EDIT!!!
Finished! Check it out.
http://bulletphysics.org/mediawiki-1.5.8/index.php/LowpolyBlender_Contest2010#Description
http://artbyandreas.wordpress.com/sushi-sub/
Here’s a fairly final game design document…just finishing up on the texturing of the first art asset now.
thanks for posting. It’s cool to read a document like this.
i think you can have around 20k polys but the freamerate depends on other things like textures , logic , scripts…
Thanks for the info, that helps. My plan is to have everything flat-shaded with almost no lighting to that should help things. I was also planning to use GLSL mist…would that hurt the framerate or increase it, if some of the characters/scenery are concealed by it? Or should I use the standard game mist to do that?
I don’t know about the fog , i never used it. But if you combine it with a simple LOD script it will increase your framerate.
If you mean the mist with material nodes, that venomgfx has shown in the Apricot videos, then it’s quite comparable with the standard game engine mist. But you have to manually set the clipping range of the camera to go with the GLSL mist (that’s done automatically with the standard GE mist, which is the whole purpose of it). But why exactly do you want to use the GLSL mist? The GE mist is quite capable (it was used in Apricot as well instead of the GLSL method of venomgfx), so unless you need really fancy effects the GE mist should be enough.
20,000? You kidding me? I can run over 100,000-200,000 (depending on the physics) at about 30 frames per second (playable)
I´m working with 40~50 Kpoly + one 2Dfilter + AA4x + AF 16x 1280 x 1024 in Geforce 9500GT DDR2 with FPS 60
not bad 
how much vRam does your VC have?
2GB DDR 400 and a AMD64 3.0 939 ( 1core 1.8ghz )
Config running my contest entry game…
http://blenderartists.org/forum/showthread.php?t=171294
I have:
2 GB DDRII
AMD 64 Dual Core 2,8 (5600+)
GeForce 9600 GT 512 MB
1280x1024 resolution
Windows 7 Ultimate 64
Blender 2.49b
and 200 000 tris runs on 30 fps with no scripts , no logic bricks , no textures and no lightning.
But if he wants to make a game he will need logic bricks, python scripts , textures and lightning.
well it doesnt matter how high poly the guns are, if you make them no collision it doesnt matter.
ok a little off topic
the question:
will this game comp be like last years were we could post/enter more than one game?
I’ve got 2 that i am developing at the same time.
now to the games:
they both kinda coexist together?? and are both heavily physics related. they coexist for the games both are match based and have no campaign, they both also share the same match gameplay modes.
One is more 2-dish the other fully 3-d.
they also share the commonality of being inspired by one of my favorite games Demigod. therefor will share gameplay characteristics with it.
OK, first look at the art. Textures need a lot more love but that won’t happen till the polish stage, want to throw this together as fast as possible. These are grabs from the GE.
Nice models, I am sure you will make great textures. Can we see the wires please?
Sure. Won’t be doing this for most other art assets though (until the final presentation shots), as I find it mind-numbing
Squid! He’ll shoot ink at the sub (billboard particles probably); and the blowfish will obviously inflate and the spikes will grow really big.
I like it alot . Are you planing to use shape keys for the blowfish?
Indeed I will. Gonna study up before I do anything like that though because I dont wanna bork myself by animating something and then not being able to get it into the engine
Nice models! You got to love the clean ambient occlusion textures on that sub nice work and nice art style. Keep it up!