Blender GE Competition for 2.48 release

Game Engine Game Engine Support and Discussion
1

Hi folks,

With the release of Blender 2.48 being very GE orientated, it’s time to run a GE competition.

The format of the competition is up for debate, which is what this thread is for, but a few days before 2.48’s release, I’m going to take the overall discussion, have a quick chat with eg Ton and Erwin, and decide on some final rules.

Here are some initial thoughts…

PRIZES

I’m donating my Euro500 fee for creating the BSoD Introduction to the Game Engine documentation.

This could be split into 2 categories ( 250x2 ), 3 ( 200/150x2 ) or 4 ( 125x4 ).

If people want to sponsored additional prizes, that would be great! But we can get started with my Euro500.

CATEGORIES

Here’s the tricky part - to be fair, everyone should be able to create something with a chance of winning within the allotted timeframe. Also, everyone likes creating specific types of content, but we don’t want to be too generic or too specific. There needs to be flexibility within the category titles.

I’m going to suggest a few here…

  1. Ultimate GE Showoff - using any of the new features in GE, such as GLSL, Soft Body - basically go to town on showing off the GE, even if it requires playback on a fairly fast computer. This does NOT have to be a game. Think of the type of demo visuals you see at eg http://www.scene.org/

  2. Fun small game to run on non-GLSL hardware. Why? Because a lot of people don’t have GLSL hardware on their computers, and it is totally possible to make a very cool looking game without GLSL. Basically this guarantees that everyone will be able to download and play the game.
    Maybe require 5 minutes of gameplay at least? And that the game was created from scratch to a certain extent.

This could be further split -

Using Bullet Physics vs Using no physics

Also,

Using internal Logic Blocks only ( no Python scripting ) vs Using Python and whatever else is required to make the game ( external libraries etc ).

  1. Take an existing GE template ( eg vehicle / FPS ) and make as cool a game with it as possible. This allows for artists who have no coding experience to enter the competition also.
    For this, we’d need stable and completed GE templates - I can see about collecting these, and making sure there is some documentation to allow an artist to get started immediately, with no further GE logic block / python scripting required ( download, and immediately edit and run the levels ). Eg if the template contained Python Scripting, it would already be set up, working, and hidden from the main UI ( the user sees a game editing space, and just has to press P to try out their edits )

Ton in IRC quickly suggested…

  1. Looks / immersiveness
  2. Toyish gameplay

TIMELINE

Maybe 8 to 12 weeks? So that there is no real pressure to get it done if you already have a busy schedule.

For the competition, you only have to release the .blend file if you want to.

If you have any thoughts ( good / bad idea, or suggestions for categories ), please post them.

It might be cool to post your top X categories in order, eg if you posted your 5, if only 3 categories were selected then your top 3 would be used for the decision process.

Anywho… hopefully this is will be seen as a good idea by most GE devs, and I look forward to reading the discussions and finalising details of a competition that will be approved by most of the community.

Best regards…
Mal

2

sounds like fun :smiley:

ill probly work on something

3

Hi, malCanDo. Here are my suggestiopns:

It could be problematic to search the blend files for GLSL code usage. And I also think that the category with templates is not so hot :).

Problem could be with files sizes. There is a lot of Blender users, who dont know how to optimise file sizes, mesh usage, sound file sizes, etc. You should maybe say some file size limits.

I would suggest categories Best Graphics and Best Gameplay. Or if 3 categories Best Action Game, Best Sport Game and Best OtherType Game :).

Can we use pygame and other external libraries?
Can we use our old projects? Or should it be something absolutely new?
Should the sound files be original or can we use anything we find on internet :)?
Can we make erotic games?
Can there be blood in our games?
Should our game be in English language?
Can our characters speak nasty?
Can we use models, textures, sounds we havent made personally?
Can we work in teams?
Can we … OK. Thats all for now :).

Thanks for answers.

Anyway, thanks for this type of contest and for your fee ;). And be prepared for a big amount of FPS type games ;).

4

Sounds awesome but I agree with Reiko, have some game categories and then let people do whatever they want to do XD (And tell them to be realistic, perhaps?)

James Out…

5

I’m keen to participate…

6

I’m against templates usage

I do like ton’s 2 categories, and then you can use a lot of the other things you mentioned as points criteria. For instance, out of 50 overall points making good use of softbodies can be weighted as 5 full points. And making good use of lighting is 5 points. And Stuff like that.

