Quote: Original post by sirGustav
Great initiative!

I am a little confused with rule #6 (clicky).

Quote: The entry must support the taking of screenshots. Unless an entry provides an alternative mechanism, it is assumed that pressing the print-screen key will take a screenshot of the game and save it to the clipboard. If an alternative mechanism is provided, it must be clearly documented in the manual.

Doesn't fraps or some other screencap solution solve this/make it useless?

That rule is taken from the 4e6 and 4e5 contest rules. Not all people have fraps (I think fraps costs money, but I`m not sure) and not all people have screencap software. Perhaps, if your entry does not support PrintScreen, you can put in your manual "Download this free software (LINK) and you can take screenshots."

Me, for example, I want to offer as a prize all games` review on some Czech indie game review servers. And those make their own screenshots of the game to make it appealing. They need to have a way to do that!

Quote: Original post by ne0_kamen

Quote: Original post by Aiursrage
What if we had a series of "acceptable element sets", than we randomly select which one to use. There is an element of surprise as in we are not sure which one will be chosen.

The question is how do we get "element sets" that everyone finds acceptable.

1) One idea seems to be that we have every participant enter a "set of elements". There should be some sort of verification process to reject "bad matches". This could be as simple as designating a single judge, a series of judges or archaic as giving everyone two vetoes.

Perhaps what swiftcoder advocated?
I still think the main flaw with this is that a single person have to pick all elements. Voting for "sets of elements" sounds to me a more sophisticated version of what Lesan proposed i.e to collect ideas from us and choose the best,to the best of his ability.That said,I feel there is no point in going in circle,so we should stick with the simplest approach available.This sort of thinking always helped me in programming,so it should help there,too.

What is this simplest approach available, then?

----------
Here's a summary of choosing the elements dilemma as I think of it:

1. We need to pick up four elements for the contests.
2. Those elements need to be general enough to allow creativity but not too much general.
3. Elements need to "fit together" so random generation of nouns is not a solution.
4. Elements should not be chosen all by a single person as that person would either be biased or would not be able to make all the elements.
----------

Polls:
1. What are the qualities an element should have? (I know there's going to be lots of different ideas here)

Should probably start getting a list together, throwing out things people don't like to close in on something reasonable, and group elements that can fit together. Some random suggestions:
Underground, water, waves, future, past, catastrophe, programming!, computers, war, peace, mountains, caves, space, aliens, treason, kings, queens, rebellion, magic, heaven, God, angels, daemons, religion, churches, fortress.

For example space/caves probably shouldn't both be used. Not that caves in space can't be awesome, but at that point there's not much choice left.
space/waves however fit together nicely, there are all sorts of waves that can be present both in space or on planets in space.
space/aliens are probably bad together, since it's kinda the same element, just having one of them will probably cause most people to use both, but if both are forced then there's not much choice left.
fortress/water go together nicely. Fortresses can be floating, under water, flying above the water, etc.

Quote: Original post by ne0_kamen
-Gameplay
Seems alright except the last question is useless. You already have a question about how much time the judge spent playing the game and if he finished it.
Since it is unlikely someone will play twice the game in a month,I feel there is no need for this question.(Maybe I'm wrong on this one).
-Comments
Personally I will add everything I have to say about an entry in the Technical,Gameplay,Integration and Polish commentary textboxes,but still there one might add some positive feedback like "good work!","Awesome work overall",etc..

I see your point, however I think its important to know for contenders how much time it took to finish a game. People might have played more than that with a game just to try some settings, or perhaps after finishing it they wanted to try if they could use other tactics and succeed as well. So personally I feel they are two different questions to which the answers can both be useful to the contender.

About the comments: you might be right that most people will fill in everything in the open questions above. However I wanted to give an opportunity (and another point in the form) to rethink again what they thought about the game and fill that in. If people don't have anything else to report, they can just let that last field blank.



About choosing the elements... that is a tough problem. I think Erik Rufelt's suggestion might work. Start out with a list of elements everybody (or most people) like. From that point identify combinations that would not work well together. At that point you have a list of nice elements and a list of combinations of elements that don't work well together. From this it should be possible to randomly generate a list of four elements that do work well together.

What do GameDev staff think about this? It would be cool if they supported the contest (even if unofficially). They could even participate! That would be something worth seeing! :)

Re: elements, it depends on how closely the entries have to adhere to them. The rules changed slightly from contest to contest.

I.e.: do you have to use all four elements? I think 4e4 (Pirates/Ninjas/Zombies/Robots) only needed two, 4e5 (Emblem/Emotion/Economy/Europe) needed all four, while 4e6 (Ponies/Accountants/Crystals/Explosions) let you leave out one. If you have to use all four elements they should be somewhat general, but if you can skip one or more then I think it's okay to be more specific.

Also: how integrated do the elements have to be within the game to count? This is usually a sticking point that was debated endlessly through previous 4e contests [wink]. Generally I think it has to be something beyond just a superficial mention, so you can't just have "Random Noun Trader Game" where you trade crates labelled with element names.

I don't mind having a single person choose the elements if it helps maintain a consistent theme. 4e4's theme of Pirates/Ninjas/Zombies/Robots is as unrandom as it comes, yet it helped create a fun atmosphere and an interesting range of game ideas.

In my opinion all 4 elements should be used, if possible, though I don't think a rule about how well they must be used is necessary, just make it a score-category and the judges can make that decision when rating entries. If you can skip elements then the entries will drift further apart, and a large part of the fun seems to be comparing how people have designed their game based on the same elements. 'As good element integration as possible' should be enough.

