When is an entry not a game?

[Carlos Camacho]

I have mentioned that with my schedule, I've only tried one game so far. So, I haven't been able to "police" the entries, and prod the developers. Well, I prod them about other things. ;)

In our rules, I don't beleive we have a rule stating that a game must have this and that, in order to be qualified to enter. This might be because with some many genres, it might be hard to write up what qualifies as a game. ie, "The game must have gameplay that lasts more than 30 seconds" or "The game must contain at least one playable level." That won't work with all games, right?

Here is why I ask. As uDevGames grows, it is bound to attract people outside our community of upstanding developers. These people may want to use the contest for their own wicked plans, like promoting their web-design business. I'm all for self-promottion, in fact, it is part of the concept of uDevGames. But the idea is that you are getting prmotion by the hard work and the results you put forth.

The other area of concern is that some devs may be tempted to enter an application that pretty much does nothing, yet, as they have qualified under our current rules, they will get some prizes which we offer all who enter. True, those prizes tend to be small things, but still, it kind of irks me a bit.

I don't think this is a serious problem, but it is something we need to think about. Hopefully you all have tried all the games, and will let me know if we have any of the two cases this year. (Please be nice though in the public forum.)

Any thoughts are welcomed.

[igame3d]

"The game must have gameplay that lasts more than 30 seconds"

I think that has to count for something. If the application launches, and mashing every control known to man does nothing, then I don't think that qualifies as a "game".

Can you think of a game that doesn't have 30 seconds of gameplay?
Besides maybe a carnival hustle.

[Carlos Camacho]

>Can you think of a game that doesn't have 30 seconds of gameplay?
E.T. on the Atari. :D

[sealfin]

Can you think of a game that doesn't have 30 seconds of gameplay?
More literally, Wario Ware on the GBA?

[ERaZer]

More literally, Wario Ware on the GBA?

Sure, each mini game has less then 30 seconds of gameplay, but put togheter it's much more.
Or?

[Hog]

interesting question. one might think that since you let people rate the game on gameplay that should not be an issue at all, because practically something that is not a game has a gameplay value of <= 0. but it's not always failsafe to let commoners decide. you can have a long discussion on whether diablo 2 is a game or not.

[Najdorf]

I dont understand why you would worry for such an unlikely thing...

I mean, it is much more probable (and about equally damaging for the contest) that someone submit a really crappy game, but you still dont want to discourage new devs saying "look your game is too crappy to be listed". You must have some faith people will be "nice". If a programmer wants to be "mean", he will write a virus or hack your server, not write a game that is not actually a game but just a program in order to breach through the rules of the contest :P

[BeyondCloister]

interesting question. one might think that since you let people rate the game on gameplay that should not be an issue at all, because practically something that is not a game has a gameplay value of <= 0. but it's not always failsafe to let commoners decide. you can have a long discussion on whether diablo 2 is a game or not.

The lack of game play may give them 0 in one category.
However poor / non existant game play in theory would not stop the program winning best graphics if what is on display is the best graphics.
The same goes for the audio side of things.

It opens up the whole voting debate though on whether or not people vote low for everything when it is just really one thing that should be marked down low (such as resized screen or whatever).

However recent history shows that voters cannot be trusted...

[Zwilnik]

Just have a rule that says "The judges reserve the right to disqualify any entry for whatever reason they see fit".

[BeyondCloister]

That rule would be okay for next year, but the tone of the first post seemed to indicate that someone had paid for their entry this year and submited such a non game. That entry would not be covered.

[PowerMacX]

About giving a game all 1's: I'm downloading all games right now, so I can burn them on a CD and take them home to try them on my Mac, but I couldn't resist the temptation to try some of them on this machine (a 2x1.8 G5). One game only showed a black screen, so I thought: I guess I'll give him all 1's, but then I saw the 3 categories and realized that in fact I didn't have any info on the quality of it's graphics, gameplay or music/sound! So I decided to give the game another try at home before voting. That was a good thing, because later, another two games showed the same problem (black screen), so I'm suspecting it has something to do with this particular G5 or monitor.

Now, looking at the sheer quantity of games, how much time did you guys put playing/testing each one?

[skyhawk]

if it was a not too good of a game, I played "1 round" or the equivalent of that. The addictive games, I played until I unlocked as much stuff as possible (this is another good point, unlocking new things in the game).
longest played game was Snowball at 2-3 hours, shortest played game was shards and bumper cars at about 5 minutes each

[MattDiamond]

There were two games last year that might be interesting examples to this discussion. Neither was really finished. Don't remember the names, but one was a Wizardry-style maze with a couple of locations you could get to that suggested some background. That was all. The other actually got a prize for originality- you tried to alter the climate of a planet through celestial events. I don't know that anyone got anywhere with it; you just kept throwing crap at the planet to try and lower the temperature and raise the water content. After a few hundred clicks I got tired of this and quit. But highly original.

When thinking about the "what is a game" question one should probably decide first whether these entries should have been disqualified or not. They certainly wouldn't pass some of the rules that people have proposed so far. That may be desirable, but it may not.

