2007 PGD "Multiplexity" Game Programming Compo

[WILL]

Both First-Person Shooter and Vehicular Combat have the same color (red) so they are the same "genre", aren't they?

They are the same Genre Color, not necessarily the same genre. Since they together are only 1 color you will need a 2nd color to meet the minimum requirements.

If I have what is requested in the Readme.txt file in the game itself, do I have to have the readme.txt file along with the game?

Yes. Judges don't like searching in all different places for what is meant to make their job easier.

Also, Stages 3 and 4, Goal 1 doesn't make any sense. If you have a design doc, this should all be in it, not in the readme file. A readme file is for player information not design information. So, I'll ask; If I have it all in my design doc, do I have to put it into my readme.txt file?

Yes. During your development we anticipate that a fair amount of games will have their original vision of concept change or even go a stray after a few months into development. Listen to any GDC Radio podcast or read any large software studio's postmortems and you'll see changes all along the way to the final product.

We expect some changes so we would like you to elaborate on how it comes together at that point. Any major changes, list them. Besides, it's a good, healthy game design & development practice.

The design concept you wrote in Stage 1 will be a pretext. The small blurb or so you will write in Stage 4 will be the result.


The Stage 2 & 3 goals where you add the genre and write about it is only to only tell the judges WHERE or how you put it in.

ie. If it's a game like Rescue Mission for the NES where you have to run all 3 snipers into possition before you play the sniper feature, they might think that that is the only thing to the game. And you don't receive any points for adding the genre when it was in fact in the game, just not overly obvious.

It's in the Readme.txt because the Judges are looking for a Readme.txt and the easier it is to find this stuff in that file... the more likely that they will grant you those points.

One thing thats not clear to me is how the genres need to relate to one another. Should they both be active at the same time (like the suggested "Tetris based platform shooter ") or can they lead into one another such as having a Strategy map where you decide where to attack and then another screen where you control a fighter jet through a action shooter screen (ie two completely different screens).

Any way you like. Just try to make the game fun and innovative.

We don't want to tell you how your games should be creatively. We just want to give you the task at hand and see how you put it together.

But if you need a concrete yay or nay... either sounds fine to me.