Announcing Casual Gameplay Design Competition #5, sponsored by Gimme5games and Mochi Media!!
Update: the competition is over. Thanks to all who entered!!
Following is a list of finalists into our 5th Flash Game Design Competition (in order of submission).
Competition Finalists:
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The Desert Obelisk ...by Cirr | |
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Doggnation ...by Bart Bonte | |
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Gride ...by ooPixel | Third Place & Viral Award |
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Unit 149 ...by Hurgle Studios | |
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The Last Canopy ...by Easy Only! Games | First Place & Audience Award |
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Tricked Out Trailer ...by Jorge Goyco | |
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Up Bug ...by Jorge Goyco | |
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Terra Defense ...by Justin Poel | |
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MECI ...by drMikey | |
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Pieces ...by SoybeanSoft | Best Use of Theme |
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Numbers Reaction 2 ...by Freebreakgames.com | |
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BFD (Bovine Flatulent Defense) ...by Dan Black | |
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Pen Fight ...by Kunal | |
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Neo Tower Defense ...by Justin Nelson | |
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Super Energy Apocalypse ...by Lars A. Doucet | Second Place |
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Orbash ...by Wylie Conlon | |
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dRive ...by Twig Games | |
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M.I.L.O. ...by Studio Cypher | |
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GearUP! ...by Zack Hicks | |
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R.O.B.O.T. Relatively Obedient Being Of Thought ...by Marauder Interactive | |
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Robert Plank ...by Team Doli |
Here we go again: you, casual gamer / game designer / Flash whiz, design a game in Flash (any version) that incorporates our theme (see below). It doesn't have to be complex nor large in scope, in fact since you will have only 8 weeks to complete your design, simple ideas are probably the way to go.
For the 5th Casual Gameplay Design Competition, we are asking for entries that incorporate this theme: UPGRADE. You are free to interpret that any way you choose; however, the extent to which your game addresses the theme is left up to the competition judges to decide. Use your imagination and be creative. We will select the best entries submitted to represent the competition just like we have done before. Impress us with your game design and production skills and you will score fame, recognition, prizes, as well as a proper review of your work by the JIG Casual Gameplay review team.
- 1st place:
- $3,500
- (1) Adobe Flash CS3 Professional license
- 2nd place:
- $1,750
- (1) Adobe Flash CS3 Professional license
- 3rd place:
- $1,000
- (1) Adobe Flash CS3 Professional license
- Best use of competition theme:
- $1,000
- Viral award:
- $1,000 - most game views as determined by Mochi Media's MochiBot statistics for the 3-week competition judging period.
- Audience award:
- $500 - determined by JIG community popular vote.
We are very excited to be partnering with Gimme5games and with Mochi Media this time around, as both companies bring something new and unique to the competitions:
In addition to the above prizes, your entry could be selected for a development opportunity to appear on other platforms: Gimme5games.com is proud to be part of the Eidos Interactive group of companies, the people that bought you the Tomb Raider and Hitman series of games. Eidos is constantly on the lookout for original and great game ideas not only for Flash deployment, but also for conversion and release on a host of other computer and console formats — because of this, all the entries to the competition will be given a once over for potential conversion to other formats with the top three placed games automatically entered into the evaluation process for potential release on other formats. There will be no commitment of either side to actually proceed to another format but it's nice to have the option! :)
Facilitated by Mochi Media technology with its MochiBot product, we are excited to announce a new and special prize, the Viral Award, that will go to the competition entry that receives the most views during the 3-week judging period (see Specifications for details).
Our warmest appreciation and kind thanks to our sponsors — Gimme5games, Mochi Media, and Adobe — all of them generously supporting the indie Flash game development community and helping to make this competition our biggest one yet. And a very special thanks goes out to the kind folks at Adobe for supporting every one of our competitions so far!
See below for a list of judging criteria and additional specifications and requirements for entry.
By submitting an entry to the competition, you grant Jayisgames.com and CasualGameplay a permanent, non-exclusive license to host the game, either individually or as part of a larger collection. We will always include credit to the original author and display a link to you or your sponsor's site, if desired.