[BeyondCloister]

I really liked the planet building game you refer to. It was a game in the sense that combinations of things caused different things to happen and you had to work out what those were in a kind of puzzle way.

[igame3d]

After a few hundred clicks I got tired of this and quit. But highly original.

Hmm I seem to recall you winning once for a game I got tired of and quit in less than 20 clicks.

In this kind of instance, I do not think that would make a valid rule, since it relies on personal taste.


The game mentioned in the previous post was the first game the dev has ever finished and he was working alone, really shooting for the stars, so to speak.
After the nerve wracking experience of the contest he has given up entirely on making games, at least that was his condition when I spoke to him a few months ago. iDevGames downtime and the disintergration of the support mechanism provided by the once easy to access chat room also played a part his waning interest in making games for the Mac.

[Fenris]

I really liked the planet building game you refer to.
TerraForma by Hank What's-his-name. Sadly, he never finished it, and dropped game programming altogether. Quite a shame, the guy had talent. But, he's making movies now, so when he gets his Oscar, we can all nod and say, I played his game. ;-)

My fave? Yoink is in a good position here. As was the pirate-squirrel game of last year.

[MattDiamond]

Hmm I seem to recall you winning once for a game I got tired of and quit in less than 20 clicks.

In this kind of instance, I do not think that would make a valid rule, since it relies on personal taste.


You misunderstood me. I wasn't proposing a rule that if I get quickly tired of an entry then it's not a game! Both the entries I mentioned above were very incomplete; they did not have the interactivity, goals or rewards that define most computer games. They didn't have much gameplay (arguably it was more than 30 seconds, but still.)

I wasn't trying to insult those entries. I gave the world-building game high marks for originality, and for sheer ambitiousness (not a category we vote on) I thought he was off the scale. I was merely pointing out that highly experimental or unfinished games would not pass some of the rules that people are proposing in this thread. I want to make sure that people understand this unintended side effect.

Personally I'd rather have people submit half-finished ideas and feel good about what they accomplished than add rules to discourage them. The last thing we want to do is discourage new developers from entering something.


he has given up entirely on making games

That's depressing to hear.

[geezusfreeek]

That is depressing. We need to work to keep things like that from happening. I have a feeling that as the average game in uDevGames increases in quality, this will become more and more common.

[Zwilnik]

A no source code category would possibly get you some better entries, but it wouldn't exactly help the other aim of the competition, which is to help teach how to make games.

The 3D dungeon thingy from last year was actually valuable for that even though it wasn't fully finished, assuming the source code was finally made available for it. Having the source code for a simple 3D maze could be handy for a games programmer just starting out.

[Carlos Camacho]

Very very interesting comments by everyone. I wasn't sure if I would get feedback on this issue -- I was wrong. :D

>The judges reserve the right to disqualify any entry for whatever reason they see fit
I looked for that in our rules straight away. I could swear we had that! We did in the past. Hmmm..

Well, when I was informed this year that a game, wasn't a game, and then "somewhat" told by its developer that (blush), he was "shooting beyond the stars himself" and "hoping to get some free goodies" (these are my quotes to convey the feeling I got), then I started to think about it.

My thoughts are....

1) Perhaps one man's junk is another man's gold mine. As Aaron pointed out, some may think, "What good was that game that made a pong ball move around the screen?" But to others, they might just find that code mighty useful to learn from.

2) Yes, I would never want to discourage new developers. So, I wouldn't say, "Beat it kid, your game isn't even triple-E level."

3) All people have different views on gameplay. As I said in my first post, defining a game or gameplay are not so easy. I think to do so is a slippery slope.

4) The chances of someone doing something to get free goodies for nothing is low. Tis true. However, as the contest reaches out more, I do think there might be temptation. Even being listed on the entrants list, which will get your site hits could be a temptation for some.

Bottomline is I just want to keep the doors barred to a person thinking to abuse the contest. I'm not looking to get better entries with my thoughts, just "real" effort entries. If the effort is a 1/2 finished game, then so be it. But if the effort is simply 1 screen, with only a credits and quit button working, then I am worried. (Some might argue even that might be usefull ;) )

OT: About Hank/Muff. He seemed like a nice enough fellow. But he left this community IMHO for lack of clear motivation. This was a problem before uDevGames. If I recall, he couldn't settle down on a project. One such project, an RPG which I was providing him graphics for was "abandoned" and brushed aside. :( I should also mention that shipping him prizes last year was a major "pain." Those in the loop will know well of what I say. I hate to go OT, and normally, I do shed a tear when someone leaves us -- even someone like AJInfinity, but I'm not so sure in this case.

Anyhow, we can leave the contest as it is this year. Hopefully by Spring, we can come to a conclusion on this and other stuff. :)

Cheers,

[Najdorf]

Ok, then an edulcorated version of aaron's (or is it adam, I never remember...) solution is the way to go, something such as "iDevgames reserves the right to disqualify an entry if it does not posess the essential requirements of a game, or if the code is anyhow malicious. Idevgames is the only judge of this bla bla bla


BTW you dont need idevgames to get hits to your website, Versiontracker will gladly accept anything anyone submits, probably also malicious code ;P