Of course in the toyish gameplay category, fun factor would have a greater weight than shadow usage. However in the looks immersiveness category, physics usage would be weighed greater than fun factor. That sort of thing.

I’m in!!!

7

Sounds pretty sick. I’m interested :slight_smile:

8

Maybe the competition could be for more levels for Yo Frankie?

9

You could also provide each artist with the same base model, and see where they go with it. So in some ways it would help everybody start in the same place, and hopefully make the results more comparable. One could argue that this would put a damper on creativity, but at the same time, it would be a way to see where artists took the original idea, and what they did with it.

Having said that, I like the idea to make using new features (and showing off the GE) count, and also Reiko’s category ideas (Best Graphics, Best Gameplay).

10

Im totally in, i agree with the others the templates would be nice but. A no go, but it wouldnt mean you cant use them either.

I like j09s idea. With the base model or theme and see what people come of it.

As it was even explained by Orinioco, “everyone wants to make thier own game its the reasons they learn all this stuff in the first place, and of course most people think thier game idea is the greatest.” I might have misquoted but you get my point.

So for fairness in the judgement and relaxation of the EGO, give a base model or theme to us to work from.

Base the whole thing off of the OLD BLENDER GAME KIT, and thier examples in there of what makes a good game maybe.

11

I’m probably in. It sounds fun but I don’t really expect to win.

12

My guess is that someone we hardly ever see on the forums is going to swoop in and knock everyone’s socks off and win the competition. Probably someone from France, Japan, or maybe it’ll be Pablo or Campbell! In fact, ton and the others are probably counting on such a person to participate. However, I’ll still try my best. And I think it is important to not to hold anyone’s hand for whatever it is that they submit by giving them assets.

Although I’m not particularly against it either.

And also I think the entire point is to showcase the the new features, so I’m not exactly sure of what you mean by using old blender game kit maybe you can explain.

13

I like j09’s idea of starting with the same base and going from there. I also think there should be some type of goal to work for, if we just have a bunch of completely different games it would be practically impossible to say which one was best. I say we should have a few different genres with criteria to meet and a base for each one and then we judge them on who has the best game and who met the criteria the best.

14

Personally I think there should be 3 catagories, everyone enters their creations to the same pile and 3 winners are chosen, best overall game (200), Best Graphics (150), and Best Coding (150). A game can only win 1 catagory so if the best game also happens to have the best graphics it would win the higher award. Each game would be judged for each catagory.
-The best overall game would have to be fun, easy to control and understand, well put together and display a large amount of gameblenders new features.
-Best graphics would have to be visually appealing, maintain a visual style, make use of glsl, and other new graphical features as well as push the limits of the GE graphically.
-Best Coding would have to show an aptitude in python and/or logic brick usage, with creative solutions to games problems, not only would it have to be intricate but also work extremely smoothly.
All creations should be made available to play on the same website, and .blend files should be required unless theres a very convincing reason not to give it out, in which case the .blend file would only be made available to judges.

15

Count me in, looks like it could be an interesting contest!

16

I might participate in this, but are teams ok? If so how many people to a team?

17

The original Blender game kit had an entire chapter on what makes a good game. im just saying refer to that for a ground zero basis on what the judges are looking for.

Terry

18

Sounds like a fun idea :slight_smile: I’m all for non-GLSL since I can’t properly run that… though I guess that defeats the purpose of showing off… anyway I hope it’s going to be fun for everyone involved! :slight_smile:

Wait a minute… are you going for one of those weird Japanese games? :stuck_out_tongue:

19

I like this idea for the comp. Since a lot of people don’t have supercomputers it would be cool to have the following;

10,000 Poly limit
512x512 textures (1 per object)
It has to be mega fun
No python
No glsl

This makes it interesting and much harder, because you can’t use fancy features, so your game will look crappy… maybe… or you can do what I am forced to do with each project make use of what you have. I think the winner should be chosen on how long it can keep the judges entertained.

Because best graphics are gay… endi will win fo sho

Since my terms are so low it’s a lot harder to make a good game. Also the no python I think would be great, just to show the “ease” in creating games in blender. Also to showcase Logic Bricks.

I think the prize should just be free items from the e-shop and your game in the forum gallery (that’s right, a game in the gallery)

Just a suggestion.˙

20

But the point of the competition is use the new features that the GE offers to us. Besides, cool looking games are not always fun games.

And no python? That was a bit out there, that idea won’t get to far :wink: