The Community Competitions are a great resource for TGC community.
1)They encourage finishing a development and doing so within a deadline. Many of us have a habit of starting and not completing many projects.
2)They push us to learn new programming skills, which otherwise may never have got round to using.
3)They promote co-operation and force us to strive for excellence in the spirit of friendly competition.
4)The resulting source codes are an invaluable resource to those who wish to know how something was done.
Please continue with them.
My Ideal setup would be
4 times a year, this would give 2 months development, 1 month for judging and promoting the start of the next competition. Regular competitions would mean people would know when to expect them.
Advertising prior to the start of the competition in the forums (as a hot Topic), on face-book and in the newsletter (You already have a nice banner from a previous competition).
The kind of competitions I would like to see are
Varied competitions, with a wide scope for creativity.
e.g. FPS, Shoot em’ up, Sports game, Beat em’ up, Driving Game, a Maze game, Multi player game, strategy game, Board game, Non Game, Puzzle game, Arcade game, Casino game, Educational game or even give us a game element (Like in the Alienware Compo) which could be a model, picture or music and ask us to make a game.
The Competitions should include all members of this community. Some for FPSC others for DB and don’t forget the APP Game Kit. Some for modelling and some for music would be cool too.
Though I feel the next competition should be to make a FPS game with a theme, in any of TGC products this should encourage everyone to become involved.
are the prizes suitable ?
The prizes are fantastic. With the vouchers I got from the last competition, I Chose Dark Source, Styx and Smart Packer Pro, very generous thanks.
Feedback
I wish you could give a paragraph of feedback on our entries. I have been entering dark basic competitions since 2002, my first being on the old Real Game Tools website. Feedback used to be standard and was part of the helpfulness of these competitions to beginners. I know it has the potential to cause disagreements, but if you stick to the format of saying something good, then something critical (which could be improved) then something good again, it should minimise problems.
I would also like a publicised scoring tool and an overall score, though, I know you may be reluctant to do this. E.g. Graphics 10 points, SFX 10 Points, Music 10 points, Playability 50 points, replay-ability 20 points. Total 100 points. This would let us know what we need to improve.
Anyway, please continue these competitions. If you are looking for assistance judging future competitions, I would be happy to help, otherwise you can count on my entry.
