Monthly Game Competition - What do you think?

Great idea. Good way to get people interested in the app and you can showcase the games that people make. Jayisgames.com ran a bunch of similar competitions for flash games a while back and had great games come out of it. Looks like they got Adobe to sponsor it (it was flash games after all) and top prize was a copy of Flash 8 Professional. Maybe see if Apple would go for something like this? Would also strengthen your relationship with them.

They had themes like explore, replay, upgrade. Here’s the link to the first competition:

http://jayisgames.com/archives/2006/08/game_design_competition_1.php

This is a good idea. I had been thinking about it since the first time I got Codea, but didn’t have a chance to talk about it. :slight_smile:

Here’s my thought about Codea regular code competition…

  • The code competition is held regularly, can be monthly or once in two months, etc. But there is a big code competition event held once a year. Personally I prefer small event is held once every 3 months. So, in a year, TwoLivesLeft got 4 small events and 1 big event.

  • Every event should have their own theme. For regular event, the theme should be something small but fresh. And for annual event, the theme should be something big and a bit complicated.

  • There are 3 kind of categories for competition: game/simulation, tool/library, demo/sample. Each category may have its own theme or share the same theme.

  • On regular event, it’s restrictive. It’s not allowed to use any custom or additional tools/libraries/classes even sprites at all. Including no code/technique taken from available demo/sample, except common logics/algorithms. Just use what are available on Codea as is. This is to get truly fresh ideas from the competition. Maximum effective LOC (exclude comments and empty lines) might be applied as well.

  • For regular event, the competition takes 3 days (72 hours) or 5 days (120 hours) since the hour it’s announced. The code must be submitted within the time.

  • On annual event, it’s more flexible. It’s allowed to use custom or available tools/libraries/classes/sprites. Even hackery effort is allowed. It’s to get big ideas from the competition. If demo/sample category doesn’t seem to be appropriate for this big event, it can be excluded.

  • For annual event, the competition takes 7 or 14 days since the hour it’s announced.

  • There should be only one winner for each category, plus one more for favorite winner. The last winner is decided by visitors poll, while the others are prerogatively decided by TwoLivesLeft. The runner-ups got nothing but honorable mentions on competition website. :wink:

  • The prize for regular event winners is iOS/Mac app(s) from the Apple AppStore. The winners request app(s), any apps that their total price within a range (say between $5-$10), and TwoLivesLeft will buy the app(s) for the winners.

  • The prize for annual event winners should be something pricier. It could be an iPod touch, a pair of Apple magic mouse/pad and wireless keyboard, an expensive app license, or even an iPad. :smiley:

What do you think? :slight_smile:

I don’t know about a big prize, or any prize really. I like the concept of keeping things friendly - I’d like to see less of a competition, more of an exhibition, if that makes sense. As has been pointed out - we have school kids (and just new learners) jumping in, I’d like to have them feel this is something worth trying (that’s an idea - you could do some age-bracket stuff, have one for kids 12 (or 14 or 16 or I dunno) and under, on an honor system “just started coding” or such). If there’s no big prize, there’s no incentive for people to game the system.

I love the idea of a friendly contest. I just suggest starting small. Let’s do one, and see how it goes. :slight_smile:

Okay, no prize to start with (but maybe later). We’ll have to set up a sort of exhibition and organisation page and then start it some time in the new year.

The recent code sharing policy issues might make it a bit more difficult to check out the entries so we’ll have to start thinking about what we can do to make up for that.

@Bortels I think there can be winners and still have the competition be friendly. It’s about creative interpretation of a theme, so there isn’t really a way to game the system except by making something creative and appropriate.

@bee good thoughts, I’m more set on the idea of a simple monthly competition that takes place over a weekend. But if it grows then I’d be happy to entertain those ideas.

