Blender Game Making Contest 16 - theme, prizes,rules and dates discussion

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
#1

Sorry it’s taken me a while to getting round to sorting this, but I think it’s time for another BGMC.

What’s the BGMC?
(Taken from Smoking_Mirror’s post)

The Blender Game Making Contest is a chance for people to make a Blender game in a week, it’s a good opportunity to try out game ideas which you’ve been thinking about but didn’t have the motivation to try. It’s great for learning new things, and a really great chance to field a finished game (for some people, BGMC is the first time they’ve ever finished a game!). You get to experience player feedback, bug fixing, developing a game to a schedule and many other skills which are essential for a game developer.

Themes
Since Smoking_Mirror’s voting on the theme worked so well I thought I’d copy it:

So here’s the themes:

  • Point and click - with all the FPS and 3rd person games I thought it’d be nice to see some exploration/strategy games
  • Stealth - master the shadows, sneak past guards, navigate behind enemy lines, hide in boxes. The aim is to remain unseen.
  • Whodunnit/Mystery - engage the player to figure out who done whatever ‘it’ is. What ‘it’ is is completely up to you.
  • something unexpected! - the aim of this theme is to do something the player wouldn’t expect, some massive twist or change that you don’t see coming. This could be a plot twist or an unexpected shift in gameplay, or doing something complete outlandish within the game
  • Alan Partridge/comedy - because I’ve always thought an Alan themed game would be a laugh. But any game built around comedic elements is perfectly fine.

Dates
The contest will run for 9 days. You can use 7 of these for working on your game and the extra 2 can be used for planning, days off or bug fixing.

The proposed dates so far are:

  • Saturday the 23rd of May through to sunday the 31st
  • Saturday the 6th of June to Sunday the 14th

If you have any other date suggestions discuss them below

Prizes
I’m broke at present, but I’ll see what I can rustle up. Maybe an Amazon voucher or something. If anyone would like to contribute towards the prizes drop me a PM.

Rules

  • Unless there are many objections I was thinking of restricting it to the latest version of Blender (2.74) since last time each entry used a different version, so as many people as possible are able to play the game. Also, this means we can thoroughly test out the latest version.
  • There’s no graphics restrictions, but bare in mind that to get votes others have to be able to play your game.
  • Following on from the last BGMC, each contestant will have 100 points to allocate between each of the entries. You can’t vote for your own game. Those that didn’t enter, but still took the time to play all the games and give feedback have 50 points to allocate. The winner is the person with the most points.
  • In the event of a tie it will go to a community vote.

Once a theme and date are decided I’ll post up an announcement confirming everything.

#2

Hi! What is amazon voucher? Your game ideas are actually all nice, but I don’t know what is Alan Partridge!

#3

An amazon voucher is for use on Amazon.

Alan Partridge is a spoof British presenter played by Steve Coogan:


#4

Alan Patridge would be problematic for me. But do Amazon voucher give rebate or a concrete money value on Amazon? Can it help me to get a better GPU(like GTX 480 or something) if I win it? If it is stealth game, I can do something, if it is something unexpected- it can be anything and I could make you laugh, but… Other ways sounds a bit difficult!

#5

BGMC time again already? You know I’m in.

I don’t know about the themes, though.
I have to default to ‘somethig unexpected’, because I think genre as a theme is not a good idea, and have never heard of Alan Partridge until about 5 minutes ago.

I will wait and see if maybe the themes change before casting my vote…

#6

Mighty fine set of themes to choose from, battery.
I haven’t yet made my decision, and as tempting as Alan Partridge is, I can’t quite imagine what an Alan Partridge game would look like - let alone ten.

I’m going to abstain from voting for the time being, torn between every option but the Point and Click.

As for a prize, I don’t think it’s necessary. Unless it’s physical, or a payed asset pack,
almost certain everyone who’s been offered a gift card has turned it down.

#7

Similar situation like mine;)

#8

How about instead of a specific comedian, the theme is simply “Comedian”?

(I instantly imagine an A Boy and His Blob clone featuring Louis CK…)

#9

Thinking of themes is hard! I put Alan there for fun, but comedy/comedian is a good concept for a game. I’v updated the post to include that, but can’t change the poll. So Alan Partridge means comedy/comedian.

#10

Alan it is, then :slight_smile:

You are right about coming up with themes. I’ve been going over it in my head trying to come up with suggestions, but I got nothin…

#11

Neck-and-neck between two genres I’m completely unfamiliar with.
A bit nervous, should be fun experimenting with either-or.

Unless there are many objections I was thinking of restricting it to the latest version of Blender (2.74)

I’d like to avoid downloading any more versions of Blender, already have enough as it is. The newer ones also tend to screw up animations when any lag is present, which is why I still use 2.71
Not the end of the world though. I could always delete 2.74 once the competition is over.

Following on from the last BGMC, each contestant will have 100 points to allocate

As much as I like that system, it’d be nice to see polls for a change. Again - no big deal, perhaps others would like to see the return of the polls as well.

Good luck to you, battery - and to everything else participating.
Nothing to do now but wait!

#12

A poll sounds like a good idea to me.
Distributing a bunch of points across every entry seems a little over-complicated for the purpose it’s made for. Why not make it 1,000 points?:rolleyes:
If I only had one point to work with, I would probably put much more consideration into how I spent that point.

Point’n’Click is sounding better and better. Especially a comedic point’n’click!

#13

I also had no idea who Alan Partridge was until a couple minutes ago, and unfortunately I have no idea on how to make a point and click game so if that the case I may or may not join. and plus the new blender is not connecting well with my Apple magic mouse so I don’t know what I would do with my limited interface options if we were restricted to 2.74. But I would like to join nonetheless.

edit: I fixed the mouse interface issue, so that no longer effects me

#14

Can anyone help me or point me in the right detraction? I love working in GLSL texture mode but now I cant. If I zoom in with my 3D port in Blender 3D it slows down more and more. If I play my defalt cube with a 6 poly count almost all fram rate is lost on the “Rasterizer: up at 98%” with the default start-up seen. OS Ubuntu studio Linux, Blender 2.69 to 2.74 have this problem for me. Someone please help

#15

i guess this -> Stealth is at the end not much different from a classic FPS , i guess is also more easy
ie, normally when the Npcs see you change state to follow, avoid obstacle if near player attack blah blah .(complex)
instead in this case can be :
state wait : if collision bullet -> death , if see player -> game over! :smiley:
state death : zzzz

#16

NotE THat a lot of people doesn’t know Alan, for example, me! In the Alan case I would just not competite or all I would have would be his images around game!

#17

If there are any other themes people would prefer I can create a new poll. The Alan theme is just a comedy theme, anything that is comedic is fine, doesn’t have to be alan partridge. Stealth doesn’t have to be an FPS and a point and click game can be comedic.

If there’s a few more who support polls for voting a winner and using any Blender version then I’ll change those rules.

Really just want as many people as possible to participate.

#18

Well stealth games can have combat, but they don’t have to. If stealth is chosen I might do a nature game, like being a mouse trying to avoid a cat, or a lizard trying to get away from predators, or perhaps a kind of Alien Isolation game trying to avoid xenomorphs…

#19

I like the stealth idea- I would make a terroract situation where you should escape unseen and call help to survive and save others:)

#20

Last night while thinking through point and click I think I may be able to throw something together.