Please use the CGDC5 Entry Form for requesting your MochiBot buttons as well as for providing us with your name, shipping address, preferred link (optional), and PayPal account name (for Audience prize voting), as well as a few other details.
Once you have your game polished and ready to go, send it to: [email protected]
The deadline for entries is
Sunday, March 16, 2008 at 11:59PM (GMT-5:00).
So, start the brainstorming and get ready to wow us!
Friends of Jayisgames: Please help spread word of this competition by posting a note along with a link to this entry on your blog or website. Feel free to use this banner to link back to us. Thank you kindly!
Judging criteria, specifications and the finer details of submitting an entry follow...
We are making significant changes to the competition this time around designed to increase exposure for the competition, its entries, and especially for you, the Flash game designer. Therefore we have a few new requirements that you must meet when submitting an entry:
- Instead of the API from our previous competitions, your entry must include a specially prepared movie clip on its main menu. The movie clip will contain a small CGDC5 logo and an active link to the main CDGC5 competition page. (Available soon)
- Stage size can be anything up to a maximum width of 800 pixels, as long as it contains the supplied CGDC5 movie clip.
- All competition entries must include MochiAds. Each competition participant will, of course, receive all revenue their game earns through the MochiAds program. We recommend inserting the pre-game ad that shows during loading instead of the inter-level format. For game designers who are concerned about ads in their games, you may still use MochiAds but upload and run your own logo or custom ad instead of a MochiAds advertisement. Sign up for MochiAds here.
- To facilitate the tracking of views for the Viral award, each competition entry will be required to include an official competition MochiBot script supplied by us, Casual Gameplay.
- You may request your official competition MochiBot script when you are ready to submit your entry by contacting us at [email protected].
- The script may be included only in versions of your game that contain the special CGDC5 movie clip (see #1 above) on its main game menu.
- MochiBot statistics will be closely monitored during a 3-week period following the deadline and subsequent roll-out of the competition entries.
- If a Casual Gameplay-supplied MochiBot script is traced to a game SWF that does not contain the CGDC5 movie clip on the main game menu, that game will be disqualified.
- To help increase exposure for all the competition entries and potentially increase the revenue that each competition participant receives from their MochiAds participation, we will be encouraging other sites to pick up the competition entries when we roll them out. You are also encouraged to post your game to other game portals as well to help increase your game views and to increase your chances of winning the Viral award. However, your game must not have been in general release (publicly available to play on the Web) prior to the deadline of the competition.
- This international competition is open to anyone unless restricted or prohibited by local laws.
Each entry will be judged based on a set of rubrics, or metrics, that have been established for these competitions. The characteristics we look for and score on are as follows:
- How well does the game address the overall theme of the competition?
- How well does the game design show evidence that the designer explored methods or ideas that broke free from traditional ideas and concepts, thus showing imagination and creative expression?
- Was the game engaging? How well did it "suck you in?"
- Was the game compelling? To what extent did you find yourself going back to it until you completed it?
- Was the game fun? To what extent did you enjoy playing the game?
- How well does the game design promote or contribute to "replay value"?
- How well does the author make use of the visual medium?
- How well does the author make use of the aural medium?
- How well does the design address usability concerns?
- How well does the design address accessibility (deaf, hard-of-hearing, colorblind) concerns?
Each rubric is scored based on the following scale: (S) Exceeds expectations; (A) Very good; (B) Satisfactory; (F) Fails to meet criteria, or less than satisfactorily.
If you have any questions at all about these specifications, please post a comment here and we will address it.
Update 1- What are the size restrictions, if any? - For your game to work with MochiAds, your game must be a minimum of 300x300 (about the same size as the competition logo image above). We are limiting maximum width to 800 pixels.
- I am having difficulty getting MochiAds to work, can you offer some help with that? - There is excellent documentation available for getting MochiAds up and running in your game. Also, Emanuele Feronato has just published an excellent article about the MochiAds new leader boards(!) If you're having specific problems and can post your questions here in the competition thread, we'll try to address them so that everyone may benefit from the questions and answers.
