Have questions? Post them to us here!

[SilverWarior]

Where can I found some free decent sound effects for my game. Mostly I would need sounds for tanks, jeeps, various weapons etc.

[WILL]

Where can I found some free decent sound effects for my game. Mostly I would need sounds for tanks, jeeps, various weapons etc.

There are lots of places online, just give a google for "free" or "royalty free" sound effects. SoundDogs.com is a good one. If you need music there is also RoyaltyFreeMusic.com and incompetech.com. Which I've used myself for a few of my own projects. Don't find anything there, just keep looking for other sites. There is a whole bunch of them just make sure you have the rights to use it by contacting the owners of the music you download. Oh and don't forget about SoundCloud.com too!

Just to be sure: Sources should be written in English?

Well if you want to release your source with your entry to increase interest in Object Pascal games or your Allegro.pas library, I'd suggest it. Otherwise all your comments in your code can be Martian for all the judges will care.

Also: I plan to use the engine used by the Allegro's demo game with a lot of changes. Any problem with it?

That's fine. I consider this kind of like reusing an existing engine written in Object Pascal and modifying it to become your own game anyhow. The rules allow for such development.

[Ñuño Martínez]

There are lots of places online, just give a google for "free" or "royalty free" sound effects. SoundDogs.com is a good one. If you need music there is also RoyaltyFreeMusic.com and incompetech.com. Which I've used myself for a few of my own projects. Don't find anything there, just keep looking for other sites. There is a whole bunch of them just make sure you have the rights to use it by contacting the owners of the music you download. Oh and don't forget about SoundCloud.com too!

Also OpenGameArt.com has some music and sound effects.

I can't find a lot of MIDI music. I know, it's obsolete blah, blah, blah... but MIDI is cool: you can change a lot of parameters while playing (including the instrument!) and I love all that old beeps and fussss... I think I need a MIDI sequencer.

[SilverWarior]

Guys thank you for your quick replies.
I did tried to search the web for some free sound effects but I didn't find a single page wich would provide me with decent sound effect wich are free. Currently I'm not prepared to pay aprox 3$ just for a single sound effect, maybe later if I decide to make this game comercialy available.

I can't find a lot of MIDI music. I know, it's obsolete blah, blah, blah... but MIDI is cool: you can change a lot of parameters while playing (including the instrument!) and I love all that old beeps and fussss... I think I need a MIDI sequencer.

I partially agree with you. MIDI's alows you to quicky get something compleetly different just by changing a few parameters, disabling a chanel etc. But the one thing I don't like with MIDI's is that they doesn't sound the same when played on some modern computer that they sounded on some old computer. So if I'm gonna include some music in one of my games I will probably use module music files like Impulse tracker music files.
The base concept in moodule music files is very similar to MIDI files except that instead of unstruments smal sound samples are used. And by changing sample's playing frequency you get similar effect than different tones of instrument. Also the module music files support a bunch of different effects wich can be easily used for each sound your need whenever you need.
For playing module music files in delphi there is a verry powerful component named BASS wich not only supports playing of module music files but also most other popular music files like MP3, MP2, MP1, OGG, WAV, AIFF etc. There is posibility to extend support to other formats with the help of plugins. The component itself has multiplatform support (Win32, OSX, Linux) and comes with C/C++, Delphi, Visual Basic, and MASM APIs.
For more information on component visit their homepage at http://www.un4seen.com/

[Ñuño Martínez]

The base concept in moodule music files is very similar to MIDI files except that instead of unstruments smal sound samples are used. And by changing sample's playing frequency you get similar effect than different tones of instrument. Also the module music files support a bunch of different effects wich can be easily used for each sound your need whenever you need.

I have an advantage: Allegro includes it's own MIDI driver (was added because Linux' sound drivers have native MIDI support only if the sound card supports it). The advantage is that this driver needs sound samples to work, so it's similar to the MOD you're talking about, so it sounds the same in all computers, you can configure Allegro in a way that it overrides the system's MIDI driver even if it has "native" MIDI support. Also you can define your own "sound palette" just modifying the samples to use.

That's one thing I love.

[Cybermonkey]

Where can I found some free decent sound effects for my game. Mostly I would need sounds for tanks, jeeps, various weapons etc.

I can recommend (if you want to have some retro sounds) the software on this page: http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
Absolutely easy to use and creates some nice effects.

[paul_nicholls]

I can recommend (if you want to have some retro sounds) the software on this page: http://www.drpetter.se/project_sfxr.html
Absolutely easy to use and creates some nice effects.

AMEN!

cheers,
Paul

[SuperMaximo93]

This might be a silly question, but does the game have to be able to run on all of the judges' systems?

[Traveler]

Having been a judge in a previous competition and a competitor in others I would say that each judge needs to have the possibility of judging an entry on at least one configuration owned by a judge. If is it not possible for a judge to play an entry at all, then that entry would not be scored by that judge. (This in fact has happened in previous competitions.)

[WILL]

This might be a silly question, but does the game have to be able to run on all of the judges' systems?

All, no. At least one per judge, yes!

We have all the available systems for you to target as a convenience, but you really only have to make your game for at least one that each judge will be able to play so that we can score the games.

If you do make more than one port (Win32 and OS X just for example) it might help should one of our systems have an issue with a version of OpenGL that you are using or something like that. If the other port works fine for that judge with the issue, then the other port kinda saves you. So it can help, but it's not necessary.

I'd however, like to offer should anyone be unsure and concerned that one of our systems might not run your game. Upload it somewhere and ask me to try it. I'm sure Stoney would mind either as long as it's not several versions from everyone. That might be a bit time consuming.


Also we shouldn't have to install anything other than your game it's self to be able to play it. This last part is so that it's fair for the judges who have to play 10 or 20+ games and don't have a huge mess on our systems at the end of it. Doesn't hurt to keep the judges happy with a friendly installer or simple zip file either.