Some other thoughts:

What's the point of elements, and what should they be?
For a strict programming or game-making contest, I feel having 4 elements doesn't add much to the contest. I haven't entered any of the previous contests, since I've always been occupied with other projects, but I've gotten the impression that the idea behind the elements is that it's a game design and writing contest as much as a programming contest. When taking an already planned game idea and integrating the elements into it, for the sake of the contest, one will probably end up with a less than satisfying result. The challenge is to design a game from a set of prerequisites, and then implementing that game.
Depending on how specific and constraining the elements are, the comparison between how people use them can be more about integration into the game, or more about creativity in finding a scenario where the elements make for an interesting premise. The challenge of choosing the elements is to give the designer something to work with, while still not being so general as that the various entries don't seem to have anything in common.
Last years elements felt a bit too constraining, as there are quite few scenarios where the elements would all naturally enter the game-play. It felt more like a contest where the point is throwing together random elements. The only one I can think of is a Zelda-game: Link rides a pony, gathers crystals, fights magic explosions, and the accountant could be the evil boss stealing the king's money. I didn't try all the games from the contest, but those I checked out, though good games, seemed like they could have been better by replacing some of the elements in the finished game with more fitting ones.
With for example earth/fire/water/wind elements, there are massively many more things to choose from, and basically there's no constraint at all as to what game can be made. Perhaps something in between is the best.

I think it's good to make a web-site where everyone can upload their games, but keep everything else here on Gamedev. It will attract more people, and people who don't enter are probably still interested in following the contest. Requiring that entrants or on-lookers use another web-page would only limit the audience and potential entries. Making a post with some various elements and editing it as the discussion progresses seems like a good way to decide what elements to use, instead of building a voting-system that not many people will see.

Use the name 4 elements community edition 1 or something, instead of 4e7, since it's a different contest following in the same spirit.

I'm trying to come up with 4 good elements, but it's pretty hard. I feel discussion of some different options is a good way to find a fitting selection.
For example if I say: Water, Trains, Treason, Moon, which one would you replace, and with what?

Quote: Original post by Erik Rufelt
I didn't try all the games from the contest, but those I checked out, though good games, seemed like they could have been better by replacing some of the elements in the finished game with more fitting ones.

Yes, that's the problem I had with 4e6 elements. It tended to spawn games where you play as an accountant collecting crystals from the evil exploding ponies. It could sort of work, but you got the impression that the game wanted to be something else.

Quote: With for example earth/fire/water/wind elements, there are massively many more things to choose from, and basically there's no constraint at all as to what game can be made. Perhaps something in between is the best.

I don't particularly mind the looser constraints, because it becomes less of an issue of figuring out how to shoehorn the elements in and more an exercise in using them well.

Quote: I'm trying to come up with 4 good elements, but it's pretty hard. I feel discussion of some different options is a good way to find a fitting selection.
For example if I say: Water, Trains, Treason, Moon, which one would you replace, and with what?

Good idea, and a good batch of sample elements. Let's see:

My opinion: Water is the best element of the four, as it can be used in many different ways which are critical to the game concept without being too vague. Lots of different game ideas can spawn from this.

Moon is nearly as good. It's a smidgen more constricting if it's to be critical. I'd have to make it the setting, base it some kind of lunar magic or use it as a key plot point.

Trains is a bit weak, IMO. It suggests a limited range of game ideas or settings, like transport tycoon type games or murder mystery inspired adventure games. It's not terrible, however.

Treason I'd flag as the weakest for two reasons. First, I think it's a bit too specific; "betrayal" would be more open. Secondly, it strikes me as something as hard to do well without putting a lot of material into the game.

Overall though, it's not a bad bunch of four elements. If a 4E contest had that four, I'd give it some thought. However as a combination I'd expect a lot of political intrigue games set on lunar bases. [wink]

Quote: Original post by Erik Rufelt

I'm trying to come up with 4 good elements, but it's pretty hard. I feel discussion of some different options is a good way to find a fitting selection.
For example if I say: Water, Trains, Treason, Moon, which one would you replace, and with what?

I would replace trains for two reasons - first it excludes all games where trains are not yet invented or unavailable for some reason. Fitting them in such games would be hard / out of place.
The other reason is because trains are hard to draw (especially 3d). Its more or less the issue with ponies.
I would replace it with something more general like vehicle. Thus form the elements : Water,Vehicle,Treason and Moon I can quickly think of a game idea :

The year is 2020. After a global cataclysm in 2012, the Earth's waters are heavily polluted and the precious water is undrinkable.
A scientist discovery provides evidence there could be water on one of the moons of Venus (if Venus have moons after all :)
Three ships are sent from earth's most powerful nations each landing on the moon.But no one really nows what lurks in the ice craters...

I haven't time to continue the story but you get the point.

About the elements [again]
I think the idea of defining manually which elements don't fit together is decent,and since most of the time the unfitness is obvious,the relationships will be determined pretty quickly.
One flaw with this is that due to careless planning some elements may contain less than four possibilities.
Mathematically,I think,the elements that fit with more of the other elements will have a better chance of being drawn,since picking one element will automatically discard any element from the pool that doesn't fit.You should get what I mean.

And Lesan,the 'simplest' solution is to craft the elements the way you said in your "authority post".That's what I wanted to point out.

Some more ideas for elements:

• forest
  
• maze
  
• clouds
  
• rain
  
• perpetual motion
  
• ocean floor
  
• volcano
  
• rodents
  
• winter (or summer, autumn, spring)
  
• blue (or any other colour, or even colours in general)
  
• meteor
  
• physics
  
• nature
  

Most of them are reasonably general I think. Take for example `perpetual motion'. A game like Sonic would already be good as Sonic is always in motion. Also none of the elements require any inventions already have been done I think.