MAGIC - Mystery Aspect Game Innovation Contest
The What
Your goal is to create in a single week a game based on an innovative game idea (including the
mystery aspect and with as much polish as you can throw at it at the time available.
With only a week it is not expected that you have a fully finished game of any significant scope, but it is enough time to implement a new game idea prototype with style. The end product should be good enough to convince a player that you've got an idea with some potential. This requires both some originality (and fun) game idea, plus a fair amount of effort on the presentation to draw people in.
For an idea of what is required, check out the
Experimental Gameplay Project from which a major part of the concept behind this competition is based.
At its heart, this contest is meant to be a fun and friendly way to spend a week developing a new idea, and hopefully end the week with a great new game idea.
The When
- Start and Mystery Aspect revealed: Sunday, 3 June 2007, 00:00:00 UTC time (Greenwich Mean Time) - for your local time see link to World Clock
- Finish: Monday, 11 June 2007, 00:00:00 UTC time (Greenwich Mean Time) - for your local time see link to World Clock(has been extended one day from Sunday to Monday)
The How
The
full set of rules is still being assembled. Here is a short run down of the more important things to keep in mind for the competition:
- Your game will need to incorporate the mystery aspect in a large way. Entries without the mystery aspect will be disqualified. Entries with only a passing resemblance to the mystery aspect will score low.
- You may use game makers, libraries and existing engines for your game (provided they don't break any other rules). You may use code used from previous games you made provided you rewrite the gameplay components. What this means is it is acceptable to use common reusable parts of your games (for example: initialisation, graphics code, physics, collision detection, common AI routines like path finding etc.), but it is not okay to merely tweak an existing game in a little way for your submission; you need to make a new idea. The mystery aspect will help with enforcing this.
- While it is okay to use any content that is free for non-commercial use or anything you have permission for, it is not okay to use any material that you do not have the right to distribute. That means ripped graphics and music from games, random images from websites and so on are not okay unless there is explicit permission for you to use them. The same applies for trademarks.
- There is a hard limit of 7 megabytes (that's 7,340,032 bytes) on entry download sizes. This is the size of the (probably compressed) download; your uncompressed game can be larger if it can compress to under 7 megabytes. With the exception of software already installed on the judges computer you will need to provide everything that is required to run your game, so factor this into your choice of libraries, art and music.
Once again,
check the Wiki for the rules as they develop. A hard copy list of rules based from these will be posted before the start of the competition.
The Prizes
Yes, we have
prizes! We currently have two fine prizes from the organisers of the competition:
- From Prozak, we have $50.00 (USD) to be spent on any reputable online store, on a GameDev.Net membership, or wired via Paypal.
- From Trapper Zoid, we have a copy of Game Development with Lua by Paul Schuytema and Mark Manyen.
First place gets to choose the prize of his/her/their choice. Second place gets the remaining prize.
The Mystery Aspect
The
mystery aspect is a secret theme (or possibly multiple secret themes) that will be chosen at the very start of the contest. The method of choice of mystery aspect is yet to be decided. It will involve a random choice from a short list, but the content of that list will depend on what difficulty it is gauged will best suit the competition. This choice will be based on a rough estimate of the experience of the people who sign up and what level of challenge they are desiring. So it's best to sign up early and make your opinions heard!
The Judging
The judging will be done by the sponsors of the competition (Prozak and Trapper Zoid). Judging should be completed a week after the end of the competition.
We will be looking mainly in two areas rated roughly equally when ranking your games:
- Gameplay: How good is the idea, how original is it, how well does it incorporate the secret theme, how well was it implemented from a technical perspective, how does it play, how are the controls? Etcetera.
- Presentation: How the game looks and feels. It's the artistry behind the game. Everything from art, sound, music, animation, story, humour, or just the "vibe" of the game counts here.
The Wiki
Prozak has set up a
Wiki for the contest. This will be a great source of information useful for the contest. Contestants are encouraged to post details of their game in progress to their Wiki page.
In development is a
Resources page listing links to all manner of useful libraries, art assets, sound effects and music that you can use for your game entries.
The Sign-up Sheet
...is below; just make a comment that you want to be in the competition! You can also add your name to the list of contestants in the
Wiki. You can use your Wiki page to post updates of how you are going in the contest.
[Edited by - Trapper Zoid on May 26, 2007 7:43:38 PM]
The mystery aspect (secret theme) for the contest is... The Tower!
Your game needs to be based around a tower, or towers. It is up to you as to what the tower is (or towers are) and how they affect the game.
Best of luck, and have fun!
Disclaimer: this contest has nothing to do with Magic the Gathering. Magic the Gathering is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, and I'm only including a picture of the card here to announce the theme because it's cool.
Extra Day: The end of the contest has be extended to June 11th, midnight GMT. The contest will still start on June 3rd.
