Heh!

/me waits for the flaming to begin

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Microsoft XNA MVP

XNA is fine, I have the SDK installed .

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To address an obvious weighting issue, which I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking here,

With XNA it would be easier to produce a game, than in C, say. Or with a "Shoot-'em-up-construction-kit" " or any other "just-choose-the-graphics game maker", it would be very easy to make a game with very little programming effort.


So is the judging going to be weighted accordingly, so that an entry made in C has a lower par than an entry made in XNA? So that nobody is discouraged from one language and encouraged into another?

The factor here is that the "Technical Quality" category is going to be a tougher slope to climb if the developer has use of crutches and leg-ups like XNA and other game-maker software would provide.

If true, I think this should be emphasized so that people understand apriori that the choice of development environment will affect the scoring.

Taking that into consideration, that the burden of this weighting lays witin 'technical quality', is 35% a fair share? I'd think more like 45-50% myself. And the other 50% for game-play, polish, and meeting all theme requirements.

XNA isn't a "game maker", it's a game programming framework. It gives you the basic objects that most games require, so the "game" part still needs to be completely coded yet. As such, I don't think it should be treated any differently than any other language. Giving "bonus points" for language difficulty seems silly, especially since every coder has the same choice of languages. If you want to make it harder for yourself by picking C or C++ instead of C# that's your prerogative, but it shouldn't influence scoring.

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Well at an extreme, in game-maker-package "A", making a game is a case of clicking one button that automatically selects graphics and sounds, and automatically builds levels and automatically compiles. The whole thing takes 10 seconds.

At the other end of the scale, an entry in C requires much more human effort: Maybe 30 hours of work.


Obviously one has a great deal of technical input, and one doesn't. Now A is likely to produce a better game than C, so it might score 60 points in other categories, but only 1 point in technical quality: total = 61%

In C, technical quality might be maxed out at 35%, but the game play is no where near as good, scoring maybe 20 points in other categories: total = 55%

Now is that fair? It would be an insult to the "serious" C developer.

Now I know XNA isn't like A, but it is closer to A than than C is to A. All crutch-users should be penalized in some way.

I kinda see your point Jasmine. However, that would also mean I should be marked down for using OpenGL rather than writing a 3D API from scratch.

Surely it's about the end result, not how it's achieved.

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That's ridiculous. If no one should be penalized for using modern programming language. That's like having 2 people build a house one person using a hammer and nails and someone else using baler twine and praising latter for doing it the hard way when there were superior options available...

Your choice in programming language should have no affect what so ever on the final scoring. None. I don't care if someone decides to build a game in C, C++, perl, python, whatever that's a personal choice. I mean, we're talking about a coding competition that's about speed and you want to penalize people for using the tools that will help them get the most done in the least amount of time? That hardly seems fair.

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I think less energy should be spent thinking about judging. Let the judge(s) be (a) judge(s), and rather than trying to be super specific about exactly what they are after, let them just pick the thing which is the most awesome.

It will probably be obvious which game deserves to win anyway. And even if the best game (in someone other than the judge(')s(') opinion) doesn't win, it isn't the end of the world.

I say this as a person who would probably write a C application if I was entering.

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Oh no, not to me Judging the end result is what I'd call superficial judging. Now that should count something, but I firmly believe that 50% of the scoring should be credit for programming skill and ingenuity. Else we all might as well all be using 'shoot-'em-up construction kit' and forget how to do proper programming.

It's not about being marked down Codey, but about getting credit for only those components you make yourself. The more effort and personal achievement, the more credit you get.

OpenGL is practical, and you wouldn't be expected to reinvent something so standard and fundamental. But in fairness, by not making your own API, you're saving yourself time there... so no you don't get credit for having make an API, but the time saved is spent on some other part of your project, which is where you will earn your credits.

There is a balance to find I think between these two facets of the project: game-play vs technicality.

Writing your own drawing API is putting too much effort into technicality. Using the shoot-'em-up construction kit is putting too little effort into technicality.

