PGD Annual 2011 Competition; Thoughts

[WILL]

Hey everyone, just wanted to start the buzz about the next PGD Annual. It's long past due for us to have one, but there is another in the works in case you were wondering.

What are your ideas, thoughts about the next competition?

We will most probably not do one in 2010, but instead 2011 to give us time to plan, talk to sponsors, acquire judges and advertise. We want to do it right with this next one so we are starting a bit early with a few things done a bit differently.

We're keeping the simplified format, there will be a new theme, but it might be a bit shorter and you'll have more notice before it starts to get prepared and tell all your friends about it.

In fact I'll be going around to all the forums I know and indie game development news websites and posting about it, so if you know of any sites that I should visit early next year drop them onto a list here!

Now this is all early so don't get too excited just yet, nothing is official, I'm just talking openly about it with you all to get input and ideas. Mostly to do with advertising and to help spread WOM about the competitions.

And of course all the donated money to the PGD fund will go into advertising and prizes of this next competition so feel free to donate.

[chronozphere]

Like I stated before, I think that simplicity must be key in such a competition. We have to make sure that it's something that can be done on a small time budget. For example, we could try to organize it in one week or weekend. It's way more fun to see 8 small finished games than 3 finished games made in 5 months (like the last competition).

I think this is the most important part. The theme is not that important to me, because even If I don't really like it, I can still spend a few days to make something crazy.

[WILL]

Yeah, we'll be keeping the theme simple this time around to keep the competition more accessable to all skill levels. I'll also be providing the Awards for Excellence Awards.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Like I stated before, I think that simplicity must be key in such a competition. We have to make sure that it's something that can be done on a small time budget. For example, we could try to organize it in one week or weekend. It's way more fun to see 8 small finished games than 3 finished games made in 5 months (like the last competition).

I think this is the most important part. The theme is not that important to me, because even If I don't really like it, I can still spend a few days to make something crazy.

WILL's organising the next big one, but it was always my plan with the PGD Annual site to allow smaller competitions that are done just for kicks... short, sharp, coding bonanzas... as you say weekenders or week long ones.

[WILL]

Yeah, I may also run a few couple-of-weeks ones under a different brand, maybe call them 'challenges' instead or something. I was thinking of doing this under Pascal Gamer though, but since we are all one big happy family, once we get organized for competitions again, they can be ran through the PGD Annual site like the 'big one' it's self.

[JSoftware]

Sounds good

[code_glitch]

all sounds good, might enter myself. How 'simple' are we talking here? Thats my main question and what is the standard of the games submitted?
*worries while sifting through the library of half finished games*
and do you have a 'half-finished-sort-of-working-but-not-too-well' competition?

[phibermon]

oh awesome, I totally wasn't around for the last PGD and I totally want to be part of this next one. Are we talking 1D? because if it is I've got an excellent idea for a game, I call it 'line'. The object of the game is to move along the line meeting other 1 Dimensional characters who ask variations on the question "Do you think higher dimensions exist?" at which point the player has to select from range of responses that reject the notion of higher dimensions as pure fantasy.

Once a suitable response has been given, the player continues upon their journey, safe in the knowledge that they'll never fall off anything.

[Ñuño Martínez]

WILL's organising the next big one, but it was always my plan with the PGD Annual site to allow smaller competitions that are done just for kicks... short, sharp, coding bonanzas... as you say weekenders or week long ones.

I agree. I've joined some week-end contests and they were funny, and people did interesting games too. Actually I did my best game in one of these contests: Train (here you have the development blog).

[chronozphere]

Are we talking 1D? because if it is I've got an excellent idea for a game, I call it 'line'. The object of the game is to move along the line meeting other 1 Dimensional characters who ask variations on the question "Do you think higher dimensions exist?" at which point the player has to select from range of responses that reject the notion of higher dimensions as pure fantasy.

Once a suitable response has been given, the player continues upon their journey, safe in the knowledge that they'll never fall off anything.

LOL! Fantastic idea. Keep in mind that you should add a dialog to let the player choose one of the following screen resolutions: 1x800, 1x1024 and 1x1280.