GAME CONTEST Q & A

[cimot]

Q. I’ve worked on a game for the last year, however, even my own family hasn’t seen it. Can I enter it?
A. Yes, you can enter a game which you worked on previously as long as it hasn’t been shown to the public (i.e., internet, forums, IRC, school, etc.)

can some one please explain me about above Q&A
it seem no Game can enter the contest if the game already appear in internet..

For example my game is need to be review by game forum in certain game community, does my game still alloud to enter the contest. I mean in this case people in the forum can download & try the game.. but the purpose only for reviewing.

For another example.. I also have a team member.. but to reach them and to communicate I must use internet, in this case I can not control my team member whether they show my game to public (school, IRC & other stuff).

oh yeah I almost forgot.. my game is online game, in this case my game need to be tested to run through internet, and sure thing it need users... and for sure the users not only me and my team member.. I also need others , other guy in certain forum community maybe.. how about consideration about this case? because the more users able to test the game the more benefits for me to improve the game.

For me internet not only a media for publishing something, but it also a media to communicate, in my opinion above Answer need to be clarify which one is publishing , and which one is comunicating, because I think comunnicating a game to someone else not ruin the contest at all. :)

[KittyMac]

My understanding is:

If you post your game to a publically accessible forum, then it has been shown to the public and is not eligible for the contest.

If you email/IM/"any other 1 to 1 communication path" your game between yourself and another team member, that is a private communication and the game in still eligible for the contest.

[cimot]

oh yeah I almost forgot.. my game is online game, in this case my game need to be tested to run through internet, and sure thing it need users... and for sure the users not only me and my team member.. I also need others , other guy in certain forum community maybe.. how about consideration about this case? because the more users able to test the game the more benefits for me to improve the game.

[KittyMac]

The point of the contest is to create a game in the time period of the contest (Oct 18 - Nov 28). This Q&A posting is an acknowledgement that iDevGames is not omnipresent and cannot police people who want to enter a game which they started before the start of the contest, IF that game was not made public before the start of the contest.

In your particular case, if you created your online game in private (meaning just you and your dev team, not a forum full of public beta testers) before the start of the contest, and after the start of the contest opened it up to the public beta testers, then this would be fine.

[EvolPenguin]

Though a bit unfair in my opinion ;)
Do as you will, but the real point of this contest is to do it in the dev time (IMHO)

Alex

[cimot]

Ok I got it KittyMac :)
So I must really carefull on this...

I'm sorry EvolPenguin, I don't get it , which one do you think it's unfair?

anyway my game not exactly from last year... I just start developing it to enter the contest.. but since it is an online game..that is why I ask you about that part of Q & A

thank you very much for your attention & expalantion KittyMac & EvolPenguin :) :)

[kevglass]

With respect to Intellectual Property issues - could someone running the contest give me a difinitive answer as to whether Tempest would be valid entry given that its game mechanics are similar to those in the original Tempest game. (I'll be changing the name soon for worries about IP).

Kev

[Carlos Camacho]

Ken, your game is fine, since it is your original creation, though it is a based on (tribute/clone game, etc.) a game we have all seen, Tempest. With respect to Intellectual Property issues, you must research carefully how the owner of the original IP of a game feels about tributes/clones, etc. So, if someone wanted to enter a Pac-Man clone, iDevGames isn't going to contact Namco on behalf of the developer -- it will be up to the developer to insure that everything :cool:. My thinking is that some publishers/devs guard their "old" IP very carefully (Atari/Hasbro) while others don't seem to mind (maybe until you start making $$$). Although I can't speak for Freeverse, judging by their library, they seem not to publish "straight" clones. The titles that they do release that resemble certain classics tend to have enough originality to stand up on their own. I thought I might point this point out.

Thanks to Rocco and Evol for answering the question of cimot.
If you email/IM/"any other 1 to 1 communication path" your game between yourself and another team member, that is a private communication and the game in still eligible for the contest.
Yep, that is a good way to explain it. Testing and development of a game can go fine when it is kept between the members prior to the start of the contest. After the start of the contest (which we are now in), you can of course start to public (beta) test your game, as Rocco pointed out in post #4.

Since you mentioned "online game", I should take the chance to remind people of the requirement "Run natively under a default install of Mac OS X 10.4.2." Many of the old timers here will explain further what that means for anyone new to iDevGames.

Cheers,

[codemattic]

so is it technically permissable to enter a game youve been developing for a long time (and have never shown anyone) - but yet considered against the spirit of the contest?

[Malarkey]

so is it technically permissable to enter a game youve been developing for a long time (and have never shown anyone) - but yet considered against the spirit of the contest?

Pretty much, yeah, since Carlos can't actually verify that you haven't been working on something for the past year, even with the source code (it's trival to spoof creation dates and what not). It's all on the honor system.

[Carlos Camacho]

>but yet considered against the spirit of the contest?
Codemattic, please remember that this is OMG and not uDG. What I mean is that in uDG, there has been a certain spirit which pushed people to truly stay within the 3 month dev period. Although OMG Cup, like uDG has that "don't show" rule, as long as you follow it, then you are free to enter a game that you made and locked away 10 years ago (as long as the other requirements are met ;) )

>since Carlos can't actually verify that you haven't been working on something for the past year
Actually I have a log of what everyone is doing by the hour. ;)