@Grenzer:
Sorry, I meant to have #3 in my above comment, but misstyped it.
I begun tests to see the bugs with the games in upbge. Congrats to all participants. There are awesome things in what I saw.
But I won’t vote because I consider that to be fair, this requires for each game to spend a lot of time to test, see how it is done, and try to finish the game (if there is an end :P).
I’m sure there are people who do serious tests before voting. But I’m also quite sure that there are people like me who don’t spend enough time to test, and people who vote for their friend (what I understand).
And as everyone’s motivation while they are voting can’t be controlled, as I trust jury, as there are too much negative things around this vote that already happened, my personal opinion is that the judges (in collaboration with the ones who offer prices) should decide. This seems the only reasonable way to me.
I agree with youle, let the judges decide!
The panel of judges sdfgeoff has setup have a very good reputation and are well known in the community.
This would save a lot more time as well, plus I’m curious what the judges have to say!
Yes you’re right, I participated with a team project at some bgmcs, and it is now, that I think this was a bit unfair towards the other entries. Not that team games are always perfect, and better than any games made by one person, but I think undertow shows impressively how much two people can achieve, compared to one.
I think team projects are a great learning opportunity, as they teach you to work together as a team and trust the other team member. They usually result in the more interesting games as well. This is why I think it’s currently unfair for people that work alone. Imagine if some of the most experienced bge guys would team up… soon beginners wouldn’t want to join the challenge anymore. If this challenge is something that should expand and motivate new people to create games, everyone should have somehow equal chances of winning.
I know balancing the veterans with the beginners sounds impossible, and i know no good way of doing it, but I think this would be good to consider for future bgmcs.
I think experienced users and new users teamed up sounds interesting, the only problem I could see is that there were many people who didn’t enter the BGMC this year until there were only days (or hours!) left. If a BGMC focused to teamwork or colabaration, everyone would have to be organized ahead of time, so there wouldn’t be last minute teams.
I don’t think team-made games are unfair to solo-made games. Having worked with teams before during hackathons and game making jams, I can say teams have their own pitfalls; organization, work splitting, discipline, differences in opinion, differences in level of skill, etc. The more people in a team, the harder. Usually, one or two people end up doing most of the work anyways and, a lot of the time, the result is pretty underwhelming because of the lack of planning and organization.
In a solo project, you have full control of everything - you don’t need any dependency on others and you do all the work. Maybe the amount of work one person can do might not be as much as the amount of work two people can do, but given the difficultly of working in a team, I’d almost say it balances out.
The one advantage I see is that teams can have different people with different skill sets (sound artists, graphical artists, programming, etc).
I have an interesting story. I participate in a yearly game-making jam called TOJam; make a game in 72 hours. During one of the jams, a few years ago, a large team of around 15 people, composed of very smart programmers, pixel artists, sound artists and even a manager, was participating the in the jam. They had a plan for the game before going into the jam. After 72 hours, they ended up not having much to show.
Finally, specifically, as impressive as Undertow might seem to be, I feel that one person could have gotten the basic mechanics of the game done in a few days. The most impressive parts of Undertow, to me, are the cinematics and art. The game itself is pretty simple programming-wise.
As a side note, I’d like to point out that Undertow, for just mere atmosphere, was my favorite game in this BGMC - nice guys 
I think experienced users and new users teamed up sounds interesting
Terrible idea. Forget that.
I’ve had experiences like this, and the “less-experienced” dude doesn’t cope. I have to do all the work and still put his dirty name in the title -_-
If you want to be experienced, stop trying to make games you can’t make (mmorpg, complex games). Go devour some books and YouTube tutorials, make simple games. If you are dedicated, you can be even more experienced than the most experienced guy of the forum.
That is not true. I have worked with inexperienced users and half the time you have to spend teaching them how to do stuff.
+1 to judges only this time - unless a new series of polls is used*
I just meant it sounded interesting, not that we should ever do it (I’m taking the liberty of thinking of myself as an experienced blender user ;))
I mean, if I was teamed up with a less experienced me from 3 years ago, when I couldn’t even UV map, I think it would drive me insane.
First of all congratulation for successfully participating. I saw again a lot of great entries, even if it was unfortunately not possible for me to play all the games due to my bad hardware setup at the moment. But at least i saw the Videos of all the games from Kendrick (That is also the reason why i will not vote for the games this time).
A bit sad to see that there is manipulation in the voting. And i see the difficulties to prevent that.
Normally i would suggest to make the poll open to as many people as possible. Even for people who are not a member at blenderartist, because i think it is even better the more people play and vote for our games.
So i would tend to doing it outside BA (google docs or own site with a connection to a profile). This will not be 100 percent safe against manipulation, because of the possibility of multi user accounts. But this problem would be the same on BA.
Maybe the best possibility to avoid such manipulation is to make the votes transparent and control them afterwards as sdfgeoff did it. I think knowing this would also hold the people away from doing this.
