Too short?

[Zeggy]

Is the time that you get for coding too short?

Some people have been telling me that it's quite hard to get a game done in two months.

For the next contest, how long do you think it should last?

[raestlyn]

One month :p

Seriously, I think 2 months is enough. There is Game Constests where games have been coded in one week, look the Script Vault for Rogue-like game..

[Chris]

Come one, you can make a browser game in 2 weeks (you know, there are like "7 days game making competitions" around and people still make it). Assuming you are doing it the first time 2 months will be more than enough (of course only if you don't sweat over every single feature and accept it being not perfect ).

[Matt]

2 months is fine.

Whilst I haven't listed my game yet, since I'm still thinking about it (having only found the competition yesterday), the duration is somewhat irrelevant - its simply a case of trimming the scale, development and testing to fit in the time available. 2 months is not enough to bring a "next generation" game to full production standard, but then again the point of the competition and the prizes (as I understand it) is to get it to a playable state with the winner getting various goodies that allow its continued development and promotion.

What would be nice - and this may be the intention, I'm not sure - is for the prizes to be split over 1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc. place winners so that as many games as possible get a helping hand towards continued development with the most help going to the winner.

[xBleuWolfx]

I have to agree with Matt. Two months is just enough time to make a game that is playable. I also agree with him that 2nd and 3rd place should get some prizes as well.

[Mystic]

Two months during school, though?

Although I think it's enough time. Two weeks would be crazy, especially if it happened during say, midterms or something.

[RangerSheck]

Part of the challenge of a contest like this is being able to scale down the scope of a project into something manageable. To get something playable with two months of development time: which, if I were to venture a guess, for 95% or more of the visitors to bbgamezone, we're talking about two months in which you have to go to to school or work a full time job.

There are a bunch of first-timer entries. The developer has been planning on doing a PBBG for a long time, and this contest is "an excuse to really do it". If this is your first PBBG, then you're probably not going to complete the full scope of your idea in two months. I'm not trying to be negative, and maybe you have experience building web apps or maybe you have experience building non-web based games, and either of those things will help you tremendously. I'm just sayin - if you've never done a PBBG before - well, to be frank: be prepared to fall behind schedule My advice is that you identify the specific components necessary to make the game playable and hammer those out first. Make it a solid base. Everything else falls under the category of "future features".

A handful of contestants have pre-existing code to draw upon. According to the rules:
"Important: You must not submit games you have created in the past, or begin working on a game before the start of the contest."

However, there are no guidelines around code re-use (this is usually a gray area in any programming contest). So let me ask a hypothetical: what if I were to take my own game engine, start with a blank database, and create all new content? Would this be a valid entry? Would I be docked points by the judges? If that's the case, how will the judges know what code was re-used and what code is new?

[Zeggy]

I think that would be a valid entry. Doesn't matter, if it's fun, all the better

If it is a very obvious copy of an existing game engine or game, then I doubt the judges will like that much though.

[Scion]

I would think it was great if there were categories ...one for newbies...ie those of us that have never taken a game into production, and one for the pro's who have.

perhapes worth thinking about for the 'Next' one ....

[davidjwest]

I think it depends on the type of game you're writing.  For the one I'm working on, two months is nowhere near enough time, but I think getting a prototype done by then might be feasible.

The problem is if you have a longer deadline there's the risk of people getting bored of it, so I can understand why it's been set at two months.  Three would be nice though!

 

[Tribal]

I think it would be great to have a speed competition. For example a "weekend" competition

[JGadrow]

Since Zeggy has shown an interest in running this contest multiple times. Perhaps a quarterly contest should be considered? Developers would have an entire quarter (3 months) in which to code their games. They would need to have a playable demo by the end of the contest.

The judges would then have 1 month to review which is also the first month of the next contest.

[Tribal]

That does sound like an idea. Gets a fair scoring as well then. Also 2 months where Zeggers can relax

[Scion]

perhapes a theme could be used for each round of the competition, Im not suggesting that everyone has to make a game in style X....but just a loose theme that games should adhere too in some manner, It could help to ensure that not too much development happens before the 2 month starts ....

The only other point id like to make is that we should guard against having lots of half or 3/4 finished games....where people abandon development to start on the next entry when they could have finished off the last game instead...

[JGadrow]

That's a good point Scion. Perhaps bi-yearly (with 3 month breaks) contests instead. This would give developers a large break to either focus on their previous efforts (if that's what they want) or to think of an idea for the next contest.

[JohnMunsch]

Perhaps bi-yearly (with 3 month breaks) contests instead. This would give developers a large break to either focus on their previous efforts (if that's what they want) or to think of an idea for the next contest.

I can really get behind this idea. I don't need time to think up another idea, but there's quite a bit of design time needed for it and there will be a ton of stuff left undone and polishing needed for the game I'm throwing together now. To get a break to work on it would be great, because if not I know I'll probably be skipping every other contest.

[Tribal]

I agree. The amounts of times i come back to a project and realise i could had of improved here.

I like the idea of a theme. That defiantly would make scoring the game a lot easier and less bias. Example: Judge 1 loves racing games. Without knowing he is being bias because they are the only games he plays.

[davidjwest]

I've got dozens of ideas for games, so if there was another competition that would be cool.  Be nice to have some notice of the details too, rather than rushing it as you only found out about it half way through.

 

[Chris]

I think there should be "1 month framework competition". The goal would be to create: register, login, logout, list of players, option to send/read private messages to other players and then put it online. These are used on all games, no matter what kind of game you want to make, so the code will be always useful. Then those who made it can start the "game competition" having basic things solved at the beginning.

I noticed during the current competition that some people had problems like half working server or broken basic features. Also, it is always easier if you need to make something smaller, also less intimidating (I need to make register system and messages only, well maybe I can not do a full game yet, but this is something I can do for sure). Also, finishing something gives you a boost and confidence which will be quite useful later

[rowbvp]

LoL did they play all the game congrats on the winners but i differ on the picks.

1st. Cubicle Battles