- How much blood and gore will be acceptable in this competition? - This is a very good question since we have never made a formal announcement regarding our policy towards violent and mature content. With respect to the competitions, we would like to encourage all developers to steer clear of unnecessary or intense violence, blood and gore in their games, and to keep mature themes to a minimum. If violence or mature themes are necessary for your game, please use the ESRB Teen rating definition as a guideline to the limit of what is acceptable.
- Can a game entry load external data or other SWFs? - Yes, your game may load external data or SWFs. Please use a subdirectory named the same as your game to store the external data files and SWFs in. However, doing so could reduce the ease with which other sites can host your game, thereby reducing your chances at the Viral award.
- When will the required CGDC5 buttons with integrated Mochibot (for the viral award) be available? - We are pleased to report that the competition buttons are now ready. Since each button needs to be customized specifically for your entry, they will be handed out individually and upon request. We need to know a few things from each of you as part of your entry, so we have set up a CGDC5 Entry Form for you to both provide us with your entry information as well as to request your buttons. Please be sure to specify the correct Actionscript version (1.0, 2.0, or 3.0).
- When submitting our game to MochiAds for acceptance, will it also be published automatically to the MochiAds contest page and to other MochiAds locations? And wouldn't that be against the competition rules? - This is an excellent question. When submitting your game entry to MochiAds, it is important that you
do not check the box titled: "Yes! Distribute my game to increase my traffic" until AFTER the competition deadline or your game will automatically appear on the MochiAds contest page and distribution system thereby disqualifying your entry. See this screenshot for the exact location of the checkbox. - Would posting my game entry on FlashGameLicense.com be allowed for the purpose of obtaining a sponsor? - Yes. FlashGameLicense exists solely to match up game developers with potential sponsors, and the games are not playable by the general public. However, you may wish to follow their advice about URL-locking your game and adding a disclaimer "For demonstration purposes only".
- May we post the same game that we submit to the competition to other portals, with the CGDC5 MochiBot button and MochiAds still counting towards the viral award, but with the other portals' API implemented? - Yes, you may submit your game entry with the CGDC5 MochiBot button to other sites with transparent changes to support their API as long as the CGDC5 MochiBot button remains functional (i.e., it brings the user to the CGDC5 competition page when clicked).
A good start to the new year. Wooty!
Don't worry about the smoke. My Jan/Feb calendar just exploded as I tried to add find spare dev time in my already crazy schedule!
Great theme, though!
I'm a bit scared of how many entries this might get. The last competition was pretty huge already...
Alright it's time to get cracking! The theme is really interesting, should be really exciting to play the entries.
I'll get more Malaysian indie developers to participate! Thanks Jay for giving us this chance again :)
And happy new year to all!
I was just thinking about this competition yesterday. And poof, here it is. Cool!
I just have to make a game for this, the theme and timing is great.
2007 or 2008? :P
W00t! New CDGC! It's always fun to see what people can come up with.
Isn't it 2008 now?
Yes, of course I meant 2008. xD
It was a late night when I finished this post, thanks for pointing out my error. :)
Hi. What kind of licence is required to entry CDGC?
I was wondering when the fifth was comming out...
Jay, you and your site .... are the best . I've just started learning programing and action script and things. I'm messing with the free trial bit of Adobe Flash CS3. Is it possible for a complete noob to programming to enter? Then again, you did say "Here we go again: you, casual gamer..." Well, I more or less fit the specifications. And my dads a programmer - he could help me! Well, happy new year everyone! Yay for Casual Gameplay Design Competition #5!
Hi kimmo - Do you mean what kind of Flash license (student or professional?) is required?
No special license is required to enter the competition. You may even use one of the Actionscript compilers available, as long as your game runs in the standard Flash Player and meets the additional requirements (MochiAds, MochiBot, and the inclusion of the CGDC5 movie script) then you qualify.
If you have anything more specific to ask, feel free to post it here and we'll address any questions that come up. :)
Wow! I never saw this one coming!
It's funny, but one of my New Years resolutions is to become more serious in game developing, and actually start finishing and developing some of the many ideas I have, and this comes along.
I like the theme too, it leaves a lot of room for interpretation.
But yeah, the last competition considering, I wouldn't be surprised if we ended up in the high side of 100 entries. Seriously.
