PGD 07: Stage 1 - Thoughts from an entrant

[Eric]

I tend to agree with Huehnerschaender, this competition is more a fun event to me. As far as blind competition against cut-throat competitors goes, I can get enough of that @work - and reward-wise, there is no doubt which is going to pay my bills

Seeing the flourishing of "blogs" this year, maybe this posting of progress and feedback should be made an "official" part of next year's competition? This would be a double-edged sword however, seeing others's progress can be just as much of a stimulation to give your best, as it can be a trigger for "give up" as certainty bears down you won't catchup...

The most difficult thing last year was finding out what we as entrants were doing wrong. Personally, I didn't have anyone that I could bounce my game idea or work against. As the compo progressed I started to find people, but initially I relied almost completely on the judges comments.

Judges giving info can be a difficult balancing act, especially when as a judge, you know the technology well enough to pinpoint a bug that has been bothering an entry for several stages. Giving small hints can be okay, but anything detailed is problematic.
As for gameplay and game mechanics, you shouldn't rely on judges IMO, and nor should judges provide much beyond which goal is achieved missed, as anything beyond those could be easily construed as favoritism or give impression of partiality... Besides, external input can often have more of a diverting effect on your work than anything else.

[jasonf]

I'm all for writing about my progress in the competition, it's hardly going to make me win the compo on its own is it?. in fact, if I don't pull my finger out and get some work done, I'm going to look like a prize pratt for making empty promises..

If a Judge, or anyone else gives me positive feedback or negative, then it's up to me to decide whether I agree with them or not. The fact of the matter is, anyone on the site can give feedback.. and it's up to the developer to decide whether it's help or hinderance.

As far as I see it, when a judge gives comments on a stage, that lets me know what they think about my progress. So naturally, I want positive feedback. I don't want to get to the end of the competition and only then find out that they've hated my game from day 1. That would put me off entering next year.

If I'm not working as hard as the others, not making as much progress as the others, not achieving my design goals, I want to know about it.

I can see everyone's comments so I can see how I'm doing compared to everyone else.
This transparency rules out any favouratism. I don't even think we should be thinking about this sort of thing anyway.. we're a pretty close community and it makes me sad to hear suggestions of creeping, ass kissing. Judges are community members too, they can read the forums and blogs, the only way to ensure that no-one is swayed towards a favourite is for everyone to work in secret, I don't want that at all. We have to have faith at the end that they are impartial.

Lets remember what this competition is all about. Showing the world what can be done by Pascal, Showing everyone that C is not the only language. Proving beyond a doubt that some of the best ideas happen outside of a major games company and most importantly of all, having a laugh with your mates and making something cool.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Hi Lifepower,

I'm quessing that this is the comment you think means I'm open to persuasion...

If you feel I've been unjust with my comments about genres, then lets discuss it. But if we can't decide (or you can't convince me), WILL and Savage can have the final word since they are in charge of the competition. So if we can't reach a satisfactory conclusion, we can ask them to make the final decision.

And to a point I am.... if a team submits an entry and it quite clearly achieves their chosen genres (even if I thought after reading their documentation it wouldn't), I will be persuaded.... if they feel the need to clarify the situation now, before the next deadline, they get that opportunity to ask me why, and provide additional information that could clarify their genre choices or they can speak to WILL or Savage and get the genre choice issues resolved that way.

Unfortunately, the fact is that the concept of a genre is pretty fluid. As I said in my additional comments post, the comments about genres are 'my' thoughts which have been based on three key things.... the competition genre list (which doesn't encapsulate every possible genre... a prime example is 'Breakout'), the Wikipedia genre list which was used as the basis for the competition list and the documentation provided by the teams.

In some cases, the genres were clear... in others (through lack of documentation, explanation or as in the case of simulation, a lack of perceived depth) they weren't or they would have fitted better into another genre. Since supporting multiple genres is a requirement for some of the stage goals, I don't think it is unreasonable given the fluidity of the concept for that part of the design/game to be open to discussion/clarification with the judges (especially since there are three of us and whilst I may consider something to be an Action-Adventure, Clootie may consider it to be Action and Sascha may consider it to be Adventure).

With regards to being able to ask the judges questions, this happened during last years competition, its just that this year its a bit more organised because we (as judges) created the threads so you guys know where to ask questions directed at us... it also make the whole process more transparent. As for the blogs situation, I think that is much better than last year where we all ended up stuffing screenies etc. into a single thread which became a nightmare to follow.

