56 you came here with a negative and sarcastic attitude, you should not expect a nice response for such behavior. I would suggest if you wish to participate in the site you are more than welcome to do so, but do not start a fight on these boards. If you have a difference of opinion then state it appropriately. Poor behavior is not welcomed here.

Sly
12-01-2005, 05:33 AM
If you are implementing a project then it shouldn?¢_Tt NEED promises of non-existent prizes awarded by non-existent judges to incentivise you towards completing it.

You probably missed this bit from the original post.

Prizes
----------
I am currently speaking to Borland, ATI and NVidia to see if any of them are willing to supply prizes for the competition. In either case, I will announce some kind of prizes on the 1st of February.
Is it February 1st yet? No. Wait until then to see what is announced before making any claim about the existence of any prizes. Previous messages in this thread from savage have confirmed that he is in contact with parties that could offer prizes, so it is being worked on.

As for judges, it just has not been announced yet who they will be, but there will be some.

Trying to state assumptions as fact isn't gaining you any brownie points.

If you have enough self-motivation to complete every one of your own worthwhile personal projects, good for you. I have some motivation, but an extra little incentive is always a good thing. For me the incentive is not the prizes, but the fun of competing.

lithander
12-01-2005, 10:29 AM
Even though tides swarm over the land or horses tear you limb from limb, the visualisation of your ideas will materialise on the screen.

*lol* What drugs are you on, mate?

I suggest you invest the rest of your precious live-time into more worthwhile projects and let those who chose to waste their time with such a useless endevour (no prizes -> worthless. your logic is dazzling!) do as they chose.
Why even waste your time on arguing with us when you could follow your soul and be a true programmer instead?

LP
12-01-2005, 04:05 PM
PS. I wonder if Lifepower ever finished the software he promised to (Sorry! Caused the ?¢_~expectations?¢_T from those he hyped into believing he would) deliver in January 2004?

I did finish it ;) And I also promised to release it as open-source. Now, that's a big problem :roll: I'm no longer moderator of Asphyre forum in here (so can't post announcements) so it all will appear on the site of our GS later on (when the site design is finished). Why I have problems with open-source you may ask? Because there're always people like yourself ;) Some of them abuse of each other's code, others keep flaming anyone else's work even if such work was a gift (for free). After maintaining PowerDraw/Asphyre for 4 years as a free software, I am thinking on leaving it (or, making it commercial) .


Your time.
Your choice.
Time is what your life consists of.
Spend (or waste) it as you choose.

You seem to have an exceptional way of choosing where to spend the "time of your life". If you know some psychology - whether you criticize anything, you are just describing yourself or "how you see your image in the given situation" (err.. don't know good english translation). In other words, you speak of yourself and not about the contest. So maybe using your theory on yourself first before suggesting it to anyone else is a good idea ;)


Don't follow me..... I'm lost.

Are you trying to prove this?

cairnswm
13-01-2005, 05:15 AM
I have a full time job. I do a lot of development at work.

At home I have a hobby of writing games. Often these games do not get completed as I was trying dsomething to understand how things work.

I use contests like these to give myself deadlines to work to. A deadline motivates me more than anything else to get something actually complete.

Of the three contest I have completed work for. Only one had prizes. Prizes are a lot less important than someone telling me my work was fun to play.

lithander
13-01-2005, 10:26 AM
@cairnswm: I agree 100%! ;)

But an other thing: is it possible to make the news sticky or something? So that even the occasional visitors still have the chance to learn of the contest?

Now the only hint on the start-page is the scroller and I for example never read stuff like that. :/

-lith

Huehnerschaender
13-01-2005, 08:46 PM
Hi there,

I am interested in the amount of people who will take part of the contest...
any numbers available? (savage) Or is this secret :lol:

Greets,

Dirk

WILL
14-01-2005, 01:55 AM
Hi Hue,


I am interested in the amount of people who will take part of the contest...
any numbers available? (savage) Or is this secret :lol:

Hardly. :) In fact we would like to know. Last count I've heard was 10+ confirmed.

Huehnerschaender
14-01-2005, 07:01 AM
Ok, 10+ is a number I can deal with...

Just wanted to know if I am the only one and don't have to put too much effort in it :lol:

But with 10 contrahents I have to do my best :wink:

WILL
14-01-2005, 07:06 AM
:lol: ok well thats one way to think about it. :)

{MSX}
14-01-2005, 07:46 AM
10 are too much :P I hoped there was 2 or 3 partecipants, so that i could reach the podium :mrgreen:

Ok, i'm fighting for the 10th place then :D

Sly
14-01-2005, 08:42 AM
Race ya for it! 8)
hehehe

cairnswm
14-01-2005, 10:04 AM
Well I'm fighting for 5th place - My goal is top 50% in the contests I enter.

lithander
14-01-2005, 10:30 AM
I'm fighting for a funny and original gameplay! ;) When I complete it in time for the contest my first goal is met, when it is fun my seccond goal is met, if it get's a bunch of good critics I'm all happy. An award would be cherry on the cake but i know there are many talented guys taking part who will all hand in cool products. So that's not exactly one of my goals!

-lith

Traveler
14-01-2005, 11:54 AM
10 are too much, I hoped there was 2 or 3 partecipants, so that i could reach the podium

There may be 10 participants, but I doubt they'll all produce a playable entry.
And, if you care for prices, I doubt Borland or NVideo/Ati are going to support a competition with so few participants.

Huehnerschaender
14-01-2005, 12:06 PM
Since this is a contest, I am doing the very best I can do in the given time (and I don't have much sparetime to put in this (my kids need too much of it :lol: )).

The final result is not of much importance to me. It should just show me, how good or bad I solved a given exercise. When I can follow the judgement of putting my entry on the last place, this is ok for me, because then I have lots of other projects available where I can learn something from.

TheLion
14-01-2005, 01:04 PM
Those 10 contestants is only the current count that we know of ... there might be more... I'm not sure if we have been added to the list already but the DGDev team is going to enter as well.

It might be a good idea to make a page where contestants have to signup so you know exactly how many people / teams will participate! :)

Huehnerschaender
14-01-2005, 07:07 PM
Geeeeeee.... DGDev Team as opponent.... not a simple task :?

But I will beat you, too :lol:

btw, how many people are in DGDev Team? I will do all by myself, programming, graphics and sound...

{MSX}
14-01-2005, 07:14 PM
Geeeeeee.... DGDev Team as opponent.... not a simple task :?

But I will beat you, too :lol:

btw, how many people are in DGDev Team? I will do all by myself, programming, graphics and sound...

Also, they're the staff! How can the staff take part to the contest ?The judgement will surely be biased! :D
I want to get last with a clean judgment, not with corruption! :mrgreen:

Obviously i'm joking :joker:

TheLion
14-01-2005, 07:20 PM
Geeeeeee.... DGDev Team as opponent.... not a simple task :?

But I will beat you, too :lol:

btw, how many people are in DGDev Team? I will do all by myself, programming, graphics and sound...

Also, they're the staff! How can the staff take part to the contest ?The judgement will surely be biased! :D
I want to get last with a clean judgment, not with corruption! :mrgreen:

Obviously i'm joking :joker:

hehe, I don't know where you get the idea that we are staff, I got my staff status today to write tutorials, I haven't been asked as a judge... I know Eriken is staff of some sorts but I have no clue if he will be a judge... and Momor is (as far as I'm aware of) not staff... I think we'll figure something out so that the contest will be fair! ;)

That should also answer all your questions Huehnerschaender we are at the moment with only 3 people and we might get a friend to do some graphics.

Oh and we called Bioware and they have agreed to help us out, hope that's not a problem? :twisted: :twisted: :twisted: 8) (j/k of course)

Mirage
14-01-2005, 08:54 PM
Such a contest is a great idea!:D
I will participate.
As I understand, all I have to do is to send a PM to Savage now and give him a link to my game's archive before March 15th. Am I right?

WILL
15-01-2005, 01:15 AM
It's funny, I was asking Eriken about the DGDev Team. I really didn;t know too much about it really and even the fact that I became so involved in DGDev and the merger didn't seem to shed any light either. Though I know now, I think you guys should have a little History page(along with a news page ;)) on your new site discussing something about you guys and how you got formed. Becasue essentially though the team's name used the DGDev label, it really was just a bunch of guys from DGDev that formed a game dev team while on the site.

So to clairify to those unaware, the DGDev Team is not an organization within PGD, but they are all members. :) I think that is accurate TheLion?


Mirage: Yes, please PM savage. He'll be able to give you whatever information you will require.


As for the count of participants, the number I gave was only a rought estimate of what *I* have seen... I'm not running the contest or judging for that matter. Or even participating. I'd love too, but I have more than a full plate. :( So don't consider anything official until it comes from him. BUT, I'd strongly suggest PMing, emailing, or getting in contact with him in some direct way(I don't mean posting in some obscure thread anywhereon the site, he can't accurately count you like that).

It will not only help him get an accurate picture of what is going on and open his options somewhat in the way of this contest.


Oh one last thing, be sure that noone participating will be a judge. ;) He was quite clear with me on that when we spoke on this.