Wow, and I just realized that you have once again given us 2 months to make the game! I thought at first, I had miscalculated, but nope, we're in the start of January, for sure.
I was just wondering if this could be clarified:
"we will be encouraging other sites to pick up the competition entries when we roll them out"
What do you mean by picked up?
Thanks!
Sweet! ...but no time, as usual :P I've wanted to enter every one, but never come up with a good idea until its 2 weeks till the deadline. Lets see what happens this time.
Oh yeah, and being a girl, the first thing I thought of when I read the theme was the stoopid Tampax commercials that run here in Canada - "You need an upgrade!" :P:P:P Argh.
By "picked up" we mean hosted, advertised, anything to get more people playing your game.
Other sites largely ignored our October competition simply because they could not host the games since the API was designed to function only within the competition framework UI shell.
By encouraging other sites to host the competition games we are leveraging the viral nature of the Web to increase the number of people that will get to play your game.
I have the feeling Grow-like games are coming...I really am beginning to get tired of those...
But, It still looks like some fun games are coming! Too bad we have to pay to vote...
Ah well, I come here to play anyway, and playing them is free at least! : )
Man, I love these competitions, can't wait to see the entries!
This is exciting. I hope to see some sort of Steampunk-esque game here, building a robot or something out of spare parts in a desolate world... ^^
Good luck to everyone, and may all the games be the best and win ;)
I hope there will be some brainstorm-discussion on the theme here in the comments like with the previous comps ;)
The term 'upgrade' is not easily translated into dutch, and therefor a bit hard for me to put my finger on. The term 'grow' for instance is translated into dutch in all ways the same as in english, wether it's figurative or not.
upgrade == powerup
My first impression of the word 'upgrade' here on the site, made me think of the 'tower-defense' genre. Another real 'upgrade'-related game-genre is the shmup I think.
upgrade == getting better
In roguelikes/battle-rpg's ? Experience points, Health Power. Also 'upgrading' when you're buying food or armor to restore your health/experience?
upgrade == uphill
Literally? Or is this way too old-fashioned word?
upgrade == pimp my ....
Not that I want to make a game like that. :)
Any other meanings?
since I like custom and building, i would like games where you unlock stuff, and put them on your: charecter, house, ect.
Wouter, there isn't a concrete synonym of "upgrade" in Portuguese either (my language), but basically, it means improvement. Take the common example of a computer, you improve it's performance by replacing the older parts with better ones. That's what they call an upgrade.
Yup, upgrade literally means to replace something with something better. As wouter said, tower defence games, and shmups are 2 good examples of genres that commonly use upgrades.
I'm thinking of entering again this time, but I'll have to see, I work when inspirations comes, so if it doesn't then I won't enter. I already have a couple of thoughts going on though, and the theme is really good, so I may well come up with something =).
Ali
Well, it's a compound word... you can always work with the pair:
Up: raise, heighten, improve, etc.
Grade:
Evaluation of your effort in school (referred to as marks in other countries)
The level of schooling you are in (K-12 for us in the US)
Evaluation of other things like stones/gems
"the gradient of a slope or road or other surface"
My first odd interpretation was raising the score of your grade in class, etc. However, I'm not currently in a position to make a game...
My sincerest apologies to those that already thought of these possibilities - I'm just trying to add inspiration that might act as a catalyst for others. :-) Good luck all!
I read this and I thought 'Grow series'... which I love so I can't wait to see the entries!!
Jay, does having an unfinished (pre-beta) version of a game already online disqualify it from entry?
OOOOOHHH I think this competition is going to turn out some awesome games with the "upgrade" theme. I hope there's at least one tower defense game in there :P
Scarybug - the requirement for previously unpublished games is to discourage (and disqualify) older games from being submitted that happen to fall within the chosen competition theme.
In the spirit of a competition, we wish that all developers be on equal ground to start with, and with no one having an unfair advantage.
That's sad for me, but it makes sense. I'll just see if I can come up with something else.
\o/!!!!!!!!
I'm not a game designer myself, but I'm just wondering about something.
What about something based on evolution? That could be losely connected to the upgrade theme as you would 'upgrade' in a sense, whatever it is that you're evolving.