[jdarling]

After thinking on entering the compo (even considering that we've finished a complete mid-term game in few days! This is crazy!), I decided not to because of stage overhead, judges opening their own threads and participants opening their own threads.

Sorry for being rude, I'm known to be harsh and I've been a judge, so...

I would call it more blunt then rude.

Though, I think that the way the compo is run is a nice change of pace. Judges having an open enough mind to answer questions make the compo interesting, and leads to better entries. Sure, in a high level compo judges SHOULD be separated completely from the entrants. This isn't a high level compo, I didn't pay money to enter, its not by invitation only, and in the end there really arn't any big prizes.

Of course, in a large compo, the judges comments would be extensive and include information on how an entry failed/succeeded. It would be held in a VERY controlled environment (something that doesn't exist here), and the rules would be EXTREMELY tight. Fact of the matter is, this compo is more of an entry point then a top player .

Entrants starting threads; This isn't mandatory. It's just us showing off and/or asking for feedback. I haven't seen a single entry like mine, and unlike last years compo, very few entries are like one another. My first thought fits this more then anything. In a large compo with something major to gain, this would be a bad idea. Good thing that the top prize is just an entry into IGF, and one years worth of bragging rights (Most of us could afford to put our game into IGF in the first place, after all its only ~$100 US).

Just my two cents.

[Huehnerschaender]

Whilst Mr. Darling compares competitions, I'd like to mention that last year I took part in the IGF competition. A single eMail after months was the ONLY thing I ever heard from judges, initiants or whatever. I got a small eMail which just says "sorry, you have well done but you aren't within finalists." after the 100$ were paid (fortunately I did not pay it myself). Thats it.

Not much of fun competing there...

I like it much more like it is here..

[jdarling]

Whilst Mr. Darling compares competitions, I'd like to mention that last year I took part in the IGF competition. A single eMail after months was the ONLY thing I ever heard from judges, initiants or whatever. I got a small eMail which just says "sorry, you have well done but you aren't within finalists." after the 100$ were paid (fortunately I did not pay it myself). Thats it.

Not much of fun competing there...

I like it much more like it is here..

Mr Darling Looks around, nope, don't see my father here anywhere.

Your statement is exactly my point, PGD isn't IGF. PGD is for fun, and I like the way its handled as well . After going through the Omni's, IGF, and MANY other competitions through the year, its nice to have PGD to look forward to. A laid back compo that people actually want to help each other out with

[LP]

@ cairnswm & jdarling:

I guess this has become a habit of quoting one phrase out of what a person said and answering to that phrase (no surprise you didn't quote linked parts). I'm sure everyone got their reasons why they are doing what they are doing and that they are happy of doing so, but let's now make this another "kill the witch" series of posts. Oh, and don't quote just one phrase, either quote the whole post (it's pretty small) or don't quote at all - there are no many lifepowers out there.

To everybody else:

In my post I said reasons why I didn't enter and if you don't like them or feel my impressions were wrong... well, I might not be the only one getting the wrong impression.

Also, seriously, participants giving feedback to judges - this IS something new!

Just another point to think about: in real life you won't get too much feedback from people who did not buy your game. In this case, they are the judge, you are participant. If you give them feedback that what they did was wrong - well, they won't buy your title anyway. In fact, in real life you will never be sure why a product didn't sell, you can theoretize and you can ask beta teams to give their feedback, but this is as far as you will get. This is why I think this entire thing with judges giving justifications and participants judging the judges looks like fiction.

[Huehnerschaender]

Your father has children, and you have children, too.... so both of you is "Mr Darling"

[Huehnerschaender]

I don't think that the participants here want to tell the judges how to do their job. In my opinion the suggestions which are made here are mainly directed to the competition initiants, which get information about the organisation of the competition. This way it becomes a more "professional look" with special summary pages, blog threads, etc. It's possible to track the competition now, which it was not before. So the only thing I saw here right now which was directed to the judges was to give enough information about their decisions, so one can understand what he is doing wrong and can make it better in further stages. I guess this is a point which makes this compo unequal to others, too. The stages. If you got few or no points in an early stage, you just need to know why. Otherwise you can quit the whole thing, because you have no chance to correct things you made wrong in the beginning.

In other compos there is a single deadline, when you have to be finished... sure, it makes no sense in that case to track a competition or discuss any judgements...

And Yuriy: I hope you don't feel offended here You know that I am one of the last with such an intention...