Eriken
15-01-2005, 08:03 AM
Hehe, loads of things we could have done I guess.. like updating our website ;) But if you're interested in the DGDev Team, there will be an interview of them (us) on PGD soon ;)

About the jugdes, hehe, nothing stops you though from checking in on IRC to hear the gossip about who might be the jugdes and annoy them bigtime.. that should be a sure way for that last place everyone is fighting for ;)

Good luck ;)
_____
Eriken

TheLion
15-01-2005, 04:19 PM
So to clairify to those unaware, the DGDev Team is not an organization within PGD, but they are all members. :) I think that is accurate TheLion?

Yup, that's correct! 8)

And about that new and info stuff, we actually had another website that contained that info, but it was getting outdated and it looked really ugly (if compared to modern websites) so we kinda decided to not spread that link around. We are planning to make a new website, but due to a lack of time that idea gets postponed everytime! :?

Huehnerschaender
17-01-2005, 12:07 AM
Hi there,

I just want to know if AI-Players are a must. This is a big part of programming a game and if it doesn't have to be part of the game or is not judged anyway I would spend the bit of time I have in other things like graphics and gameplay.

Greetings,

Dirk

{MSX}
17-01-2005, 07:24 AM
I managed to get a news about the compo on the italian game programming site Gameprog-Ita (http://gameprog.it) :P

savage
17-01-2005, 03:55 PM
Huehnerschaender - as I have said previously, AI Players are not a must as it could be a multiplayer game, but if the game is not multiplayer and you don't have an AI player, who would the human player play against?

Nicola - Thanks for spreading the news, greatly appreciated!

Huehnerschaender
17-01-2005, 07:18 PM
Savage : Thanx for your answer. I thought there has to be both of them, AI-player and multiplayer. Maybe I go back to school and learn reading again :lol:

Traveler
18-01-2005, 08:23 AM
Borland has posted a newsitem about the compo. You can read it here: http://bdn.borland.co... (http://bdn.borland.com/article/0,1410,32929,00.html)
Though the news itself may appear very familiar,.. notice the part at the bottom! :D Very nice!

WILL
18-01-2005, 08:48 AM
Sweet :D

savage
18-01-2005, 09:36 AM
notice the part at the bottom

Wow you guys don't miss a trick do you? I was hoping to announce the prizes in the next few days.

Huehnerschaender
18-01-2005, 04:45 PM
Wow... that's a real nice price :lol:
So I change my opinion about the part of "winning is not so important to me" *hehe*

LP
19-01-2005, 01:56 AM
Holy $h1t!! :o This is a serious prize, ppl!

Edit: P.S. What kind of license is provided with the prize? (I've heard there are academic licenses that are worthless compared to the regular commercial license)

savage
19-01-2005, 06:08 AM
My understanding is that this will be a the full version of Delphi 2005 Architect edition, with no restrictions, which in the US is worth about $3000.

jasonf
19-01-2005, 09:53 AM
Sweet.... Might change my mind about entering Guns-Reloaded then :D

michalis
21-01-2005, 12:55 AM
Hi.

I have yet another question related to "what is qualified as dogfight game ?".

Namely, without giving any technical details, I have an idea of a duel between the wolf and the hunter. Player always plays the wolf, and hunter is always AI.
So I have 2 opponents trying to kill each other. But they both "fight" in a different manner. Does this kind of game qualify as a dogfight game ?

P.S. If answer to my question is "yes", you can inc() that CounterOfPeopleThatParticipate, as I will surely try to do it. Actually, If the answer is "no", I will probably think of something different and participate anyway.

savage
21-01-2005, 06:22 AM
Hi michalis,
Welcome to our forums. To answer your question, Yes I think the fight between a wolf and hunter would qualify as a dog fight game.

Look forward to seeing your entry.

Traveler
30-01-2005, 09:56 PM
I was wondering how everyone is doing as we're nearly a month away now. Any screenshots to show, a demo perhaps?

I wish I could say the latter myself, but I can't yet. But, as I do not want to come entirely emptyhanded, here's a shot of a new fighter I've been working on.
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/1strender.jpg
Still needs lots of work in the texturing department, but moddeling is pretty much done (although I'm thinking about redoing the cockpit).

Anyway,... I'm dying to see what everybody else's working on, so let's see those screenies!

Sly
30-01-2005, 10:05 PM
Nice model. How many polygons in that thing?

Traveler
31-01-2005, 09:04 AM
Nice model. How many polygons in that thing?

Thanks! It's a high polygon model. The base model has about 6500 polygons, subdivided about 30k.
It was not intended as a 3d game model hence the large amount.

Sascha Willems
31-01-2005, 01:40 PM
Although I don't like to post stuff of a contest work before the contest is over, here you've got two current screenshots of my entry (click on them for bigger versions) :

http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_january_26_2.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/january_26_2.jpg) http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_january_30_1.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/january_30_1.jpg)

(Hint : Look at the radar on the second shot, maybe you'll recognize the landscape ;) )

The game is coming along nice, and everything is already working. As of now, you play splitscreen only (you can switch to only one player view, but that's for debug purposes only) and your goal is to kill the other player (if I get the time, I also want to implement other game modes). Graphics need to be spiced up a bit (I plan on doing some vegetation on the terrain), and I also need to find useable sounds and music for the game.

As a little bonus, the game will also include an HTML-File that contains some stuff about the developement history of my entry, with screenshots that I made chronolically, so you can see how the game advanced.



So I hope that other people get over their shadows (I know it's hard to give out stuff during a competition) and also post some WIP-Screenshots of their projects.

Traveler
31-01-2005, 02:26 PM
Look at the radar on the second shot, maybe you'll recognize the landscape

LOL :D

It looks quite impressive!


Although I don't like to post stuff of a contest work before the contest is over, here you've got two current screenshots of my entry

Well, there are two options. Either people think they'll never stand a chance and quit, or they are even more motivated to finish/improve their game.

In my case its the latter :twisted:

Eriken
31-01-2005, 02:29 PM
That looks nice! :)

Only things I see that might happen with WIP-screenshots are:
1) You scare the competitors ;)
2) You give some ideas to the competitors
3) Nothing at all..

I've might have gotten scared now, but in the end, it's all for the community right? ;)

Here is a picture of one of our (DGDev Team) rendered figures. Might not be how it appears in game though ;)
http://home.online.no/~eeinebae/tanksmall.jpg
_____
Eriken

savage
31-01-2005, 03:13 PM
Well I do hope that no one gets scared off or discouraged, after all a screen shot is static. I hope any WIP screenies act as motivation for those competing.

tux
31-01-2005, 03:32 PM
they all look impressive :)

JSoftware
31-01-2005, 04:16 PM
damn nice screenies.. :!:

Huehnerschaender
31-01-2005, 08:18 PM
So here is what I am working on. It will be a top down 2D dogfight game.
It has nothing to do with planes or tanks :wink:
I like roleplaying games and decided to let a warrior fight against a rogue.
I decided to let them both be able to cast spells, too.
I don't want to tell all the features, but progress is doing well. Animations for both players are finished (about 200 Animation-Frames per character) and nearly all features are implemented.

http://www.dino-it.de/k1.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/1.jpg)http://www.dino-it.de/k5.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/5.jpg)http://www.dino-it.de/k6.jpg (http://www.dino-it.de/6.jpg)

Sascha Willems
01-02-2005, 03:13 PM
Well I do hope that no one gets scared off or discouraged, after all a screen shot is static. I hope any WIP screenies act as motivation for those competing.

If I wanted to discourage people, then I would have uploaded an acutal in-game video with sound ;)

Seriously : I also don't want to see people getting discouraged just because some of us post good-looking screenshots here. Even if you don't win a price you can say that you've gotten something usefull done in a given amount of time.

So please carry on, I'd likt to see more screenshots!

Eriken
01-02-2005, 03:22 PM
So far the only thing I've seen is people who would want to participate just because of the prizes, so I don't think there is many that will be scared off.

So I think you've done very well there Savage :)
_____
Eriken

savage
01-02-2005, 05:44 PM
Hi guys, some late breaking news. The prizes will need to be reshuffled as I have just been contacted by a company who wishes to make another prize donation. I will announce the new prizes in the next few days.

Traveler
01-02-2005, 08:16 PM
That's great news!

For what its worth, I'll be sure to give special credits in my entry to all donators! It's the least I can do.

Btw, savage, I noticed that you haven't modified the annoucement on bdn.borland.com. Perhaps it's a good idea to update it, now that the prices are known.

savage
01-02-2005, 10:08 PM
I will update the version on bdn.borland.com once I finalise the prizes with the new sponsors. It should all be synced in a few days time.

lithander
02-02-2005, 07:15 PM
No screenshots and no demos yet, but I've started working on an entry today and can give some infos about what I'm planning to do.

The game will be called Scrap Hunt and settled in a sci-fi scenario. Allthough there are two players duelling I need to refer to the more general definition of Dogfight (a fiercely disputed contest) to make it fit in the theme.
The game could be called classic, it's arcade like: Few controlls, a two dimensional environment, simple, straight-forward goals, but - hopefully - a compelling gameplay that is easy to grasp and hard to master and most important fun to play. As the gameplay demands no 3D-environment I'll use a 2d sprite engine based on sdl that is yet to be develloped. (No need to try to do a 3D game just for the sake of technology as it will look like crap anyway compared to the games currently on the shelves. ;))

So much info on Scrap Hunt for now.
The stuff you guys posted about your games looks very promising. I really look forward to the final results. I think the whole contest will give pascal gamedevellopment and thus our community a nice boost and that's one of the reasons why i take part.

