I have a question about the eligibility of a game I'm writing. When reading the contest rules, it occurred to me that my game Epoch Star may be eligible... although it was not intentional. I believe it contains 2 - 3 of the elements, purely by happenstance. 1. Robots - Three of the Alien Races in the game are Robots. 2. Pirates - There is a race of Alien Space Pirates. 3. Zombies (this one is a stretch) - There is a race of space phantoms which destroy ships and turn the wreckage into zombie like attack ships. My question is, do the elements have to be the focus of the game, or can they just be elements that happen to exist in the game. And also, does it sound like my game would be eligible for this contest? It seems to me that it should be, because the contest rules only state that the game must contain at least 2 of the 4 elements listed. [wink]

If the elements aren't the focus of the game then you could lose points, but it sounds like it would still be eligable. As such, I think you have every right to enter...

There's nothing in the rules that says you can't enter something that was started before the beginning of the competition, either; it's hardly your fault that your project happens to fit the criteria. However, I might ask that you let the judges know just how long you have been working on the entry, such that it can be taken into account and make things a little fairer to the people who've only had five months.

How much of a penalty is there if the four elements are not the focus? The problem is if you didn't know to look for them, or didn't play very far into the game you may not even realize that these elements are in the game. After reading the entry criteria, I didn't see anything that indicated that the elements had to be the focus of the game, but if it will be highly penalized because they play only a minor role, I will probably not enter.

Thanks