Competition Genre Suggestions...

[paul_nicholls]

Why not just making a Pascal Games Festival? That is, any game can participate that was released between dates X and Y, written in Pascal. You can qualify sections such as graphics, originality, completeness, sounds, etc. This will hopefully let everyone participate without any major restrictions.

I love this idea

cheers,
Paul

[arthurprs]

Why not just making a Pascal Games Festival? That is, any game can participate that was released between dates X and Y, written in Pascal. You can qualify sections such as graphics, originality, completeness, sounds, etc. This will hopefully let everyone participate without any major restrictions.

I love this idea

cheers,
Paul

me2

[3_of_8]

That's an interesting alternative... But I think I'd prefer having a certain topic, but not a too restrictive one. Cut scene engine, for example, wouldn't even allow us to make a game, just a cutscene, which would, as mentioned by some others, make it impossible to participate for all those who are not into graphics that much. Last year's topic, multiplexity, was great, of course. Interesting, but hardly restrictive.

[Chobley]

Why not just making a Pascal Games Festival? That is, any game can participate that was released between dates X and Y, written in Pascal. You can qualify sections such as graphics, originality, completeness, sounds, etc. This will hopefully let everyone participate without any major restrictions.

I love this idea

cheers,
Paul

me2

This does seem a great idea...then beginners like me can enter...

[chronozphere]

@Lifepower: i also like that idea, but i'm not giving up thinking of a good compo theme

Another idea:

Making a game with as less code as possible, but still with cool gameplay. This would be a nice coding challenge. You have to carefully think out your design, and efficiently use modules to minimize the ammount of code. Ofcourse, the engine you are using isn't taken into account.

In such a compo, everyone must show their sources to the judges, who check the ammount of lines used (empty lines do not count). Extra points are awarded to those who use a minimal ammount of code while having interesting gameplay, cool graphical effects etc. One of the judges could write a simple tool that count's the lines of a list of files, and assigns points according to the ammount of lines counted. This app should be open-source, so everyone exactly know's how it works, and cheating is no option.

You could also set a maximum ammount of lines e.g 2500 or 4000 (blank's not taken into account). If someone exceeds this limit, no extra points are awarded for line count.

I know this idea should be carefully thought out, but it allows all kinds of games etc, so
everyone should have a chance.

Hope you like this idea.

[technomage]

Here's a thought for the cut scene idea (or any other idea for that matter), why not team up with an art related forum such as http://www.threedy.com/ and run a joint compo, developers from this forum could team up with artists from the other forums to compete. Additional categories would need to be added so that Artists would have a goal to work to as well as developers (artists probably won't be interested in winning a Chrome license for example but might be interested in a photoshop or Xara license).

As with the 2007 compo idea's would be posted so developers or artists could recruit people to help with entries.

This could of course open a can of worms because people would be working with people they don't know and what happens if your artist or developer pulls out half way through.

But it might help introduce artists to this forum for future projects

[3_of_8]

Why not just making a Pascal Games Festival? That is, any game can participate that was released between dates X and Y, written in Pascal.

Hey, wait a second... Does that mean that we're not gonna code anything new at all? If it does, I strongly disagree. I'd really like to code something new for this competition.

[chronozphere]

@ 3_of_8: i guess you could use such a compa as an oppurtunity to continue working on some old lost project, or improving a finished one. I guess you could also start a new project (Date Y sould be in the future then).

[LP]

Hey, wait a second... Does that mean that we're not gonna code anything new at all? If it does, I strongly disagree. I'd really like to code something new for this competition.

Not necessarily, it depends on the dates and how wiling you are. Of course, if you don't want to code anything and just pull out some old code - this is okay. In fact, you could've done this in all previous compos as well. However, the rest of people who have tight schedule might still be able to participate.

Previously there were discussions of showing off Pascal projects to the world. Running a Festival might be one way of doing it.

[dmantione]

[list]Cut Scene engine - Thats right basically a story telling engine that is typically used to push the story along. Think Machinima, but could be 2D or 3D. Maybe picking your favourite movie scene and re-creating it with computer graphics and code. NO pre-rendered stuff, it must all be scripted and real-time.

A game that can be controlled by someone with disabilities. EG, controlled by 1 key press, voice recognition, webcam interaction etc.

A maze based game.

A sport based game (arcade or manager/statistical style) as it is the Olympics this year.

An educational game.

I strongly disagree with these. They are genres, not themes. The previous PGD annuals set a theme which had to be present in the game, but left the genre open. I.e. during the big boss we saw 2D-shoot ' em ups, first persion shooters, real time strategy and more. Last year we say platformers, tactical games etc.

Ending up with about 15 maze games or about 15 sports games or about 15 educational games would be boring.

Some suggestions for more "PGD anual style" themes:

- The mad scientist. Design a game that involves research. During game play the player has to invest in research, which causes upgrades to become available.
- The businessman. Like "The mad scientist", but with money.
- The pirate: Design a game about pirates, treasures, etc.
- History themes: Roman age, medieval age, colonial period, first/second world war, cold war
- Scene mania. Design a game that involves multiple scenes, like going from one room to another, or going from a safe place to a dangerous place. The atmosphere in the game should change as smoothly as possible. I.e. a musical bridge will score better than stopping music and starting a new song.
war.
- The intelligent machine: Human and computer both play the same game and start with equal resources. AI will of course an important part of your score.