-lith

Eric
21-02-2005, 08:32 AM
I'm not sure yet if I'll be able to make a playable game in time for the competition, but here are two screenshots for the end-of-first-weekend (probably looks better than it plays :wink:)

Let's revive this thread!

http://glscene.sourceforge.net/misc/airblast/HotPursuit.jpg

http://glscene.sourceforge.net/misc/airblast/FurBall.jpg

Sly
21-02-2005, 09:54 AM
That looks very cool, Eric. Keep it up.

Sascha Willems
21-02-2005, 09:58 AM
Really looking great, hope you get your entry finished so that we can see it in action.

P.S. : Could you tell what you're using for (OpenGL for graphics? Or glScene) and what (if) physics engine you use? Since your game looks similar to mine (except that you use modern aircrafts) I'm interested. I'm using Newton for my game and together with it's buoyuancy-feature (that word is damn hard to spell *grr*) it was very easy to implement arcarde-like aircraft physics.

Eric
21-02-2005, 12:10 PM
Thanks :)
Particle systems are the easy part though, the real gameplay stuff is another story :?

> Could you tell what you're using for (OpenGL for graphics? Or glScene)

GLScene (and thus OpenGL).

> and what (if) physics engine you use?

None, I just slapped together a small function to serve as flight model. Same story for the collision system, which is rather a placeholder for a real collision system to be added later (if time allows). I'm trying to press on to the rest of the game first (AI, UI, missions/levels...).

> Since your game looks similar to mine (except that you use modern aircrafts)

Wether or not I keep the "AfterBurner" 3rd-person style will depend on wether or not I find time to make cockpit graphics, and it's modern because the only nice 3d model I had was a modern aircraft ;)
Dunno if you've tackled the AI part yet, but as I'm aiming for low-altitude combat, I've trouble preventing crashes in the canyons during dogfights and "sitting duck" behaviour at the same time... AI's not much of an opponent yet :roll:

Sascha Willems
21-02-2005, 01:45 PM
I'm not planning to implement AI. Since I'm using "real" physics for my aircrafts, I would not only have to teach the AI not to crash into the terrain but also on what to do to change the airplanes direction. It's not just "if you want to face the player, then turn 20A¬? to direction X" like one would do in an ego-shooter. I'd rather have to teach a neural net (I guess, a statemachine wouldn't do the job with physics) on how much force/torque and speed to apply to get into the right direction.
And since I don't have all the time I wish I had for this game I'll only implement multiplayer. So you either battle on one PC via splitscreen or you play over LAN.

Right now I'm finishing off my game, like adding some stuff to make gameplay more fun (like bonus objects) and I'm also enhancing graphics a bit (though I don't think that I'll implement shaders, I don't have time for that).

Eric
21-02-2005, 01:58 PM
> So you either battle on one PC via splitscreen or you play over LAN.

hmmm splitscreen, hadn't thought of it... I'll keep the idea as backup plan :)
By LAN, you mean it as "fast LAN with zero lag", or do you plan to have some movement prediction or anti-lag trick?

Sascha Willems
21-02-2005, 04:37 PM
Since it's only two players I haven't built in any lag-compensation techniques. I've tried the game over a real network with two players and it worked without problems and lag. But maybe I'll build in some off that stuff for the client as it shouldn't be too hard. Right now the server also calculates the matrix of the client plane, and I've thought of letting the client calculate it itself as long as the server doesn't send one, and as the server sends a new matrix it get's updated on the serve. But as I said I don't think that I'll need it, and besides this especially debugging in a network is no fun at all, so I'm glad if I don't need to work on the networking part.

Mad_Aeon
21-02-2005, 08:47 PM
I can be wrong, but did some posts in this thread disappeared?
For example I posted some questions about the minimal hardware (and get replies too) but I can't find these posts anymore ?!?

Eriken
21-02-2005, 10:30 PM
You're right, take a look at the newspage for an update on what the problem is :)
_____
Eriken

Sly
21-02-2005, 10:32 PM
The company that hosts this website had a server crash, and the most recent good backup was from a week prior. So some data was lost, including posts made during that week before the crash. See http://www.pgd.netstarweb.com/viewtopic.php?t=1942 for more information.

WILL
22-02-2005, 01:03 AM
Yeah, I can speak as I have 'near' first hand knowlage of what happened. If you guys want to repost your screenshots or other things that went 'away' feel perfectly free to do so. I liked seeing them on here. It was rather inspirational to look at.

Right now we should be near 13 pages in this thread alone, if not for the dreaded 'reset'. :)

Traveler
22-02-2005, 08:21 AM
Right now we should be near 13 pages in this thread alone, if not for the dreaded 'reset'

Yeah, I really hope we can avoid such things in the future as I lost nearly 25 posts, where some of em took quite some time to write too :cry:

In any case, Time wasn't exactly on my side last week(end), which means updates are pretty much limited. Especially in the visual department.
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/crashed.jpg

Here's a new screenshot featuring a crashed fighter.

Huehnerschaender
23-02-2005, 01:41 PM
High,

it's me again. Just wanted to tell you guys that all screenshots I have seen so far are great. I am very impressed of what the community is able to do...

Unfortunately I had problems the last week to do anything. My baby became ill and had to sleep in hospital for several days... I was not able to do one single line of code for dogfight compo :(

I hope I get the missing parts working until 9th of march (my personal deadline, because then I'm outta home for a week). But time is not my best friend at the moment...

Anyway, keep your great work up guys! I just wanted to tell that I am impressed :wink:

WILL
23-02-2005, 02:29 PM
Sorry to hear that Hue. :? I hope the little one is feeling better.

I also hope you can get yours finished in time for the deadline too.
The more entries the better. :) An if not this one, there is always the next one because you can at least learn some stuff for later projectsin the future.

Sascha Willems
25-02-2005, 10:10 PM
Sad to hear HA¼hnerschA¤nder, I still hope you get your entry finished in time. If not it would still be great if you'd release it at a later date.

As for my entry :
If I haven't forgotten something very important (which usually happens, but you most of the time remember it after you've put it up) I'm finished. I've polished the graphics up a bit and also made gameplay more fun. Content and the rest of the game are also finished (most of it, like the GUI, was finished about three weeks ago). After packing it into RAR, it comes in at 10.1 MBytes.
And as a second download (since it won't fit into the limit anymore) I'll also upload a document containing some stuff about the developement of my entry, where the most interesting thing might be the section with the chronological screenshots that nicely show how the game advanced over the time.

P.S. : How about some screenshots from more entrants? So far there were only shots from HA¼hnerschA¤nder, Traveler and Erik, but I don't believe that the other entrants haven't done anything they could show ;)

cairnswm
28-02-2005, 05:10 AM
Good news

Looks like I will get an entry completed :)

My partner and I just havn't been able to get together to code. Basically we have each created exactly the same code anyway (So you may get 2 identical entries coded by two different people :) )

I'll try get screen shots up soon.

How are people doing networking? I have taked the indy idTCPDemo and converted it into 2 components (client and server). I don't know what sort of lag this will create though. Anyone out there know how to set up clients and servers using SDL_Net. I tried but it seemed so much more complex than the Indy TCP options.

S2DL ver 1.04 will also be realeased with my Entry. It's basically ready but I'm trying to get some more documentation working and there are a few more things I'd like to have done by then.

Traveler
28-02-2005, 08:29 AM
Indeed good news cairnswm! Looking forward to any screenies you may have.

savage
28-02-2005, 10:57 AM
William for SDL_Net, speak to technomage, he has used it quite a bit for networking. Drop him a private message and I am sure he will be able to put you in the right direction.

As a side note : I am hoping to announce the Judges tomorrow.

cairnswm
28-02-2005, 07:25 PM
Here is a screen shot of my game as it currently is.

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/dgdev/screen1.jpg

Movement and keyboard control is working
Picking up objects is working
Collision detection is working
Scrolling is working

Made a backup at this point as its a good starting point for a RTS game.

All done in S2DL (uses JEDI-SDL) ver 1.04 which will be released with the game. Possibly will include S2DLTileMap and S2DLTileObjects libraries if I get them working nicely.

technomage
28-02-2005, 07:44 PM
William

you're in luck, I'm just putting the finishing touches to te next installment of the SDL_net programming series. It deals with setting up basic TCP clients and severs. If you'd like and advanced preview, or the source code , let me know by private message and I'll send you a copy. :D

technomage

Robert Kosek
28-02-2005, 07:45 PM
@Cairn, the internet uses "/" not "\" so your image doesn't appear. Pretty nice otherwise.
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/dgdev/screen1.jpg

cairnswm
28-02-2005, 07:54 PM
Works fine on mine - now its posted twice :) I feel important now :)

Traveler
28-02-2005, 08:39 PM
Version 1.04 already ?!
Mine's not even half that far :(

Its a bit unclear, but is that an axe I see he's holding in his hand? If so, do you just throw it or you do have to chase your opponents and chop their head off? :viking:

Looking mighty good! Keep em coming!

cairnswm
28-02-2005, 09:12 PM
The original idea was just run around and chop each others heads off. However I dont think that will be fun enough so each character will start with a basic weapon (lowish power) that can be thrown or bashed with. The run around the arena and collect items to boost your power.

