PGD Annual 2006: Last Stage!

**Huehnerschaender** · 04-05-2006, 05:29 PM

Not really.
My endboss is finished 90%. Then I have to test him out and balance him.

Ending sequence is still missing.

Everything else is ready to go. I hope I have the time to design some new levels with raising difficulty to get the player a feeling of forthcoming and achieving things. But I also have to take a look about the time the judges are willing to play my game, so I think the first levels will be much easier than I would have designed them normally.

How is everyone else doing?

**WILL** · 04-05-2006, 07:25 PM

I wouldn't worry about judges having time to play you games. There are no more stages after this one, this is it. The judges will play each one carefully and thuroughly to 1st) find all the completed goals, and 2nd) get an honest opinion about each of the 4 categories that your game will be judged on.

But if you are worrying about going overboard, notice I put a minimum or 3 levels? It's meant to really be a demo of what your full game would be. Akin to a commercial game's demo where you try out the engine and the gameplay to see if you like it. Same deal, only there is no full game.

Yet... there is still the IGF for that lucky winner that wins the top prize. And a chance to take your game/game engine to the big leagues in front of all those publishers, other indie developers and software houses all drooling for the next John Carmack or Erik Chachi. [size=9px](Sorry, I've been on this Another World/Flashback high for the last few days :lol

[/size]

**Traveler** · 04-05-2006, 07:31 PM

Originally Posted by WILL

How is everyone doing so far?

Its going to be a loong weekend. I really hope there aren't any surprises waiting for me.

[(nearly)offtopic rant]
But, if I may answer that from another perspective:
It really saddens me that there are so few of the competitors displaying work, talking about it or commenting on that of others. I haven't been in many competitions yet, it's in fact my fourth. But of all, this one has got to be the most depressing one, in a general spirit kind of way.
I mean, it is that we have a big logo on the frontpage telling there's a competition going on, or else noone would know about it. I posted a screenshot a couple days ago, none but Huehnerschaender cared to comment. And thats only the most recent example. Now I ask you, what is that about? Why is it that of all competitors, only a handfull have posted here during the entire competition?

If there's ever going to be a new PGD competition (and judging by the current I honestly have my doubts about that) I would make it a rule that everyone has to display at least one screenshot per stage.
[/(nearly)offtopic rant]

**aidave** · 04-05-2006, 07:55 PM

Our entry is submittable now.
There are a few things to spruce up,
but every major component is finished.

The final Blocked BOSS is so BIG and BAD, you wouldnt believe it if I described it.

So we will release a video of it soon!

I have a question about the final submissions.
Will they be released for all to download at some point?

**WILL** · 04-05-2006, 08:06 PM

The final submission from each team will be posted on PGD, yes.

**cairnswm** · 05-05-2006, 05:37 AM

@traveller

Yeah I agree about the lack of input and feedback - and I am guilty of it too

- unfortunatly PGD isn;t a site that gives a lot of feedback on any of the members projects - I believe this is because of all the sites I know PGD seems to have the most people actually doing some work on making games instead of just talking about it. Also the average age here is a lot higher than on most other game dev sites - and older = more responsibilities.

My look and feel has not changed since Stage 2 of the contest. All the happenings are in the background - getting AI working etc - so new screen shots would have been meaningless.

I find a contest of 3 months WAY too long. I lost interest in my entry about 2 months ago

- now I have to force myself to finish it.

**Huehnerschaender** · 05-05-2006, 06:50 AM

cairnswm,

you lost interest? That's sad, because I don't think a good game can be made in only one month. The contest surely is very long, but this gives us time to make great things which counldn't be done in one week or even one month.
When I take a look at what other competitors published of (screenshots and videos), I must say that I have never seen a contest of such high quality results.
And personally I am quite happy about the long time we had, because I needed every minute real life left me to work on my entry. And as it seems, this will be my first "completed" game. Plus, I am overwhelmed myself from what I achieved in the last three months all alone. No artist, no modeler, no sound freak, nothing. And what I have atm feels like a real game when played. I never thought I'd been able to do this game alone. Everything works like I "dreamed" of when I started.

