Quote: Original post by d000hg

Quote: Original post by coderx75

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Making a game is about creativity not just being good at C++. Nobody said it was supposed to be easy. And you don't have to get your game idea in the first two days, spend some time thinking not just coding...

True, but some of us are more technical than creative. Initially, I saw this year's selection of elements to be somewhat restrictive to the less creative types (as was last year's selection), and as I said before, for such a time investment this should be something we'll all WANT to create.

It's a competition to demonstrate your ability to make an innovative, original and fun game. If you're not creative then you shouldn't be leading a game project, but working as a coder for someone who is. That's not meant as an insult. If you are really amazing at coding someone's ideas, use that talent. Teams are allowed and maybe your ability to do impossible things with shaders can be used on implementing another person's ideas. But it is not a competition for technical ability. You saw the winning entry for 4E4 right?

That's not in context with my entire reply.

My point isn't for myself but for the contest in general. One thing that in no way helps creativity is restriction. Yes, using a minimal toolset to achieve an end result can yield some pretty creative and clever implementations, but restriction on the design of that implementation rarely yields desirable results, IMO.

The problem that I noticed with last year's contest (and this year somewhat) was that it seemed to force creativity. I agree that it's a "competition to demonstrate creativity", but is it not possible for someone to be creative with very basic elements? If I hand you a canvas, paints of the primary colors and a brush and tell you to be creative, you can. If I give you a canvas and four rubber stamps, you're probably not going to be too excited about puting forth the time and effort. I see this only leading to less finished projects which won't do the contest any good.

As I said before, I'm really not unhappy with this year's elements. I actually think the selection of elements could yield some games that are far different from what we're used to seeing roll out of the AAA studios. I'm only arguing they are restrictive in many ways and that could result in fewer finished entries.

I've been trying to understand the rationale behind this year elements and I came up with this:
[Female market associated element] [Some profession (serious games) related element, like Ace Attorney] [Fantasy element] [Action (shooter) element]
Essentially: is it possible to create a single game targeted for different markets?

Although I don't have time to join this year competition, I am looking forward to see what you all can come up with.

Quote: Original post by maes
I've been trying to understand the rationale behind this year elements and I came up with this:
[Female market associated element] [Some profession (serious games) related element, like Ace Attorney] [Fantasy element] [Action (shooter) element]

Nope, all wrong. The real way the elements were chosen was by super pig randomly sticking his finger in the dictionary.

Quote: Original post by HandCraftedRadio
Nope, all wrong. The real way the elements were chosen was by super pig randomly sticking his finger in the dictionary.

Hahaha! That’s what I first thought when I saw the elements. Especially that someone has previously posted a link to a random word generator...

Quote: Original post by coderx75

Quote: Original post by d000hg

Quote: Original post by coderx75

Quote: Original post by d000hg
Making a game is about creativity not just being good at C++. Nobody said it was supposed to be easy. And you don't have to get your game idea in the first two days, spend some time thinking not just coding...

True, but some of us are more technical than creative. Initially, I saw this year's selection of elements to be somewhat restrictive to the less creative types (as was last year's selection), and as I said before, for such a time investment this should be something we'll all WANT to create.

It's a competition to demonstrate your ability to make an innovative, original and fun game. If you're not creative then you shouldn't be leading a game project, but working as a coder for someone who is. That's not meant as an insult. If you are really amazing at coding someone's ideas, use that talent. Teams are allowed and maybe your ability to do impossible things with shaders can be used on implementing another person's ideas. But it is not a competition for technical ability. You saw the winning entry for 4E4 right?

That's not in context with my entire reply.

My point isn't for myself but for the contest in general. One thing that in no way helps creativity is restriction. Yes, using a minimal toolset to achieve an end result can yield some pretty creative and clever implementations, but restriction on the design of that implementation rarely yields desirable results, IMO.

The problem that I noticed with last year's contest (and this year somewhat) was that it seemed to force creativity. I agree that it's a "competition to demonstrate creativity", but is it not possible for someone to be creative with very basic elements? If I hand you a canvas, paints of the primary colors and a brush and tell you to be creative, you can. If I give you a canvas and four rubber stamps, you're probably not going to be too excited about puting forth the time and effort. I see this only leading to less finished projects which won't do the contest any good.

As I said before, I'm really not unhappy with this year's elements. I actually think the selection of elements could yield some games that are far different from what we're used to seeing roll out of the AAA studios. I'm only arguing they are restrictive in many ways and that could result in fewer finished entries.

Crystals and explosions are pretty core elements of many genres of games. You only have to get one of the other two in... it's some restriction but not as bad as others seem to be implying with posts like "I'm not competing because the elements suck".

Quote: Original post by coderx75
One thing that in no way helps creativity is restriction.

I strongly disagree.