I'm hoping to get some sort of magic system workingas well - collect magic points that can then be used to cast certain spells (3 fire magic = fireball, 2 earth and an death magic create a troll etc)

Sascha Willems
28-02-2005, 09:36 PM
Looking good cairnswm! And moreover I'm glad to see some entries that don't stick too close to what dogfight "really" was defined with (like I do). At first I thought that all entries would have the same setting/gameplay, but it seems that some of the entries differ by a huge amount which is really nice to see!

savage
28-02-2005, 10:48 PM
Works fine on mine - now its posted twice :) I feel important now :)

You must be using IE as your browser, 'cause Mozilla does not like those back slashes at all. Anyway, I went in and edited your post to have forward slashes so now it should appear in all browsers.

Sly
28-02-2005, 11:23 PM
Which it does. The image was failing to load for me earlier, but now it loads fine.

Momor
01-03-2005, 08:03 PM
Greetings !

I think this question hasn't been yet posted : can a person/team submit several entries ?

Just in case my cat learns Delphi by the 15th of March :wink:

Traveler
01-03-2005, 09:59 PM
can a person/team submit several entries ?

Several entries?!
It seems a bit weird to compete against your own entry :scratch:
However the more finished games, the better.
My hat off to those who have the time and energy to produce 2 (finished) entries in such short amount of time.


On a more personal note. I'm definitely feeling the pressure of the upcoming deadline. My game is nowhere near as far as I had hoped it would be and I very much doubt I'll be able to produce a playable game around the 15th, let alone one that is bug free.

Although the new screenshot below may look like it's going just fine, it really isn't. I still have to face quite a few problems ranging from stupid design flaws to more technical issues like AI, not to mention all the bugs.

But okay, enough of my problems. Here's the new shot featuring an enemy fighter going down after receiving too many hits. (oh and some debug info, but you can just ignore that, as it won't be in the final product :) )
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/goingdown.jpg

As usual c&c are most welcome

cairnswm
02-03-2005, 04:42 AM
So it looks like a side view dog fight simulation - cool idea :)

I finally worked out how my magic system is going to work. This is sort of my design document as I worked it out last night.

There are 5 types of magic, Life, Earth, Water, Fire and Air. Players earn 'Spell points' by collecting items in the game. Each spell in the game requires either 2 points of different types of magic, or 3 points of the same type. Based on the order in which the magic points are selected the chosen spell will be defined.

So spending magic points in the order Earth, Life will for a short period double your strength. Spending 3 Life magic points will completely heal you. (for a total of 25 spells in the game). Basically any spell ending in Life will create something, Any spell ending in Fire will burn something, any spell starting with Life will affect only you, any spell ending in Fire will only last a very short period (Earth = power and long lasting, etc) I've got 14 spells worked out so far.

There will be three types of weapon in the game. Each Character will start with one of the weapon types and may pick up others in the game. Missile Weapons (Bows) give good damage from far but small damage close, Melee weapons (Sword) give good damage close but small damage when thrown and mixed (Spear, Hammer, Axe) that give an average damage both near and far. Within each category there may be multiple weapons to gather. Each player can always use their personal weapon (as its always displayed on the image) and a second key will allow them to use the last weapn they picked up instead.

Characters can also collect other items that affect the way the game works - for example Bue boots will allow you to walk on water - still working out other effects but I can affect Speed, Strength, Health and Armor (But I have 15 items in total to allocate effects to) Only the last Boots, Cloak or Gloves they picked up will work.

Each character in the game will have seperate abilities, these will be based around, the magic types they can use, their skills such as Strength, speed etc, the weapons they may use. For example a troll cant use a bow, and may only cast spells that include earth magic, a ninja may use any weapon and any spall but is very weak but is also fast.

Since yesterday (sorry no screen shot) - Got the display of a characters state working (life bar above their head) as well as started on the display area to show their health and current items - for your own character you can see the magic points they have as well - unfortunatly on the screen there is no place to put the characters name - though I'm still trying to work it in (maybe add a sort of title bar on the display box).

I'm hoping to release the game with 5 characters in it - with additional downloads from my web site if people want them - a Knight, a Barbarian, an Orc, a Ninja and an Elf (Sort of Lord of the Rings like :) ) - Each character takes about 600kb at the moment (in PNG - bmp = 3.5MB)

My biggest issue is going to be balancing the game effects. I may put them all into external config files so that changes to them can be nice and easy.

I dont expect to release the game with any AI, only multiplayer (one on one and many on many modes).

cairnswm
03-03-2005, 04:25 AM
I think I have my design complete now - even got a list of 25 spells that I will need to implement.

Programming done since yesterday - Dynamically create players from config files (Each player character is stored in 2 external files - a config and a tiled image file). Got 3 Player characters completed - RedKnight, Barbar and Ninja (Will complete Orc, Elf and maybe Dwarf today). Depending on final size I may make some characters downloadable from my site.

Boots, Gloves and Cloak infomation loaded from config files.

Picking up items is working very well now.

I will be on leave tomorrow (Friday) to sit and work on my game. By the end of friday I should have a playable game ready. If so I'll put it on my website for testing.

Sly
03-03-2005, 07:30 AM
Excellent. Did you take leave just to do this game? That's dedication to your art. :)

cairnswm
03-03-2005, 08:57 AM
I am taking leave just for this game :)

Actually I take about 6 days each year just for games (either development or playing Magic the Gathering).

It took a long time for me to get excited about the game for the contest but I am now excited. I estimate 50hrs so far and about the same to get it finished (I rekon I have about 30 available).

Eric
03-03-2005, 11:32 AM
Interesting ideas, submission look like they'll be varied in style and genre, which is good :)

I've made serious progress on the AI (alas not so much on gameplay), which may now require some toning down... or maybe it's me that needs some more practice, after all I'm not so good at flightsims, and when piloting in BF1942 I perform like a lamb amidst a pack of hungry wolves :lol:

Sascha Willems
03-03-2005, 09:38 PM
Since you are all talking about and showing shots of your projects freely around here I'll do the same too. The following four screenshots are from the current version, which is as I already said as good as finished. The vegetation still needs some teaking (I just recently added it, although I already told myself the game was finished) and I also need to do some more network testing.

http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_jagd_promo_1.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/jagd_promo_1.jpg) http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_jagd_promo_2.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/jagd_promo_2.jpg) http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_jagd_promo_3.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/jagd_promo_3.jpg) http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/t_jagd_promo_4.jpg (http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/jagd_promo_4.jpg)
(click for bigger view)

Sly
03-03-2005, 09:49 PM
Eric: The wolves have to be fed, don't they? :)

Sascha: Those screenshots look great. To make the propellor look a bit better, most games change the propellor when it starts spinning to show a texture that has already been blurred in a radial manner. This gives the effect of motion blur cheaply. Some racing games also do this for the wheels. They might have three or four textures for the wheels, each with a different amount of motion blur in them. As the wheel increases speed, it gets a different texture applied to it.

tux
03-03-2005, 10:11 PM
really impressive :)


are any of the entrants what arent mouse driven catering for joysticks/gamepads/steering wheels etc (force feedback or not)?

Eric
04-03-2005, 09:01 AM
Very nice graphics Sascha, very colorful. 8) I also vote for the propellor change suggested by steve.

Steve, well, yes, someone gotta feed them, but then I have no real idea if my AI is a big bad wolf or just a playful puppy: they all look like wolf to a lamb :roll:

Tux: not sure what you mean, but in my case, keyboard is supported, mouse isn't, and for joysticks, I also support throttle and yaw controls, should have POV 'chinese hat' (?) support and maybe force-feedback if time allows (ie. unlikely in the PGD version). Joystick is rather necessary right now for survival.

Sascha Willems
04-03-2005, 09:11 AM
@Sly :
Sine the propeller rotates in game, it looks a lot better in motion. But maybe I'll really change it to use the mentioned texture-approach if I get the time.

@tux:
My game also can be played using a joystick. In a config tool you can freely choose, but you should have at least a joystick with 3 axis and throttle control (I'm using a Saitek Cyborg EVO for testing). But it can also be played fine with the keyboard, since physics are more arcarde.

cairnswm
04-03-2005, 07:47 PM
My game select screen is controlled by the Mouse - choosing characters etc.

In game itself only keyboard supported as mouse wouldn't make sense and I am certainly not going to have time to get joystick working by then :)


Here is a screen shot showing all the characters I'm releasing with my game:
http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/dgdev/ver1-05.jpg

Each character is managed through a config file (so adding new charaters takes me about 20 minutes - mostly creating the images). Actually everything can be added to the game through config files - Maps, weapons and new obstructions are all supported. (I'm hoping to include a few tutiorials along with the game about customising it). Also I'm hoping to include an expansion pack downloadable from my web site.

Today I created a nice opening screen - 3 different background images included (to set the fantasy theme). The intro allows choosing your charater - currently only local mode works, hopefully get network working on Sunday.

Also today moved everyhting into config files - basically using standard ini format for all of them - not fast but easily customizable.

I'm trying to load a demo onto my web site now - but it seems to be taking forever - but this link may work

http://www.cairnsgames.co.za/dgdev/release.zip
Unzip into a directory - making sure you keep the subdirectories as subdirectories (Images, Data and Maps).