Cool an upgrade theme. I hope there will be some entries that are Grow clones. I miss those types of games. There hasn't been a new one for a long time.
Jay, I have a question..
How much blood and gore will be acceptable in this competition? I'm thinking of going to the opposite extreme from my game for the last comp (kaichou) and doing something a bit more violent.
The graphics would be ultra retro (not realistic in any way) though, and the blood would really just be large pixels. Bear in mind that I'm not actually a fan of violent games at all, but the blood would be necessary in this to make my vision for the game complete =).
Just wondering if you have any restrictions on this kind of thing or not. I'm hoping you wont mind =).
Ali
Are you allowed to participate as a team again?
If so, I would suggest everyone to not participate, unless you are in a team.
Sick guys nice jayisgames register thing. Sorry I have to post here, the chat doesn't seem to be working. That's all.
In addition, jayisgames seems to be very slow in general...
Not for me.
Upgrade sounds like a fun theme. Not that I don't like machinery, but I hope some take the term in a more organic sense. Hey, a grade is also an incline or decline.
Hey Jay,
considering the number of entries received in the last competition, and the fact that each one gets bigger and bigger, it seems likely there will be many, many entries this time.
Are you going to cap the number of entries in the competition? If so, how many will you allow?
Thanks
Wow, alillm, I'm not sure i want to know what "upgrade" will mean in your game :)
Wouter,
Although I don't speak Dutch, a quick flip through my German-English dictionary came up with the best-possible translation as die Verbesserung - the verb form is verbessern, which should be reasonable corollary to verbeteren. (There are other terms, but this one is the best fit for the spirit of the term, besides the obvious computer-related use relating to an improvement specifically in the hardware or software components.)
Also, the term 'pimp my ride' isn't referring to prostitution - it's American slang for an urban trend towards adding flashy elements to one's car, such as an improved stereo, based on an MTV show with that premise. There's a complex derivation involving the use of 'pimping' as an adjective, I'm sure you don't really care.
And yes, I'm a word geek. How'd you guess?
alillm - that is actually a very good question. I was asked a similar question privately during the development period for the last competition, and I had intended to write a formal policy about limitations for violent games in our competitions.
Anyone who is a regular visitor of JIG will already know that in general we are not fans of violence in the games we feature. This is primarily because we wish to provide a site that is acceptable entertainment for game players of all ages.
Reviews for games that are acceptable for people of all ages receive a tag of: kidsafe from us.
That being said, there are, however, exceptions to this, and you will find some games featured on JIG that contain some violence with mild blood and gore.
Reviews for games that fall into a mildly violent category that we feel are not acceptable to people of all ages generally receive a tag of: pg13 from us.
If a game were to make us feel that a pg13 tag was even inappropriate, then I believe we would have a difficult time featuring the game on the site, and the same goes for the competitions.
So, with respect to the competitions, I would like to encourage all developers to steer clear of unnecessary or intense violence, blood and gore in their games, and to keep mature themes to a minimum.
You may use the ESRB Teen rating definition as a guideline to the limit of what is acceptable:
"Titles rated T (Teen) have content that may be suitable for ages 13 and older. Titles in this category may contain violence, suggestive themes, crude humor, minimal blood, simulated gambling, and/or infrequent use of strong language."
Also from the ESRB site, use these descriptors as guidelines if violence is necessary in your game:
fantasy violence is preferred over intense violence.
animated blood is preferred over realistic blood and gore.
In your particular example, alillm, of highly pixelated blood and a retro graphics theme, I'm guessing it would fall into the animated blood, fantasy violence category.
I hope that helps. :)
Just to add to Katie's post, verbesseren means to improve. And there is actually a Danish word for update, and since Danish and Dutch do have some similarities, I thought it might help you, wouter.
We call "to upgrade" at opgradere, and "an "upgrade" en opgradering.
Bart - yes, teams are allowed and encouraged, but not necessary.
