Stop trolling, Jazz. If you don't like the rules, don't play.

Unless the contest was limited to one language/platform, there is no way to exclude arbitrary and subjective X is easier than Y arguments. The contest is being run on a 'impress us with your skill in your environment of choice' basis. Yes, a noob environment like XNA or Click N Play will make a standard-quality game easier to make, but you won't be able to wow someone as well as gung-ho C++ will.

You choose the balance between power ceiling and ease-of-working when you choose your platform. Pretty simple, really.

We were encouraged to discuss the rules, for the purpose of possibly revising them. That is all I have done. Grrr.

In the blue corner, a woman from Britain... In the red corner, a bottle of cough syrup. Who will win?

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

WTF?!? Pot...kettle...black! Putting XNA in the same sentence as Click N Play boggles the mind.

Have you seen all of the games that have been done using the XNA Framework and XNA GS Vix?

Consider this (note: check out the author's credentials)

Oh, and XNA isn't an environment.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Microsoft will be so proud of you but their marketing has failed big time. Most people consider XNA to be what is being talked out here not what they want you to think of the brand "XNA".

But if people keep using it incorrectly it won't matter how much PR they do.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Mac it does not matter how much PR they do they will not get their message across. As a former community manager said

Nobody thinks of "XNA" being anything else _but_ "XNA Game Studio/XNA Framework"

All I know about XNA is it is Microsoft do what it can to prevent game development from trying Linux and liking it.

If game developers started to work with Linux, MS would be in trouble because now the nerdier part of the market is using a free operating system to play games, and the Mac kids would be able to play more than one game on their platform. Without a market lock on the gaming guys, MS can't harangue the hardware manufacturers to put all their support into Windows version Current and to deliberately break support on version Current-minus-two. Suddenly the hardware guys are putting "Windows/Mac/Ubuntu compatible" on their boxes.

Which means you're not qualified to call it a "noob environment". Good to know.



Game development costs are through the roof now so why would they add another OS to the mix and increase the cost and time of development for such a limited customer base. It doesn't make sense and that's partially why it's not being done now and I can't see it being done in the future. The only developers that can effectively do it are those that aren't under budget and time constraints with a publisher looking over their shoulder - basically the indies and those with the money to do everything themselves.

Don't hold your breath waiting for the Linux game development explosion unless you can come up with a way to make it cost-effective time-reducing.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Wow....this thread got ugly pretty quick O.o

What if we just made it so that you could use code that you had written before? This would make it so that there is no need to try and judge a game by the language/coding style/other technical details, since established programmers could use code that they had already written that would equal the functionality that game engines and frameworks provide.

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It was stated in the rules that this was allowed, it just need to be marked that it wasn't new. I really do think this helps make things fair

Except for the people that don't have big code libraries.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Theoretically we won't be graded on it, so while we'll have a head start on the final output we still have to write code, like with XNA.

The whole point of this is to learn anyway, who really cares about all these little nitpicks? I personally like the rule because I can focus on something fun rather than rewriting the same old stuff.

Yes but those code libraries will mean you (meaning, whoever has them) don't have to write stuff others might, giving you time to concentrate on the other areas.

My opinion - everyone ought to start from scratch.

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Microsoft XNA MVP

Then we should all program assembler

I started writing a ranty post earlier about what would be usable/not in terms of libraries personal and public, when I realized it was all pretty pointless. I think we should just focus on individual fun and learning and not try and have some sort of bulletproof grading system. Starting for scratch in C++ every time is also a way more painful

Let's all just have some fun with this.

Agreed. Only way it is ever going to be even is if everyone must use the same language, libraries, and have the same system requirements. But seeing as how the last few competitions have all resulted in code in different languages/environments, it probably wouldn't be a good idea.

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This whole thing isn't really a coding competition anyway. Is the primary focus of the competition writing elegant code? Or is it on putting the code and everything else together into a fun, creative game? If the latter is the case, then we ought to call it a "Game Development Competition."

A game coding competition is more along the lines of who can program Snake in as few lines as possible in language X. A game development competition could be who can make the best game with elements X, Y, and Z.

You can try to combine elements of both into the competition, but as we all know, the more complicated an application is, the less intuitive/user-friendly it likely is.

We should really decide on which of the two we want. The best code does not necessarily make a fun game, so I personally err on the side of "Use whatever environment you feel like, just make something fun with these criteria." The criteria could be game play elements, themes, or whatever, it doesn't really matter.

I guess in the end that this is a game programming forum, and since the end result (fun) is more important than the foundation (language/framework/etc.) in game programming, that should be the primary focus.

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Yay, someone was thinking of me


Not that it is really about what I specifically think, but:

1) I'm not going to get insulted at all. I couldn't play most of the games in the comp anyway, so for all I know, they could all have been the next quake engine

2) The graphics abstraction I wrote didn't take long at all (it is a ~200 line wrapper around SDL). Most of my time was spent doing game logic and other things that would be specific to my game.

3) I chose C, because I think it is a fun language to program in, not because I was forced to.

On a more general level, I think I see the competition's main goal as just encouraging people to write code for the fun of it. I think first place could be an animated gif, and it wouldn't really change much. As long as the judge(s) judge(s) (*) somewhat fairly (and I can't really imagine anything shady going on... it would be like cheating at a drinking game ). The worst thing that could happen is that people take it too seriously and get bitter for whatever reason. There are much more fun problems to deal with than that

(*) I've really enjoyed putting in brackets in the right spot to allow for the possibility of multiple judges... this one is especially cool because only 1 of the s's is allowed.

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b

No one on these forums 'programs' in Game Maker*
(*or any facsimiles thereof)




Anyone else stepping forth to the panel of judge(s)? Panel of judge... hmm

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