PGD Annual 2010 Ideas Folks?

**WILL** · 20-06-2010, 08:25 PM

I've had PGD Annual on the brain lately. Curious about when, curious about what and curious about all those lovely specifics.

Judging from your experiences in the past what kinds of constructive feedback can you give us in point-form?

Also what potential themes would you like to see for the next one? Keeping in mind we like to stick to gameplay themes meaning an aspect of gameplay or set of mechanics rather than a cosmetic theme.

So far we've had;

2005: PGD Dogfight Competition - One-on-one vehicle combat
2006: The Big Boss - Levels and boss fights
2007: Multiplexity - Mixing multiple game genre
2009: Arcadia - Arcade style gameplay

Whats in store for 201X?

All other comments and suggestions are welcome...

**Brainer** · 20-06-2010, 08:43 PM

I'd love to see some scripted AI battle. Maybe the team should design a game and the others could write bots for the game?

**paul_nicholls** · 20-06-2010, 11:22 PM

Originally Posted by Brainer

I'd love to see some scripted AI battle. Maybe the team should design a game and the others could write bots for the game?

Hey,
that would be great

I would also love a certain type of game type theme too - platform game, RTS, etc.

It would be interesting to see all the different types of platform games or similar that the contestants created

cheers,
Paul

**GordonShumway** · 20-06-2010, 11:23 PM

Yes I agree a platform game or perhaps an action game would be great.

EDIT: (I would like to note a gameplay themed approach would certainly produce a lot of results from the fans of various genres.)

**Chesso** · 21-06-2010, 01:18 AM

I would love to see a tower defense type theme.

I absolutely love the very few flash ones available that have a sort of
basic army theme, or even some of the more creative ones floating around.

To my knowledge there are very few full blown tower defense games around
and anyone who creates one in one of these contests could take it much further
and sure beats going back to platformers and the like that are good but so overdone.

That's what I would like to see anyway

**GordonShumway** · 21-06-2010, 10:51 AM

I had an idea, what about a 'desktop' game? By which I mean a game that isn't necessarily supposed to run in a full screen mode. I seem to remember a few years ago a basketball hoop app that you could try to make baskets with, and a screen saver that turned the desktop into a sliding block puzzle you had to put back together. Or a 'screensaver' type theme. After all a lot of us spend 8+ hours staring at the desktop anyway why not make it fun and see what the community can do to spice it up PGD style?

**DarkBow** · 21-06-2010, 11:51 AM

I know these are the most difficult to create from scratch, but I'd love to see some RPG and/or strategy games.

**jdarling** · 21-06-2010, 12:45 PM

As strange as this is going to sound, I was watching cooking shows with my wife over the weekend and there was a "Dinner Impossible" on about "Divorce Court". This really got me thinking about gaming (or at least game development).

So, here are my ideas (recently inspired and old ideas);
You have to pick a game that is tied (generally) to a genera and make a game from it in a completely different genera. So, to keep the example simple, maybe you pick Tetris and build an RPG where you have to run around finding the pieces so you can play a game of Tetris in the end. Ok, that is a fairly lame example, but you get the idea.

Canned graphics; get a set of canned graphics and build a game around them. Lost Garden has put up LOTS of free graphics and held a few challenges like this, all have been fairly successful and it never ceases to amaze me how many categories people cover.

Procedural Generation; a majority of the game must be procedurally generated. Yeah... Didn't get much further than that with the idea.

Just a few concepts. Now lets see if we can get it started before everyone gets busy with life, school, whatever...

- Jeremy

**chronozphere** · 21-06-2010, 03:38 PM

I see a lot of good ideas in this thread.

My vote would go to an idea that is simple and not time-consuming. People often failed to deliver the final game because they didn't have enough time. Our aim should be to get as many entrants as possible.
At the moment, I have many projects and I can only join if I aim low. If the theme allows me to get my game finished in two weekends, then I will definitely join.

Some ideas:

I like the idea of canned graphics. Just as random as possible. Prefferably with a lot of pictures of sheep.
A crazy shooter compo: Everyone should make a scrolling shooter and add weird enemies, obstacles and effects to it. The crazier the better. Could be combined with the canned graphics idea.
A scripted robot-war compo could be nice, but I think its still time-consuming to get the AI right.
A graphics contest: Who can make the prettiest particle effects with a delivered set of particle images.

Just some ideas.

**Brainer** · 22-06-2010, 07:47 PM

Originally Posted by chronozphere

A scripted robot-war compo could be nice, but I think its still time-consuming to get the AI right.

I can't agree, because it'd be the gamer's task to get the AI right, so it would all depend on the gamer whether the AI is right or not. We as programmers wouldn't have to worry about that.