Current release size = 4.1 MB (Which makes it my biggest ever released game) but on disk the directory is 198MB work of files and data - mostly (164MB) my images and temporary images and half done image files etc.


I think after the contest my engine would be really nice to turn into a multiplayer D&D adventure engine. All of us can get together and travell through a cave system or something, just need AI for monsters - needed for some spells anyway - but the structure would suit that very well.

cairnswm
04-03-2005, 08:09 PM
Ok download works - if anyone donwloads it let me know what you think. Only local mode works and the screen follows player one. I'll do split screen later - also the networking.

Huehnerschaender
04-03-2005, 10:28 PM
Hi there,

@Cairnswm

I downloaded your release-file and it played a little "slow". After walking around for about 45 seconds the game quit without saying anything, just shut down the window.

Before the game was shutting down I realized the players character becoming VERY slow. Is this an effect of some kind of boots? Or maybe this information helps you locating the "bug".

Here my specs:

Windows XP Home Edition SP2
DirectX 9.0c

Pentium 4 3.0 Ghz HT
1024 MB RAM
330 GB HDD
ATI Radeon X800 Pro 256 MB (latest Catalyst driver)
Soundblaster 1024 Live

I guess the system fits the requirements :lol:

PS: The game runs with 70-90 FPS


@Sascha
quite amazing screenies.

@the rest
i have no new screenshots at the moment. Trying to implement network play and to solve my biggest problem: filesize.
For this I haven't implemented any new effects or animations. I hope I get all working until my personal deadline on 9th of march.

Greetings,
Dirk

savage
04-03-2005, 10:37 PM
Can I suggest that prospective judges ( You know who you are and I will make an official announcement about you all tomorrow ), not comment on entries until 1st of April

cairnswm
05-03-2005, 06:24 AM
The blue boots slow you down to about 80% of your speed - and red boots will give you a 20% boost.

Game should not slow down at all - 70FPS is OK - though I would expect a lot higher on your system - my notebook gives me 70FPS (There is a sudden slow down sometimes that isn;t related to the game - but may be SDL related)

I've run the game for an hour on my Notebook without it suddenly closing - possibly you went off the right side of the map and caused a memory access - I still need to check those bounds.

Eric
05-03-2005, 07:23 AM
Btw Dominique, are we supposed to/encouraged to release the submissions to the public on the March 15th deadline, or would you prefer everyone to hold back public realeases until Aprils to let judges to their work uninfluenced?

TheLion
05-03-2005, 09:56 AM
@Cairnswm : Your characters look really cool! :) May I ask what program you used to make them?

savage
05-03-2005, 11:40 AM
Eric ,I would hope that the judges are impartial and professional enough not to be influenced by public opinion. I think everyone should be encouraged to release their games publically on the 15th,

savage
05-03-2005, 12:03 PM
Drum roll...

There will be 5 judges and they are...
Steve "Sly" Williams - A long time member of the Delphi game programming community, who works as a professional C/C++ game developer @ Krome Studios (http://www.kromestudios.com/).

Tom "Delphi3D" Nuydens - A long time member of the Delphi game programming community and leading edge OpenGL demo writer over @ Delphi3D (http://www.delphi3d.net/).

Dean "Techno Mage" Ellis - A long time member of the Delphi game programming community and co-founder of the original DelphiGamer.com site and one of the amazing developers @ the Cerebral Bicycle Company (http://www.cerebral-bicycle.co.uk/).

Jon "Tux" Walton - A long time member of the Delphi game programming community who runs the Vader Trophy (http://www.vadertrophy.com/) site.

and

Me - Just someone who likes to hang around chat rooms and trolling.

I remind prospective entrants to please have a fall back mode if your game is for ultra high end graphics cards. If I cannot see the game working, it will be extremely hard to judge it and therefore mark.

I will post this information as it's own New item shortly and will post each judge's machine specs as well in the next few days.

Sascha Willems
05-03-2005, 12:57 PM
Your entry is looking and playing good so far, but I think that this isn't supposed to look this way, or is it? :

http://www.delphigl.de/misc/pgd/runawar.jpg

Huehnerschaender
05-03-2005, 04:28 PM
savage: when do you announce the banking accounts of the judges? :lol:

Carinswm: while playing around with your game I realised that the idea of it is nearly the same as my entry :) but you are using items much intensive. I planned more items and spells, too, but due to lack of time and filesize I had to reduce to 2 weapontypes, 2 spells, one potion and one additional item.

I can hardly wait to play all the entrys...

I have to release my entry before the 15th, because I am not in my hometown from 9th of march. I hope this is no problem. And maybe my game will not be finished... don#t know if I can manage to implement all the things I wanted... But better to release "something" than quitting and throwing away all the hard work.

Ok, I have to go on with my project now ... :D

Momor
06-03-2005, 06:01 PM
Greetings all,

Here are some screenshots of the 2nd DGDev Team entry for the compo. As you can see, the theme is Fantasy, with Dragons as main fighting entites.

The game includes 1P vs CPU and 1P vs 1P. Unfortunately, I don't think we'll have time to implement the network mode for the deadline.

We're still using our Basilisk game engine for this project (which is, as you don't expect, mainly 2D :wink:). On the technical side, the game supports both OpenGL & software rasterizer, OGG music & 3D sounds. It runs on lower spec PC (my development PC is a Celeron 600 Notebook without 3D acceleration).

Click on the thumbs for larger view !

http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd1mini.jpg (http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd1.jpg) http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd2mini.jpg (http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd2.jpg) http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd3mini.jpg (http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd3.jpg) http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd4mini.jpg (http://eicart.free.fr/dragonduel/dd4.jpg)

Traveler
06-03-2005, 08:23 PM
Oh boy! Yet another game added to the list! This may very well be the best year for Delphi/Pascal when it comes to new games.

Mormor, those screens look very nice! I immediately had to think of Drakan, a game where you had to fight other dragons as well.
I take it you have to eliminate the opponent with fire/ice balls in this game too?

I'm very much looking forward to playing all your games and of course browsing through the code hoping to learn a few new tricks. :)

As for my progression, I'm afraid its no ingame shot for today. But I hope you like it nonetheless:
http://www.gameprogrammer.net/pics/outside/promoimage.jpg

All the best in the remaining 9 days!

lithander
06-03-2005, 09:16 PM
My team befell the same fate that seems to be common in real game bizz, too. We will not be able to release a finished game when the deadline hits.

There are various reasons, while i must admit that the one important one is that I'm just a slacker. The development started late, in the first days of february. I had to take a break for a week vacation and I spend hours of precious time with playing World of Warcraft, so I'm still in the middle of coding and far from beeing done.
Besides that neither the girl that will do the graphics nore my musician are nearly finished.

Though, there wont be a game in time for the contest there will definitely be a game within this year. So, for those who care it just means a bit more waiting^^

-lith

Sly
06-03-2005, 09:42 PM
That's a shame, lith, but I do hope that you keep working on it.

cairnswm
07-03-2005, 04:38 AM
@Sascha - Yeah - I know about that problem :) I'm busy getting my Map Editor working so that things like that dont happen - unfortunatly it seems my collision detection is wrong so I need to fix that.

@TheLion - http://www.reinerstileset.4players.de:1059/englisch.htm :)

@Huehnerschaender - All my objects and things are in config files - for example here is a config file for a Sword:


[Sword]
Melee=8
Missile=3
Damage=8
ShootSpeed=20
image=Sword.png
TransparentColor1=181
TransparentColor2=101
TransparentColor3=181
Width=64
Height=64
OffX=32
OffY=32
Pic=0
Frames=0
Dir0=5
Dir1=6
Dir2=7
Dir3=8
Dir4=1
Dir5=2
Dir6=3
Dir7=4

A similar config for a player character is about 3 pages long. For a map about 9 pages. Adding new obstacles, weapons and maps is just a matter of creating the right config files and I can have as many as I want.

At the moment it doesn't look like I'm going to get magic working in the game. Too many of the spells need special coding - I may do some of the easy spells - fireball, strength, haste etc.

Friday was a productive day - but this weekend has been a busy one with friends over to play Dungeons and Dragons and a bit of Carcassonne

mrqz
07-03-2005, 02:45 PM
Hi.
Was wondering if it must be only 1vs1 on can be the Player vs Many ?
Sorry in case this topic was already discussed...i ddn't find it.


Mrqzzz

mrqz
07-03-2005, 03:25 PM
...and i forgot to ask : can some "core" parts be kept closed source ?

F.ex the AI manager ?
Thanks,

mrqzzz

Eric
07-03-2005, 04:09 PM
> Was wondering if it must be only 1vs1 on can be the Player vs Many ?

I hope 2 vs 2 and other team vs team modes are okay (1 human + AIs vs AIs), but I've already made a 1vs1 mode just in case... not just because I'm late with the team AI :roll:

Momor: Dragons, reminds me of Drakan too. Animating such a creature must have been tough on your 3D artist :)

Anyway, any idea how many projects are going to be ready for the deadline (even if barely)?

savage
07-03-2005, 04:36 PM
By my definition, Dog Fight should support 1 Human vs 1 ( either AI or Human Player ) as a minimum. If you also want to add 1 to Many, that is fine, as long as 1 vs 1 is supported.

mrqz
07-03-2005, 04:51 PM
...can some "core" parts be kept closed source ?