We should be encouraging both facets to receive equal effort. You get that by awarding 50% for both.

Exactly, I think the games should speak for themselves because at the end of the day the player could care less what they were coded in.

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i'm not sure why this is an issue with you Jasmine. i mean, for the last contest, you had a really awesome game, and it was done in VB6, while I on the other hand, had a sucky game, and i used XNA. it just shows that no matter what language you use, or how easy a language makes it for you to make a game, the skill of the programmer determines how good the game is.

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Maybe Jasmine should have been marked down for using VB's gui lol

Arguing my case here, I am in fact thinking of Andy, who I'm pretty sure will be using C. I wouldn't want him to feel insulted if after 30 hours of work, somebody throws a 10 minute game into the pool made with 'XyZ Game Creator Wizard' , and gets a higher mark.

With the current scoring system, this is possible, and it shouldn't be.


Maybe my choice of words here is poor. I'm not saying actively penalize the programmer for choice of language. I'm not anti- any language. What I am saying is that some languages provide less opportunities for programmer credit, because of wizard-like elements, automated game construction, or pre-made frameworks -- parts that the programmer shouldn't get credit for. Surely a programmer should not get credit for running through a 5-step wizard?

The only way fair to recognize these elements in the current scoring system, is to increase the contribution for technical quality.

Else like I say, depending on the theme, there's nothing stopping me from submitting a 30 minute effort with the shoot-em-up construction kit, or the Warcraft 3 world editor, and not doing any programming, yet still produce a top-notch 'end result' that meets the design spec.

It's not a big issue, I'm just discussing my thoughts and feelings like we've been encouraged to do.

I see this is rather like a home baking challenge. Would you give high marks to someone who combines a supermarket shelf packet of instant sponge mix, with a tin of tropical fruit in light syrup? Even if the end result is scrumdiddlyumptious, is it worthy of 95%? No, the judges would respond to that with disdain.


I rest my case.

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Aren't we in danger of becoming elitist here? People of all abilities visit the site, we can't dismiss their efforts because they haven't coded it all by hand on graph paper in octal.

I do take your point, but people would be dissuaded from entering if they felt they weren't using a 'hard' language, and as a result we might miss out on a great entry.

Also, from experience of past comps. Using C/C++ means that you have so much to do in so little time that bugs slip through and the code is far from pretty.

I guess some scope for extra marks for technical difficulty would be OK, but I'd still like to see the best game win.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

But what if the judges didn't know how the person got to the end result? It sounds like you want to judge the effort, not the end result. Why would I work harder to produce the same result?

Maybe "coding challenge" is misleading. Is this about the quality of the code to produce the game or the game itself? If the former, no commercial game would ever get an award.

edit: just went back and look at the criteria:



I guess you would get lower marks for "effort" is the majority of the code isn't yours, but the "wizard" or whatever. I guess the judges would have to know how much of the code is yours and how much isn't.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

I would prefer both be equal factors, each scoring upto 50%.




This is why I feel that the source code and readme be submitted and reviewed as part of good judging practice.

I really don't care what programming language people use, I have my personal opinions on what I like and don't like myself but if I was to weigh what I thought of a language then it wouldn't be fair to everyone else.

The main goal as I see it is to make a good, playable game however that doesn't mean that how you get there is not considered. In any language it's up to the libraries you use to determine how difficult making a game is. While XNA does have a good starting slate for making games, there are similar things out there for most language if you choose to use them. Also as others have said XNA is not a game maker.

If your worried you are picking a weaker or harder language (usually not the case) then you can always learn it now and use it for the competition. That being said I will weight how much effort you put into the code. I will be looking at the code and I will ask the contestants about certain sections of their code to make sure it isn't just a copy paste fest.

Well that sounds fair enough to me

I have no more questions at this time Your Honour

I have a HUGE personal codebase from which to draw from, which is going to make this fairly interesting I'll try to keep it somewhat sane for you though, Seoushi.