Hi all,

im interested in setting up some exercises and some 'for fun' competitions. would there be any objections? any thoughts? and most of all would anyone be interested?

mike brown.

No objections here, though it might be worth noting that with our current-member "list", it would be difficult getting many entries. We've had major problems over the past year or two getting contests to get far, being that our roster of frequent users has dwindled since GPWiki's inception.

Maybe some others here can post their thoughts, though, and express enough interest to make this prospect look viable.

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What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

Thankyou Mugai,

At a rough guess, how many active members? if anyone is interested id appreciate a '+1' comment or similar.

The exercises would most likely be in the format of a lesson, referencing wiki resources, and with questions and tasks at the end that can be posted into a forum group to be checked. Good plan?

The competition would ultimately be the final lesson to test all exercises, with votes for a winner?

Sounds good.

Like Mugai says, we don't have a huge number of active posters these days, but there are a good number of lurkers who could be enticed out of the woodwork.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

Sounds interesting. Let's see what you come up with, and maybe people start stepping out of the shadows

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Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

I'm of the opinion that to help the majority of people out there, we need to be aiding them with their architectural and class designs. So most of the things im thinking of will be aimed in this direction.

Exercises may be to create a class diagram, and for someone to check over them within the forums and aid them with them. So a set of good practices will be needed. etc

Mike Brown.

I don't think a competition is the best attempt then. Going through several entries pointing out their pro and con is a load of work for a relatively small gain. That could rather be debated in a discussion to find the best implemention for a certain feature, trying to figure out pro and cons or look for complete alternative ways altogether.
What you have in mind sounds more like trying to replace a cs-class teacher.

I like the idea of doing excercises instead of build-a-complete-game though.
Going for proof of concepts/tech demos instead of semi complete game prototypes. like implementing a*; procedurally generate a cave layout by providing arguments for split path's/exits; implementing custom platformer collision/responses; along those lines.

Mhh.. makes me want to compile a list of possible exercises already

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Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

And instead of a game development competition, we could also consider something with a lower cost-of-entry. On one forum I frequent, we did a game concept contest, and entrants would simply post their game design ideas for a project they'd most like to create (without regard to technical or other limitations -- sky's not even a limit in this one). We had a pretty good turnout, even though the forum is mostly not gaming-related.

Plus it's fun picking people's brains, and some really groovy ideas come about. We could also set up a themed contest. We set up a date and time, then when that date/time approaches, the "emcee" would announce the theme topic. Then entrants would have 24 hours to come up with a game concept based on that theme, with scoring for topic permeation (i.e. more points for involving the theme to more game elements) and creativity (i.e. a themed Tetris-ripoff clone would score poorly) and such.

That way, even coders without much time, skill, or confidence would have a chance, and that generally means more competitors.

_________________
What most people don't understand about "enlightenment" is that it is not an end-goal; but where you find yourself just before taking a new "first step."

Bingo, small programming goals, with a focus on some design principles. Generating proof of concepts for typical issues etc. A small wiki/lesson would be provided first to describe what you need to do and why. Then at the end is an exercise to show you understood, With the possibility of being checked via forum members.

little and often rewards = more fun.

Compile away, id love to hear your suggestions!



Im sorry, I didnt mention my thoughts on the competitions, what i had in mind was that after X number of exercises, or monthly, people would be able to show off what they've learnt via a competition, with voting of the best code, designs, and concepts?

A, You've done all the exercises, now put your skills to use, kind of thing.

cxzuk

Sounds like an excellent idea!

It may even be a good idea as the first thing to try, simply to test the waters and see how many people are actually interested?

Secondly, I think "entry to market" is very important to get as many people as possible involved, so any competitions requiring coding i suggest a common framework to be per-decided, perhaps even the game theme to be built to be decided too.

cxzuk

I'd be more interested in pure programming competitions. Something where there's an algorithm problem to solve and you can hack something together in an afternoon or two.

What you're suggesting sounds quite interesting, and would potentially be very useful but whether or not I participate will depend on the time/benefit trade-off. There's a risk that you may be sitting with too few participants here to make something like this work.