F.ex the AI manager ?
Thanks,

mrqzzz

Huehnerschaender
07-03-2005, 08:36 PM
@savage

I think it's a little late to change the rules... If I had known before that a typical deathmatch game is valid for the compo I'd rather had done this, cause its much more fun to play with many players than playing with only two. This could change some judgment results, because I remember some criteria like: "How thrilling is gameplay.... how fun is it to play etc"

maybe I am wrong, but I thought the initial rule said "combat one on one".

Regards,

Dirk

Edit:
Of course I don't want someone not to enter. But if games enter which enable massive battles between many players, the game should only be judged by its 1 vs. 1 component.

Traveler
07-03-2005, 08:48 PM
You have a good point there, Hue!

@mrgz.
I suppose so, as long as your source can be compiled by anyone.

savage
08-03-2005, 09:19 AM
Of course I don't want someone not to enter. But if games enter which enable massive battles between many players, the game should only be judged by its 1 vs. 1 component.

Hi Huehnerschaender,
as I have said from the start, the main criteria is that it must support 1 vs 1 game play and that anything else is extra. So if the developer wants to add something extra and has the time to do so, I don't think they should be stopped. Thus the main focus of the judging will be 1 vs 1 gameplay. In the event of a tie, only then will extra features be assessed.

Huehnerschaender
08-03-2005, 07:03 PM
Hi savage,

THIS ONE IS URGENT, cause I need an answer TODAY.

As you may already know, I have the problem to be on the CeBIT exhibition from tomorrow on until the 16th of March. This means, I will be back home on the 16th late evening. Is it PLEASE possible, to give me only ONE MORE day to the deadline? If so, I can hopefully finish my entry to be playable in the evenings in the hotel room and upload my entry when I am back from the exhibition. There is no disadvantage for the others, because I am only on networking component and I have two laptops only until sunday. After sunday I can't work on it anymore, because my colleage leaves then and takes the second laptop with him.

If it is possible for me to upload my entry on the CeBIT (depends on the availability of an internet connection) I will surely upload it until the official deadline. But if I have no connection I can't and then my next possibility is at home on the 16th.

Please let me know if this is ok in case I have no upload-possibility on CeBIT.

Regards,
Dirk

savage
08-03-2005, 08:58 PM
The Competition Judges machine specs are as follows...


Jon
----
CPU : Athlon xp 2600+
Memory : 512mb Ram
GPU : Radeon 9700pro
Additional : (force feedback joystick, force feedback wheel)
OS : XP Professional SP2

Dean - Machine #1
----------------------
CPU : Athlon 700
Memory : 400 Mg Ram
GPU : nVidia GeForce 4
OS : XP Professional SP2 / Gentoo Linux 2004


Dean - Machine #2
----------------------
CPU : P4 2.6 GHz
Memory : 512 Mg Ram
GPU : Intel 82854G graphics card with 512 RAM
OS : XP Home SP2


Sly - Machine #1
-------------------
CPU : Intel P4 2.4GHz
Memory : 512MB RAM
GPU : ATI Radeon 9800 XT 256MB
OS : Windows XP Professional SP2

Sly -Machine #2
-------------------
CPU : Intel Celeron 500 overclocked to 913MHz
Memory : 512MB RAM
GPU : nVidia GeForce 4 MX440 64MB
OS : Windows XP Home SP2
Additional : Microsoft Sidewinder joystick (with no force feedback).

Tom
-----
CPU : P4 2.8 GHz
Memory : 512 MB RAM
GPU :GeForce 6800 Ultra
Additional : Logitech Wingman joystick and two different Microsoft Sidewinder gamepads.
OS :


Dom - Machine #1
---------------------
CPU : Athlon XP 1.2Ghz
Memory : 512 Ram
GPU :GeForce 3 Ti 200 64MB

OS : Windows 2000 ( Latest SP )/Linux Mandrake 10

Dom - Machine #2
---------------------
CPU : Intel Pentium 2.6Ghz
Memory : 512Mb Ram
GPU :SiS 615 Onboard 32MB
OS : Windows 2003 Server ( Latest SP )

Dom - Machine #3
---------------------
CPU : Intel Pentium 2.8Ghz
Memory : 512 Mb RAM
GPU :ATI Radeon IGP 354 64MB ( Plays HL2 )
OS : Windows XP ( Latest SP )/Linux Mandrake 10


I forgot to ask some of the guys for their OS, but I expect it will be Windows 2000 or XP. Either way I will update this news item as soon as they let me know.

Uploading Demos
--------------------
Jon "Tux" Walton has gracefully given us some upload space on his server.
If you are entering the competition please upload your entries to www.vadertrophy.com/filemanager/
and use the username = PGD & password = PGD.
So all entrants will upload their entries on or before the 15th of March.
Once uploaded you will not be able to delete the files, so if you need to upload a new version of your game you will need to contact Tux.

Since these games will be Open Source, I am looking into creating a SourceForge project that will host all the entries ( source and binaries ). I am waiting to hear back from the SF project acceptance team. In the mean time please send me a private message and let me know what your SourceForge login is if you have it. If we get approval from SF, the entries will then be uploaded to SF and once source code is submitted, that will also be committed to SF.

cairnswm
09-03-2005, 04:33 AM
If my vote counts for anything I vote that the judges give Hue an extra day to get his in.

Traveler
09-03-2005, 08:18 AM
I don't see no problem with that either.

Sascha Willems
09-03-2005, 10:12 AM
Same here, it would be a shame to not have his entry entered into the Compo just because he isn't able to upload it on the exact ending-date.

Eric
09-03-2005, 10:50 AM
Yep, quite okay for me too.

Sascha Willems
09-03-2005, 08:40 PM
For all the interested : I've just put up a developement history of my entry using screenshots. You can :arrow: see it here (http://www.delphigl.de/jagdgeschwader/jagdgeschwader_devhistory.htm). It contains some dozen screenshots that are sorted chronologically and show how the game progressed over the months. In addition (when I get the time) I also plan on writing a post-mortem for the game, which will tell more about how programming went, what tools I did use and so on.

{MSX}
09-03-2005, 09:13 PM
For all the interested : I've just put up a developement history of my entry using screenshots. You can :arrow: see it here (http://www.delphigl.de/jagdgeschwader/jagdgeschwader_devhistory.htm). It contains some dozen screenshots that are sorted chronologically and show how the game progressed over the months. In addition (when I get the time) I also plan on writing a post-mortem for the game, which will tell more about how programming went, what tools I did use and so on.

Do you really keep those candles lighted while you code ?:P

Ah, your screenshots look incredible.. conglaturation! Another confirmation that i'll get the last position :)
Lookin forward to play it!

A question: what happend if a plane get out of the game area (the heightmap)?

Sascha Willems
10-03-2005, 08:29 AM
A question: what happend if a plane get out of the game area (the heightmap)?

The player will start loosing his health very fast, so that he must return ASAP or he'll blow up.

Mad_Aeon
10-03-2005, 01:33 PM
Ok I think it's time to show some screenshots of my entry before the competition expires ;)

It is a fighting game (like mortal combat, to give an idea) but with many new features. I hope it matches the definition of 1 vs 1...
Here are some pics:
http://web90.server16.rhs-it.de/davide/Clam1.jpg

Momor
10-03-2005, 01:46 PM
Hey that's GOOD NEWS, I love fighting games !

Does the reference to Mortal Kombat mean we'll see tons of blood ?? :D

savage
10-03-2005, 06:32 PM
I know everyone is very busy, but it would be a great if other developers, like Sascha, could also write a postmortem article about developing their entry. Covering things like what was right and what went wrong, lessons learned and that sort of thing.

The other thing I wanted to mention was, what does everyone think about the following...
Once the winners are announced, we create a collage of the winning entries and submit it as an Image of the Day on flipcode (http://www.flipcode.com/iotd)

{MSX}
10-03-2005, 10:01 PM
The other thing I wanted to mention was, what does everyone think about the following...
Once the winners are announced, we create a collage of the winning entries and submit it as an Image of the Day on flipcode (http://www.flipcode.com/iotd)

Great idea! that will give us great visibility :P

tux
12-03-2005, 05:03 PM
looks like everyone is holding out until the 15th to upload their games :lol:

wisebede
12-03-2005, 08:07 PM
Hi chaps. I was intending to have a good weekend finishing off my project to a super shiny finish and finishing off all my bugs. Unfortunately my girlfriend has come down with a massive cold and moved in with me, so I'm having to look after her instead. Debugging of a sort, I suppose.

So rather than enter not-quite-working entry I'll have to miss the deadline and release later. I've played PBM games for many years and I've been after a chance to write an automatic hosting and playing system. The only example I can think of currently is Last Squad Nemesis. My game works along the same lines of emailing orders to the server and getting the results emailed back but the game itself owes more to the boardgame Sopwith.

Good luck to the other contestants. You've certainly got me licked in the graphics department.

Matt.