Without restrictions, you're facing a completely blank, infinite canvas, with an unlimited array of paints. You can do absolutely anything. And many people balk at that - where do you start? Sure, some people can handle it, but usually they do it by imposing their own restrictions - "I want to create something with this message," "I want to create something in this style," "I want to create something that uses these colour paints because they're what I have available," etc.

Restrictions focus your creativity in particular directions. They give you something to begin thinking with, anchor points that you can start hooking things on. Your canvas is square? Consider things that will be well-framed by a square canvas, then.

I acknowledge that the elements aren't just restrictions - they're also supposed to be inspirational - and that's the primary problem with last year's elements, is that they were too vague to be inspirational. They threw out too many potential designs (that lacked them) without inducing enough designs that included them. More tangible elements, with properties and attributes you can more readily grasp, give you more to work with.

Quote: The problem that I noticed with last year's contest (and this year somewhat) was that it seemed to force creativity. I agree that it's a "competition to demonstrate creativity", but is it not possible for someone to be creative with very basic elements? If I hand you a canvas, paints of the primary colors and a brush and tell you to be creative, you can. If I give you a canvas and four rubber stamps, you're probably not going to be too excited about puting forth the time and effort. I see this only leading to less finished projects which won't do the contest any good.

Fact is, though, that if people already knew what they wanted to paint, they'd have gone and got canvases and paints themselves before now. To some extent this contest caters to people who don't know what they want to create, who need the guidelines and restrictions to push them towards doing something. It's also a better reflection of creativity in the real world: the number of people painting with blank canvases is far outweighed by the number of people creating adverts or product packaging. Most human creativity is in the form of problem-solving, of creating something for a particular situation or purpose.

Might people end up giving up on their projects because they're not really interested in them? Sure, but they don't know what they are interested in either, and at least they might learn something before they drop out.

Quote: I'm only arguing they are restrictive in many ways and that could result in fewer finished entries.

Time will tell, but I think we'll definitely see more entries than last year.

How do you think the elements compare to the year before? "Robots, Ninjas, Zombies, Pirates" isn't that much less restrictive than "Ponies, Accountants, Crystals, Explosions," surely?

Quote: Original post by coderx75
I actually think the selection of elements could yield some games that are far different from what we're used to seeing roll out of the AAA studios.

Hopefully, yes. Using generic AAA-elements like cars and guns could easily lead to badly designed rip-offs of existing titles. Having to work with these out of the ordinary elements that only a very sick and twisted mind could have come up with, we could expect some interesting results.

I'll say it again, I love the elements this year :D.

Any word on when the prizes will be up? I'll be finishing an entry with or without prizes, but im just curious.

In the beginning i was really disappointed with the choice of elements. However my atitude took 180 degree turn and now i'm excited.

If there wouldn't be any restrictions people would create completely different games. Different means also hard to compare.

Thanks to elements you can see how others have designed their games and compare it to your ideas. This gives a great competition feeling. I'm doing 2D fantasy sidescroller and just read about other similar project. Now i will be able to see who will create better entry :) (that's propably not me since this is a first game i'm doing)

Choice of elements gives a great opportunity to show off your design skills. Everyone can design a game featuring guns & blood. But with this year elements it's much harder - thus much more challenging.

Quote: Original post by superpig
Fact is, though, that if people already knew what they wanted to paint, they'd have gone and got canvases and paints themselves before now. To some extent this contest caters to people who don't know what they want to create, who need the guidelines and restrictions to push them towards doing something. It's also a better reflection of creativity in the real world: the number of people painting with blank canvases is far outweighed by the number of people creating adverts or product packaging. Most human creativity is in the form of problem-solving, of creating something for a particular situation or purpose.

Might people end up giving up on their projects because they're not really interested in them? Sure, but they don't know what they are interested in either, and at least they might learn something before they drop out.

That's a good point. Many members here seem to be looking to get away from the Tetris and Breakout clones but don't have an original and practical idea to start a project. The ones that do are already working on those projects and don't have the time to put towards the contest anyway.

Quote: Time will tell, but I think we'll definitely see more entries than last year.

How do you think the elements compare to the year before? "Robots, Ninjas, Zombies, Pirates" isn't that much less restrictive than "Ponies, Accountants, Crystals, Explosions," surely?

In some ways less restrictive but more generic. All four elements were similar in nature where as the contest has since diversified the elements. It's a good direction and, the contest still being young (only the second year of diversified elements), time will tell what types of elements work best. Taking a closer look at this year's elements:

Crystals, Explosions - As D000gh mentioned, these are core elements. They're open to interpretation and can be incorporated into gameplay in a huge variety of ways.

Ponies - Very generic, similar to any of the 4E4 elements. Although a restriction, still open to usage and effect on gameplay.

Accountants - Very rigid. An accountant is an accountant, however, can be creatively incorporated into gameplay.

For my game concept, I aim to make the accountants as hated as possible. ;-)