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Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve

Im not sure, For me a competition needs some kind of 'quality' measurement. So people can judge the best. So quality code (maintainability and readability) and content quality (interests, polish etc) seem possibles. But i cant think of an algorithm competition.

Unless you mean something like facebook hackathon? which imo is more of a filter than a competition?

having said that. I can def see many algorithm exercises. something like 'heres a basic tilemap with a charecter, add path finding when you click on a square'.



that seems to be the general feel. I suspect competitions may have to come at a later date. But i think the exercises would be a natural extension to the wiki articles and hopefully benefit all for a longer time.

This does raise a question, what is the point of the wiki? Are they lessons? and encyclopedia? a mix of both? I see a lesson being about relating concepts/information, and an encyclopedia about isolated information?

cxzuk

I gave this some more thought yesterday and i've got a pretty nifty concept for a website.

You have a list of general or specific gamedev exercises where users can submit code solutions written in any language or using any api. An exercise consists of a headline and a description. People who have a solution for it can submit their code in a compressed archive which needs to contain a description/documentation of their own. All solutions for an exercise are listed within the exercise details and can be filtered by language and rated or recommended by other users.

Additionally users can create their own exercises but must supply their own solution with it, so there are no unsolved exercises. (needs moderation)

Exercises can be based on each other so there are kind of courses you can follow.
Example:


So you can either try to complete the course on your own or just browse for solutions if you're stuck or want to get an insight how other people solved it.

It would be more of a code repository for game related code which is heavily community based.

For now i'll try to keep it as basic as possible but it can be advanced with commenting/discussion systems, user ratings and other spicy stuff.

I always wanted to get my feet wet with webdev so i started with easyphp and cakephp. I'm currently trying to get a hang of it by following the tutorials and it will take a couple weeks to actually get a working prototype. But i think it sounds like a decent idea that might get some people interested in visiting and contributing.

What are your thoughts on this?

_________________
Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

I think its important to collaborate with as many people here as possible to get the project off the ground,

And i guess its be an idea to understand the limitations of this website if it has any? Admins etc.

In a rush, sorry, will get back with a proper answer later!

cxzuk

The Wiki is whatever you guys what it to be. The general aim is to be a useful collection of information loosely connected to game programming. It's slightly out of date due to the info not getting refreshed much any more. Also, Chinese, Asian and Eastern European users seem to want the site to be a a big advert for what ever junk they are trying to peddle (or boost the SEO rankings of) this week. So sign-ups are currently disabled, but I can create an account if you want one.



The site runs on a Linux based VPS which I have full control over. The main components are Apache, PHP and MySql. phpBB and MediaWiki provide the bulk of the GPWiki stuff. If you need more specifics, let me know.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

Thats great codehead, very accommodating.

Im happy to work on whatever, so any odd jobs are welcome. but perhaps will outgrow this thread?

Is there a wiki todo list? and a feature/article/exercise request? maybe people could start a thread or discussion on what they feel needs changing/updating.

cxzuk

p.s. weezls reply still in the pipeline

Started some wip layout mockup just because i haven't got anything else todo currently.



Don't ask about the green, the idea just had a green feel to me.

What do you think about the name? I quite like it



Eagerly waiting for it

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Long pork is people!

wzl's burrow

There are two relevant pages:

http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/Special:WantedPages is auto-generated by MediaWiki from links that point to non-existent pages.
http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/Pages_Wanted is a list of requests by users.

http://content.gpwiki.org/index.php/How_You_Can_Help has details on these pages and more.

If a ToDo page is required, any registered user can create one. I try not to dictate how the site is structured, I just clean and tidy behind the scenes. Due to the nature of the Wiki, nothing can be broken, you guys are free to do as you see fit. Any mistakes can be tweaked or adjusted afterwards.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10

Thankyou codehead, and for the wiki account too.

Btw, are you ryan aka "Lucky"? I was a member here about 6-7 years ago and thought he was admin. are you one and the same?

cxzuk

Ryan handed the administration of GPWiki over to me a couple of years ago. Ryan's game dev career took off with the Prof Fizzwizzle titles and he didn't have enough time to maintain this site with his other commitments.

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10 PRINT "Bad Monkey ";
20 GOTO 10