Mad_Aeon
13-03-2005, 12:50 AM
Just another screenshot of my entry, if anyone's interested ;)
Just hope to finish it in time, since I'll have to work much these days :(http://web90.server16.rhs-it.de/davide/fight1.JPG

Eric
13-03-2005, 09:15 PM
> looks like everyone is holding out until the 15th to upload their games

There are always last minute bugs and tweaks :p
Got a RC linked from the GLScene newsgroups for wrap-up testing (at an url that isn't really made for intensive downloads...), hopefully 'PGD final' should be ready tomorrow, still have to test on low-end hardware.

Hope you'll be able to wrap things up Mad Aeon, and maybe wisebede, you could get us out a pre-alpha or demo version?
IMHO one of the goals of the competition is to show there is a lively pascal game dev community, so the more entries the merrier :)

Traveler
13-03-2005, 11:34 PM
I'm afraid I wont' be able to finish my entry in time. There are simply too many problems that need to be worked out first. I thought I could deal with most of them in these last few days, but I was mistaken. :cry:

cairnswm
14-03-2005, 04:32 AM
To those that are not finished. Please upload whatever you have as an entry anyway. I think our sponsors will be disappointed if there are only 10 entries but would be significantly less dissapointed if there were 10 complete entries and another 10 incomplete. Also remember that these games then become open source and if there is potential in your game others will help you get it finished.

cairnswm
14-03-2005, 04:39 AM
Well I finished a stable version of my game last night. Uploading a 4MB file over a 56k modem is sssslllllloooooowwwwww so it hasn't been uploaded yet. I still have a lot of tweaks to do - also want to write a manual and some tutorials about adding new characters, maps and objects into the game :)

Yesterday my brother Patrick came to visit me and helped with a lot of play testing. Once I had it stable (about 9pm last night) we started really playing the game. We made a few tweaks and he suggested a few changes and we spent just over an hour playing the game - not a single crash during that time - I think I won the day with about 7 wins to his 2. We tried a variety of different characters fighting each other (even the two extremes - Elf against Orc) and over all the game was very well balanced.

I need to add potions into the game - healing, strength and haste - as well as some more work on the different objects in the game.

Patrick was disappointed that there was no magic in the game and suggested I find a way to add something simple like a fireball into the game. I have decided to add a magical wand into the game - the wand will throw fireballs as its missile attack method. Also that implies I should add a 6th character into the game - a wizard who uses the wand as his default weapon.

I am very very happy with the game as it is now. I must also say thanks to technomage for his SDL_Net help (he sent me an early version of his SDL_Net part 2 tutorials). Based on his work I implemented networking using SDL_Net into my game.

Momor
14-03-2005, 06:53 AM
Oh, just for information : what is the submission deadline ?

14th of March, 23:59 ?
15th of March, 23:59 ?

savage
14-03-2005, 07:41 AM
The deadline is 15th of March, 23:59 ( US West Coast ) time. That should give entries from all over the world enough time to submit something.

michalis
14-03-2005, 07:54 AM
Unfortunately my entry also will not be finished on 15th March. I wrote a lot of nice code and my VRML engine has finally get some serious optimizations, but unfortunately I completely failed to construct some usable scene and models for this game. Also some code (simple things, but essential to at least call this an "incomplete entry") still needs to be written...

A week more and I could manage to do at least some draft models... :( :( :( Anyway, to those eager to see what I done, you can take a loot at my WWW page. All my code is GNU GPLed, so open source rulez. And all this code will be used in my next games, as it constitutes now quite nice VRML OpenGL engine.

savage
14-03-2005, 09:44 AM
Hi entrants, may I suggest that you submit something even if it is not completed. At least we can all see how much you have achieved so far!

{MSX}
14-03-2005, 11:35 AM
I'm almost done :P It's all the morning that i work on some details :P
Luckily my boss is in meeting all the morning :mrgreen:

My game is quite simple but in the end it's well done and nice to play.
My only regret is that in the last days, being a little late, i started adding code very badly regardless of the program code structure :( But that's probably a commonplace as the deadline gets near :P

I'm most of all happy to have completed the game. I often stop developing a game after some time i work on it. This time it was different, tanks to the competition :)
This scores my fourth completed game :P

This evening i'll compile it with all languages/os supported and i'll package it :mrgreen:

Regardless of the position i'll get (the last :P ), i'm already very satisfied. :D

JSoftware
14-03-2005, 12:17 PM
i couldn't finish mine either.. it grew to a beast of buggy code and a modeller who couldn't make it to skin the model in time. to finish it would have to rewrite it from scratchs

i will upload it anyways if you want atleast my vector and matrix library is quite usable :wink:

Eric
14-03-2005, 06:30 PM
Looks like I'm the first to upload, do I get extra points? 8)

There wasn't much in the way of identifying an entry, should we upload a text file of sorts along with the archive to identify ourselves? My file is "AirBlast_Setup.exe", placed in the DogFight directory. File size looked grossly correct but I couldn't download the file to check if the upload went right (got an error 404).
Anyway I'll probably upload the file in the GLScene SF file system, so if it went wrong, I'll be able to test the "upload from url" feature ;)

tux
14-03-2005, 06:38 PM
dont panic, the entry did upload.

i will fix the error 404 (its because the username is PGD but the script accepts pgd and the server url is case sensative)




when you upload, feel free to create a new folder and use that to upload screenshots and other extra things


[edit]

it seems that because the username was uppercase (username isnt case sensative on the script), the browsers (well at least firefox) converts upper case url's to lowercase, and because the folder was uppercase and the server url's are case sensative it resulted in a 404 :)

bug fixed ;)

{MSX}
14-03-2005, 08:29 PM
I uploaded my entry too :) I've created a directory called "msx" and put the file there. It's SpaceCadett.zip
The zip seems to work ok, so i think i'm done :)

Now we just have to wait for the judgement :P

cairnswm
14-03-2005, 08:42 PM
I am busy uploading my game. I have also made it available from my web site:

http:\\www.cairnsgames.co.za\dgdev\runawar.zip
and source
http:\\www.cairnsgames.co.za\dgdev\runawarsrc.zip

Game is about 5MB and src about 40kb

This is the biggest game I have ever released. I have had a lot of fun doing it. I wish I had done more but it is a great game as it is at the moment. I have spent more than an hour playing it with my brother (he is 27 and me 35) and have watched my kids play it for an hour (8,6 and 4years old) so it seems pretty good.

My thanks to Savage for the contest - I (as always) have had a lot of fun with it.

cairnswm
14-03-2005, 09:02 PM
Do we have upload to the other location or is to my site good enough?

Sascha Willems
14-03-2005, 09:08 PM
Looks like I fubar'd it *grr*. Please ignore "jagdgeschwader.rar" (I closed the window by accident), or someone remove it please. The game itself is contained in jagdgeschwader_final.rar.

So at last it feels like a heavy weight fell off my shoulders, since I've put many hours in this and since it was my first game that I developed under time pressure. So for now on it's just to wait til April 1st and see if my entry wins something ;)
Oh and btw. : The network mode is not as nearly as smooth/finished as I wanted it to be. I neither had the time nor the possibilities to work out a "commercial class" network-experience, so I suggest you to play my game splitscreen.

And thanks go out to Dominique for organizing this greaat contest, and also to all people ho entered it, I'll start trying out your entries by now.


P.S. : Stay tuned for my post-mortem, I'll try to get on it ASAP.

Huehnerschaender
14-03-2005, 09:36 PM
Hi guys,

unfortunately I have bad news. I am not able to finish my entry. The CeBIT fair is like hell for me and I fall into bed like a zombie each evening. No time, no energy, no entry... I am very very sorry about this. I have spent very much sparetime in this and now I am just disappointed. There were too many personal problems to finsih my game. The family became ill, my job sent me to the fair (I also had to do some work for this before start of the CeBIT), I lost weeks I really needed. There would be only 1-3 days needed to get it "almost done" or "playable" but I can't do it right now, because tomorrow morning I have to be at our stand at the fair again. I tried to do the last missing networking parts in the hotel, but since we only had laptops from office there I was not able to do it... (one laptop had DirectX 8.1 installed *lol* -> didn't know that before... I need 9.0c because of Asphyre).

I had no internet to download DirectX and now I have no second laptop *lol* Somehow fate does not want the best for me :lol:

Ok, just wanted you to know that my entry will not be available on the 15th.
I will provide it later when I got one or two evenings without stress after the fair if anyone is interested.

BIG BIG SORRY GUYS! Believe me, I am more worried about this than you. I wish every entry good luck!!!

Dirk :cry:

looh
14-03-2005, 11:49 PM
We started working on our game only month ago. :cry: So we are so sad, that the game doesn't look as we want. There is a support for multiplayer, but it isn't fully working.

edit

Because we had a bit more time a made some facelift. The final version is uploaded.

www.volny.cz/looh/data.zip
www.volny.cz/looh/Aireggae.zip
www.volny.cz/looh/binary.zip
www.volny.cz/looh/data2.zip
www.volny.cz/looh/sourcefinal.zip

And some screenshots
www.volny.cz/looh/screen-1.jpg
www.volny.cz/looh/screen-2.jpg
www.volny.cz/looh/screen-3.jpg
www.volny.cz/looh/screen-4.jpg

Mad_Aeon
15-03-2005, 12:04 AM
Just want to be sure, we have time until the 15th at 23:59 (-6 gmt)?
Now here at my home is 1:07 AM (+1gmt)

I'm just fixing some bugs, and making the game better...
http://web90.server16.rhs-it.de/davide/fight2.jpg

Eriken
15-03-2005, 12:08 AM
Aaaahhh, there is nothing like a deadline to actually get some work done.. Panic and stress when the deadline comes near.