Concerning the team issue, maybe categories for single developer and teams could be introduced. But maybe we are not enough participants for that.
removeing and editing the way the Votes count after the Voting Has already coments is not how the leader of the BGMC should do things, or is namecalling and PM players tailing them how they should vote, the first vote sesystem workd by adding 1 poit more to the palyer, now it is a 1-5 limit with a ratio. so if one votes 1 it will negitive afect the outcome, but the frist methed it was only a + Pulsiteve vote to the entry where to tiltle score was unlimited numaric value.
What I’m trying to say is it not right to single out BA users and act like a kide; Plesas refrane from trying to infuents peoples votes, and stope deleteing people that don’t vote for the one you like the most.
Voting Should Take place Here on Blender Artist.
Where the websits addmen’s could take a look at the IP’s used and the BGMC leader’s could limeit
One vote per household. in most case’s the famlymembers would just be bisest and vote for the preson they know so that would help in most sercamsants
That is the most accurate statement I have ever read in my entire life :D.
But you’re from Nebraska though. Shouldn’t you know how to speak proper English though?
I was born strangled by my anbalical cord. so my bran works diff form other people, and take me much longer to read or undersand things that come easy to others.
Wow I am very sorry for you.
No need to feel sorry, I’m just Prod I was able to make an entry in just 6 Hours,
and have it be the most advanctd and bug free game I have ever make.
Too bad my post above that had 3 paragrafis and where I let the BA camunity now about my learning disablity was delited.
It’s hard not to feel bullied and singled out.
What will happen: The community vote will be discarded
Why is this? Because people are not voting objectively, or are in other ways voting fraudulently (multiple votes etc.)
How will this contest be judged? The winner will be decided solely by the judges
The judges are impartial, objective and independent as they are not influenced by the result of the vote. AS such, I have decided to allow them to take responsibility for the entire contests’ score. This decision, and the votes of the judges, are final and cannot be contested.
***To those accusing me of manipulation:
First up, would “apple juice,” “Younickornguru.org,” and “Dave” step forwards. If you do so, your votes will be re-instated. I would have expected that, had I removed these votes in error, the people who voted them would have vocally announced it on the forums. Their absence is vindication for my actions.
I would also like to point out that I could have kept this quite, and perhaps come under less fire for doing so. Neither did I delete* any votes, but simple removed them from the current tally. They can still be viewed on the spreadsheet.
Unfortunately, cheating is not a local issue. Even the prestigious LudumDare has had issues with this over the past year. Many thanks to those who voted honestly. I am disappointed that the situation has come to this.
*The situation with Joshua Jay:
Joshua Jay was the third vote, and scored his game all 5’s, and all the others 1 (except for two or three games on the theme - the lowest contribution to overall score). In our first private message I sent:
While there isn’t anything in the rules against it, voting everyone else 1’s and yourself 5’s is not particularly nice.
Please try again.
Geoff
To which the response was:
I did not give all "1"splease check again
Those I felt devised 3s and 4s got them in the arias
And the final message, from me to him:
Grow up.
Upon receiving the second vote, his original one was deleted. This was because:
- He had a new one
- I did not yet expect the issue to grow, and thought there would just be one or two people I could deal with individually.
In hindsight, I should have kept his original vote, particularly as his message (indicating he originally did 3’s and 4’s) was counter to his actual vote. (This is the only opening against me for unfair/hidden vote manipulation). His new vote (in the Dead Results sheet gave higher scores to other games than his original, but still fell below my ‘objectivity’ criteria to include it in the actual vote.
I will admit that my final message is perhaps harsher than it should have been.
I would also like to point out that if Joshua Jay’s game receives his current vote, the rest of the games are virtually unchanged and his game goes from 1.8 -> 2.0
***The things I have learned
- Not all people are willing to treat this in a sporting manner. I suppose that was inevitable once we started getting prizes.
- Accountability is key. I am glad that I kept (nearly) all the old votes. Doing so means that people can see what has happened, and if so desired, they can be re-instated into the actual vote.
Suggestions for the next host
If you’re going to do a public poll, do it at BA. Otherwise, find some trustworthy judges.
The Team Games Discussion:
It will be up to the hoster of the next contest to decide how they want to handle teams.
I personally support teams in the BGMC contest. In real life, you will seldom work on a project alone, and having team experience is a very useful thing. Also, it does not offer that much of an advantage - as some have stated previously. Organising/managing a team is hard and takes away from time you could work on the game.
In management circles, it is a known thing that a single software developer working a 60 hour week will outperform two developers working 40 hour weeks. Obviously we aren’t working full time here, but I suspect the same rule applies.
As for pairing an experienced and inexperienced BGE user, this can work - in some situations. Obviously, if both are trying to model, it’s not going to work. And similarly, if both are trying to code, it’s hard to make happen. HOWEVER, if you have an experienced coder and inexperienced modeller, or an experienced modeller working with an inexperienced coder, then it works as neither will trip over the other.
If I am correct, Thatimster did most of the coding for Undertow, and Grenzer did most of the modelling?
Also, we get some very strong solo entries, such as Every Mans Sky and the “Horsey Adventure.”
Perhaps in future, we can start organizing teams before the event?
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Edit: Not any more