Yeah, i like the idea to code for a competition at the Weekend :slight_smile: i dont have to have chances, i would just be happy, if the judges would say me what i can do better. That would be my target, to get better, not win. And there dont have to be huge prices, maybe an update-wish wich gets High priority or something :slight_smile:

Here’s the love2d thing I was talking about for reference:

http://love2d.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2337

If you look at that thread, the “EMB rule” is exactly the kind of crap I’d be temped to pull if there was a significant prize attached. I’m evil that way.

Because this was for bragging rights - it wasn’t an issue. Perhaps once a few contests are under your belt, a yearly one with a real prize (or maybe a “best of the year” from the prior contests) might be rewarded with something.

True Story: When I was in high school, I was in a programming class (TRS-80 Model 1 for the win), and the teacher handed out our weekly homework for the entire semester. My buddy did them all first week, handed them in that friday. I did the same - but I wrote every single assignment in a single line (each). Why? Stunt. We were rewarded with being required to help all of the other students the rest of the semester. :slight_smile:

Or… hmmm. Don’t promise a prize - deny it, in fact - then award one anyway, after the fact? :slight_smile:

Ooh - or, here you go - no prizes, but if someone comes up with something truly stunning - add it as an example. IMMORTALITY!

I very much like the contest/jamboree idea. And there are some great examples of how to manage the issue of competition and winners so that it is more inclusive. The most successful of these strategies I have used or had a hand in are the FIRST robotics and Lego competitions (Speaking of which I’d love to be able to download Codea projects or Lua scripts into a lego robot), where they issue something like 70 awards, and only one of them is for “winning.” All the rest are for things like teamwork and collaboration, creativity and originality, robustness, gracious professionalism, evangelism and community contribution…it goes on and on. Obviously we wouldn’t have to award THAT many things but we can award the things we think are important in education and in supporting the Codea community.

Regardless, I think it would be worth it to have an educational division or a set of educational awards for different levels of school grade participation.

And I LOVE @Bortels run at IMMORTALITY!

:wink:

Remember Students are very into bragging rights and resume/transcript building, so even an award or stamp that can go on their Facebook pages can be a big deal.

Students my rear - I am into bragging rights. :slight_smile:

and I agree - I shouldn’t be competing against kids, because one of them is gonna beat the pants off of me, and I’ll cry like a little girl.

:wink: Love you guys. Crack me up every day. (I’m with you, @Bortels, on the bragging rights btw.)

Think it’s a great idea, however I am in no fit shape to create a code to compare to anything I really have seen. I am still learning lua.

hah same here :slight_smile:

Both of you - check that in 6 months. Coding competions are great ways to learn - both from actually trying to do a set task, and from then being able to see how others accomplished it. The goal is not to win - that’s a happy accident - the goal is to try.

Do not quote Yoda back at me. He’s an android man. green thing. whatever.

Here is my proposal:

  • Monthly compitition.
  • Game and non game section.
  • No hacking.
  • Post the code from the winning person’s app.
  • Gift the person an app of their choice under $5 and gave away a $10 iTunes Giftcard (thru virtual distribution) 2 times a year.
  • No beta features.
  • Not made very close to an example or previous winning game.
  • Games must be in full screen.
  • Put the good and well organized code under the example section of Codea.
  • 1 time a year, reward 3 people for best concept, best graphics, and best organized code with a $20 iTunes Giftcard. You might even submit it to the app store for them for no charge.
    It’s a lot of money, but at this rate, I assume it’s affordable. It would be great for examples and time for those pros to show off.
    Thanks for listening!

If it’s an iTunes or Amazon gift card you could just email the claim code.

I know. That’s what I meant @Ryan

You can do the same for apps.

If you haven’t read the article that arstechnica put together on a 48 hour game jam in Australia, you’ve missed out:

http://bit.ly/nEHExB

After reading this, and watching videos of the latest, Ludum 48-hour Dare

(for example:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qf5tMLdWytA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDXfYkr6ics

)

I’m really stoked to give this a try. I’d be up for an unofficial run if someone wants to pitch out a keyword next weekend.