20% only for gameplay seems a little harsh and unbalanced to me. Especially when how easy it is to install gets fully half as many points as gameplay! Shouldn't gameplay be the single most important section?
I agree here.
🎉 Celebrating 25 Years of GameDev.net! 🎉
Not many can claim 25 years on the Internet! Join us in celebrating this milestone. Learn more about our history, and thank you for being a part of our community!
The Week of awesome II! - The second annual unofficial gamedev competition!
@d000hg: I don't think that gameplay is necessarily the most important element in all game types: consider traditional point-and-click adventure games, for example. (I'm also dubious of placing audio below graphics: should an entry that blinds the player, asking them to rely on sound, be at a disadvantage against one that has no sound at all?)
I think that, if I were to weight a single element in the scoring list above the others, it would probably be "theme": after all, that would seem to be the central point of comparison for the various likely-disparate entries that I would expect. We might argue about how to score an adventure game against a shooter, or a game set in the silence of space against one that depicts the experience of blindness, but all are expected to follow the theme.
I think that, if I were to weight a single element in the scoring list above the others, it would probably be "theme": after all, that would seem to be the central point of comparison for the various likely-disparate entries that I would expect. We might argue about how to score an adventure game against a shooter, or a game set in the silence of space against one that depicts the experience of blindness, but all are expected to follow the theme.
I agree that gameplay shouldn't be elevated too highly over the others, but I also disagree that theme should be elevated higher than the others. With the theme, in past competitions, usually the judges almost make theme a boolean equation. "Is the theme present? Yep? 100% in that category.", "Is it not present? 0% then!", with maybe a, "Okay, it's sorta present. 50% then.", so making the theme give 30% of the equation might would most likely end up with almost all the games having a full 100% in the theme category, and then you'd be competing in the other categories but with a smaller scoring range (0-70%) to differentiate, making it harder to determine winners based on score, and leading to more ties.
Personally, I'm in favor of polish contributing to your overall score.
Graphics: 15 pts (how well the graphics help the game express itself and create an engaging experience for the user)
Audio: 15 pts (how well the audio fits into the game, and helps the game express itself)
Gameplay/fun factor: 15 pts (how enjoyable the game is to play)
First time user experience: 15 pts (whether the game is easy to run (e.g. does it have all the dependencies shipped with it), and how easy it is to pick up and play - does it have the neccesary instructions, and so on?)
Theme: 15 pts (how well the game incorporates the theme)
Polish: 15 pts (how well the game overall feels complete and how well it flows together, including things like main menus and interface elements)
Participation: 10pts (how well your team shares its progress with the rest of the community while working on their game. GameDev.net forums, GameDev.net chatroom, GameDev.net journal, and so on - not a measurement of how much you spam, but how much you interact with the other teams (commenting on each others' work) so we can all have fun)
I do like the idea of including a "polish" scoring element.
It's perhaps a little rough for a competition that only provides a week in which to work, but I do think that polish is something worth encouraging from developers (myself included).
With the theme, in past competitions, usually the judges almost make theme a boolean equation.
Hmm... On the one hand, that seems to me to be an issue in the judging--perhaps better guidelines for judging the "theme" element might be called for? However, if it's a problem that's not reasonably easy to solve for this competition, then I do concede your point; in fact, in that case it might even be worth reducing that element's weight.
I'm always interested in programming competitions, but sadly my personal life doesn't allow me the time to take part in any. I wish everyone good luck in this competition:).
Read this and figured I would weigh in:
- Graphics: 15 pts (I feel this should be a bit higher but I am okay with this)
- Audio: 5pts ( i don't know about you fools but I don't know many audio artists lying around. Wasting a day or two finding one will be horrible.)
- Gameplay/fun factor: 20 pts (how enjoyable the game is to play)
- First time user experience: 15 pts (whether the game is easy to run (e.g. does it have all the dependencies shipped with it), and how easy it is to pick up and play - does it have the neccesary instructions, and so on?)
- Theme: 15 pts (how well the game incorporates the theme of the contest)
- Polish: 15 pts (how well the game overall feels complete and how well it flows together, including things like main menus and interface elements)
- Participation: 10pts (make quality posts showing off your game, livestream events, other things showing your work for/on the game)
- Judge Discretion: 5pts (judges can have varying opinions based off of personal taste and what games appeal more to them based off of genre and concept. This should be justified in the judge response... but I think it is worth noting.)
I was leaving 5 points for Judge Discretion, i was just so upset with Audio getting 15% i lost track, thanks for catching it.
I'm still on my way home from work so i can't do alot of quoting, but i did want to weigh in on the opinons about the scoring. One thing i want to stress is this is not a marathon competition, the goal is to be like a 3 day jam, but spread out over a week so that it's much less stressful. This doesn't mean that people can't treat it as a marathon and use all 7 days to create a really nice polished game, i just don't want the people trying to squeeze in work on the competition around their day jobs to feel like they are at a disadvantage because they don't have time to put in that extra time for polish.
So with that said i'm going to make the judgment that there will be no polish category, i will take into consideration to reweight the scores, and will post more once i get home.
So with that said i'm going to make the judgment that there will be no polish category, i will take into consideration to reweight the scores, and will post more once i get home.
Sounds good slicer, just glad to see some thought is going into the scoring. Always good to hear why things are the way they are so we, the contestants, understand! <3
This topic is closed to new replies.
Advertisement
Popular Topics
Advertisement