The code starts out neat and clean, and ends up like a mess that makes you think "Open Source: yes Source Interesting: Maybe Source Understandable: Maybe not".. gotta love deadlines ;)

There are quite a few who apparently can't make it this time, but for your sake, and our sake it's a good idea to complete it anyways.. The feeling of completing something and getting interesting feedback is always good :)

Good luck to everyone :) And may you survive a few dogfighting battles ;)
__________________
Eriken --- Beyond tired

Eric
15-03-2005, 09:47 AM
Hehe, the sweet smell of panic ;)
Added a handful of screenshots to my subdir.

Thanks for the fix Tux, there seems to be a slight bug still (with FireFox at least): when you enter a subdirectory, go back to it's parent (with browser's back button) and then try to enter another subdirectory, it will take you to the 1st subdirectory you entered, even though the URL has changed and is correct. To get it working, you must click the "parent directory" link.

Btw, cairnswm, looks like the zip you uploaded seems corrupted, it's 4MB only and won't unzip. The one at your site works fine.

JSoftware
15-03-2005, 10:31 AM
For some reason my zip file won't show up :cry:

tux
15-03-2005, 10:49 AM
eric >> that will be because it uses sessions. ill try get it fixed after the competition (i cant really pull the script apart at this important time)


cairnswm (and everyone else) >> if your having trouble uploading your entry, but you have it uploaded to your website there is a feature "upload from url", just enter the url in (including http://) and hit submit


jsoftware >> is your zip 1.35mb? it is on the server but not showing up in the script (possibly due to the { and } in the folder name) (winrar opened it and extracted without complaining its corrupted)

sorry about the bugs, the script has been "live" for a few months with around 10 people using it everyday and they havnt come across these problems (it will definatly have less bugs for the next competition ;) )

Mad_Aeon
15-03-2005, 02:11 PM
Hi, can somebody tell me how many hours left?
These deadlines.. I became crazy thinking about GMT ;)
I upploaded yesterday a beta, and in a few hours I'll upload the final.
Is this ok?
Can somebody tell me please if the beta entry I uploaded was uploaded correctly?

Due to the file size limit I'll have to remove a character from the game; I will give a link to download it, if anyone will be interested.

Eric
15-03-2005, 02:40 PM
Yep, beta unzipped fine and ran ;)
Not sure how many hours remain, about six I would guess to the GMT0 midnight, + quite a bunch to the west coast deadline deadline, I guess if you work until the very end of the deadline you might drop dead or fall asleep and forget to upload :twisted:

> the script has been "live" for a few months with around 10 people using it
>everyday and they havnt come across these problems

After the /. effect, the PGD competition effect?

Sascha Willems
15-03-2005, 02:46 PM
@Mad_Aeon :
Your beta did not run on my PC. It gives me an AV and then says that I need at least OpenGL 1.1. So maybe your game has problems with my Radeon 9700?

The other games all run fine, but I'll wait until after the deadline before I start making comments (maybe in a separate thread? This one is getting too huge).

Eric
15-03-2005, 03:08 PM
>then says that I need at least OpenGL 1.1.

Wild guess is that you updated your drivers to the latest ATI version which claims OpenGL 2.0 support?
--> Mad_Aeon: you need to update your OpenGL1x version from the CVS or the just-posted GLScene CVS SnapShot.

Sascha Willems
15-03-2005, 03:13 PM
You're right Eric, that's true. I recently switched to Catalyst 5.3 which is the first with an 2.0 in the OpenGL version string, so maybe that's the problem. But I generally think that checking the OpenGL-Version is a bad idea, rather check for the extensions you use.

Eric
15-03-2005, 03:41 PM
Indeed, but that's an old test that checked if OpenGL version is at least 1.1, older OpenGL versions don't support things like vertex arrays, texture formats, texture objects, etc. - too many unsupported stuff to care checking about :)

{MSX}
15-03-2005, 03:48 PM
I'll wait until after the deadline before I start making comments (maybe in a separate thread? This one is getting too huge).

Yes, i'm for opening a new "comment thread" too!

savage
15-03-2005, 04:07 PM
Just to clarify the deadline time. 7:59am GMT ( London time ) on 16th of March should work out to be 11:59pm PST ( Los Angeles Time ) on 15th of March.

My understanding is that there is 8 hours difference between GMT time and West Coast USA PMT time.

So everyone should have just under 15 hours and 45 minutes left to submit your entries. THERE IS STILL TIME .

This news post was submitted at 16:17pm GMT.

Eric
15-03-2005, 04:11 PM
I reckon there will be a thread created to announce the closing of the PGD competition and publish links to submitted entries, screenshots etc. should make an appropriate place for comments.

cairnswm
15-03-2005, 07:26 PM
I tried loading my game to the official upload site. Took an hour to finish but then didn;t show anything. :(

The RunAWar files in the root are incomplete uploads - please delete them.

Is uploading to my web site enough?

tux
15-03-2005, 07:33 PM
use the upload from url feature

Sascha Willems
15-03-2005, 08:04 PM
@looh :
If you want to enter, it is not enough to just post your game in this thread. You need to upload it to the URL specified here somewhere and you need to keep the rules. One of those is that you must include sourcecode, which is not included in your downloads. Oh, and your entry wont work on my system as it also tells me that OpenGL 1.1 is not supported, seems you have the same problem as Mad_Aeon.

Sascha Willems
15-03-2005, 10:06 PM
Seems that except eric and myself no one included any screenshots with their entry (which I thought was part of the rules as it's stated there), which is somehow sad cause three of the entries are not working on my machine (they all seem to use glScene). The ones from Mad_Aeon, Marcus Oblak and the one from loosh give me an "Need at least OpenGL 1.1", seems that glScene is very common.

savage
15-03-2005, 10:34 PM
Entrants, please upload screenshots! You still have time.

Mad_Aeon
15-03-2005, 11:54 PM
Ahh finally I uploaded the whole thing. (Taking a BIG breath) ;)
Now I can start thinking "why didn't I did this, and that too.." and so on ;)

Please someone confirm me that everything is uploaded correctly so
the filesize is ok (10,4MB), the screenshots are ok, the game runs (I recompiled it so the OpenGL 1.1 error should be fixed).

What else? I discovered this conmpetition quite late.. I was aiming to make a combat game like "Hero" and other similar movies.
I thought about dinamic variable animations, a good cloth system, swords that dinamically modify the textures of what they it and so on...

I think I realized half of a quarter of what I had in mind ;)
...but found the double of bugs I was expecting ;)

savage
16-03-2005, 07:08 AM
I can see...
MadAeon_fight_Arena.zip Mar 15 18:28 10.38MB
which I assume is the correct version.

savage
16-03-2005, 07:24 AM
Just so you know, There seems to be a problem with the upload script this morning, and The Lion has informed me about the DGDev Team's other entry called Tanks this morning ( 7:00am GMT ) . Their entry can be downloaded from http://dgdev.qano.net/tankbusters.rar
http://dgdev.qano.net/TankBusters_src.rar

In light of the upload script not working correctly, I will still accept The Lion's entry.

{MSX}
16-03-2005, 07:47 AM
sorry, i didn't realized the screenshots were mandatory.
I uploaded them right now

cairnswm
16-03-2005, 08:07 AM
Just for fun I have loaded an expansion pack for Run A War onto the upload site. It adds a new character for the game (DarkDwarf).

Edit: This is definitly Post Contest! Done to show how easy it is to add things into the game. I am busy with a couple of other expansion packs - other characters - Troll, Fairy (My daughter wants a fairy), and a few new maps - a Castle map and a cave map.

tux
16-03-2005, 09:10 AM
there was a problem with the script last night, if you had a problem uploading your entry last night please email it to me at jonwalton [at] gmail [dot] com

alexione
16-03-2005, 09:52 AM
Hi, everyone:)

I've just spent more than a hour trying to upload my entry, but file manager doesn't work :( Last few days I was with a friend of mine who doesn't have Internet, so we could even send partially-finished entry... Is there still time for always-laters to participate in competition...?

Best...

tux
16-03-2005, 10:08 AM
try upload it now, or upload it to your site (if you have one) and send me the link, or attach them to an email and email them to me at jonwalton [at] gmail [dot] com (i have a 10mb file limit, so you might have to send multiple emails)

Sly
16-03-2005, 10:12 AM
Am I just blind? I can not find the upload URL anywhere.

tux
16-03-2005, 10:16 AM
http://www.vadertrophy.com/filemanager/ :)

[edit]

username :: PGD
password :: PGD

password is case sensative

Sly
16-03-2005, 10:20 AM
I was just about to post the question about login. :)

I definitely remember seeing your first post about the upload site, but damned if I could find it tonight.

Sascha Willems
16-03-2005, 01:52 PM
So is the deadline over by now? If yes, I'd like to see a thread were it's announced so we can talk about the entries, since I've just played through each of them and like to talk about'em.

Eriken
16-03-2005, 02:15 PM
Not that I can say it officially.. hehe.. but it is past "7:59am GMT ( London time ) on 16th of March" so why not?
_____
Eriken