The only thing I am sad about is, that over 40 teams started and only a few left in the end. But the teams that stayed the course seem to have very good entrys I am curious about. And thats what counts. We are showing that we as Pascal programmers CAN MAkE games, even games of high quality (compared to other hobby game makers).

**technomage** · 05-05-2006, 10:08 AM

Lack of feedback can be a problem here, but it is true allot of people here are working on things rather than talking about them and every moment is needed to work on those projects. That is something I am guilty of.

With regards to the competition, as a Judge I am impressed by all of the entries, but I have purposefully kept my comments limited to the competition pages in an attempt not to favour on entry over another.

We have learnt allot this year with regards to posting comments and feedback from the judges this will only improve things next year (and I hope there will be a competition next year, I might actually enter this time

)

Keep up the good work people, all of you have done remarkable things in the last 3 months

**Traveler** · 05-05-2006, 11:05 AM

Originally Posted by cairnswm

I believe this is because of all the sites I know PGD seems to have the most people actually doing some work on making games instead of just talking about it.

If that is true, how come we dont see any evidence of it. I mean we all know the benefit of showing work to others.
The way I see it is that noone bothers post because they dont expect any feedback anyway. It could be seen as a waste of time. (and yes please do prove to me that I'm wrong

)
I can understand that judges aren't commenting on work other than what has been submitted for deadlines. But surely everyone else has a few moments to spare to write something?

Originally Posted by cairnswm

My look and feel has not changed since Stage 2 of the contest. All the happenings are in the background - getting AI working etc - so new screen shots would have been meaningless.

Now there's an argument I can live with. I've had the same thing for quite some time as well. In fact, up until right after the 5th stage my entry hasn't change a whole lot, graphically speaking.

Originally Posted by cairnswm

I find a contest of 3 months WAY too long. I lost interest in my entry about 2 months ago

- now I have to force myself to finish it.

No offence but, I find it odd that you blame the level of interest in your entry to the timeframe of the contest. Three months to work on a game is not a whole lot in general. Especially if you only have a couple evenings and the weekends to work on it.

I'm sorry for being so negative in my last 2 posts, but I kinda hoped this contest would have been a good starting point to increase activity on PGD, but that didn't happen. I really fear the worst for the coming months. With summer being on our doorsteps and the end of the competition this sunday, I'm afraid we're entering an even darker period of PGD.

**cairnswm** · 05-05-2006, 12:19 PM

No offence but, I find it odd that you blame the level of interest in your entry to the timeframe of the contest. Three months to work on a game is not a whole lot in general. Especially if you only have a couple evenings and the weekends to work on it.

It is however true. When I work on a game for a month I enjoy all the time spent on it. Games that take more than a month of my time start stealing time from other things I want to do.

The way I see it is that noone bothers post because they dont expect any feedback anyway. It could be seen as a waste of time. (and yes please do prove to me that I'm wrong )

Every single game I develop I post onto PGD. Sometimes I get no feedback but I post each and every one. I realise my games are really really simple. But they are complete finished games being posted - often with source code. Very few people comment on them (Savage and Traveller being stand out exceptions) - but I continue to post. And only once have I recieved a comment on my source and the logic in my code.

I seldom get a chance to download a game. I download when at home with a 56K modem connected at about 40k - anything bigger than 1MB takes forever

I try and comment on screenshots when available to make up for it.

I dont think your comments were too negative. They were unfortunatly true. As I said in my previous post also - the average age here is higher. A large number of members on this board have kids. Not many other game dev boards can say the same thing. So when I do have time - I'd rather work on my game than download someone elses

(Sorry for that). And when I dont want to work on my game I'll probably watch a movie with my wife also in preference... And I think this applies to a large number of people here.

The contest has brought more members to the site - while maybe not all active more members is good anyway.