Previous sole-developer prize winners include:
Sean with Clack (CGDC1)
Anders with Gateway 2 (CGDC2)
Wouter with Gimme Friction Baby (CGDC3)
Andrew with Rerun (CGDC3)
Felix with Absolute Awesome Ball Game (CGDC4)
Sean with Contour (CGDC4)
For some reason I really like wouter's idea of upgrade as referring to the angle of a hill... Go crazy with the theme, everyone! :-)
likephilshead - we will not set an arbitrary cap on the number of entries allowed for CGDC5.
However, there may be a "finalist selection phase" prior to rolling out any of the entries.
If we do omit any games from being finalists, we will feature one of our "link dump" style posts following the competition for all the games that didn't make it into the finals as a consolation. That way, everyone will still have the opportunity to receive comments and feedback on their games.
I think the concept of upgrade is interesting
because at first the whole Ball game concept to me was just going to end up a bunch of marble madness ripoffs
this suprisingly was not the case
Dont think that certain games may gain favor because you may end up surprised for the better
yea the term 'upgrade' leaves ALOT more room to interpret, while ball physics is a pretty well defined category.
I think we will be seeing alot of cases where the upgrade may not be all that clear. Actually this leaves room for nearly every gaming genre as the term upgrade can be ointerpreted in a near infinite number of ways.
What do you guys think of a game with the theme of upgrade bieng related to evolution or something? I'm not a game designer so don't worry about stealing my idea.
I'm prety sure someone can make some sort of interpretation to fit evolution into the upgrade theme.
Hi,
How many frames per second should the developer use ?
[Answer: There is no requirement as to the number of frames per second your game must be. That choice is left entirely up to you. -Jay]
Jay, one of the main reasons that I entered the Replay competition was because I knew that, even if my game didn't win, it would get a review. I would probably feel differently if I thought my game might only get a link-dump.
Jay, Thanks for the very informative response =).
I'm still a little bit torn about this though, mainly because what I have in mind certainly wouldn't be my idea of "minimal blood", but at the same time, I wouldn't have any problem letting a 13 year old play it. The thing is, it's not going to be violent in the sense that you go around hacking people up, have body parts flying around etc.
The blood would be the only thing separating it from the level of violence in something like space invaders, but there will be quite a lot of blood. I just can't see the game working so well without the blood for some reason =(. I suppose I could always add a 'turn off blood' option if you felt it was too much at the end.
I think I might send you an e-mail later with an example of what I have in mind, just so you can make a more informed decision =).
Ali
I was just wandering if a remake of a classic game or let's say just any game, would fit the 'upgrade' theme, or is that interpretation of 'upgrade' too broad?
Cheers!
alillm>
Try taking a quick look at Heavy Metal Goreblood Extreme of Death 800X. That was accepted as a submission to CGDC4 and is pretty bloody!
As always I'm extremely excited about this competition, and thankfully it fits into one of the game concepts that I'd been fiddling around with, so I don't have to spend half the time coming up with an idea.
I look forward to seeing what other people come up with, and I might even win the bet with myself this time that there will be two people with similar concepts!
One question who decides what place the game is in
PS Please not too many shmups
For the viral award, do the stats start counting from the day of the deadline, or from the day the game is posted up on JIG?
Just curious about the whole Eidos cross platform thing. If a game where to be deemed good enough to port to other platforms, what about the author(s) I.P. rights? Do they get to keep those and to what level might they involved in the cross-platform development process?
I'm worried that for the viral award the games that come first will probably get more views than the games that come last. I remember last year that I played most of the games at the beginning of the competition but less at the end as there were quite a lot of games.
charmander, t001 - we will be doing things a little differently this time due to the viral award.
We will not be rolling out the entries one-by-one as we did with CGDCs 2,3 and 4. Instead, we will return to our roots with CGDC5 and roll out all the entries at once as we did with CGDC1.
Jay - we usually have a panel of about 6 reviewer-judges for each competition. Every judge scores each of the games based on the judging criteria listed above in the specifications. The resulting scores determine the place each game receives for the competition.
Thanks for replying to my post!
I'm glad to hear 'upgrade' is lot more open than I initially thought what it would mean.
Great to see you guys doing another competition. We can't participate this time around, because we're pretty stretched as it is, but I'd like to make a suggestion regarding l0ser's comment about the link-dump idea:
How about limiting the competition's terms (license, use of mochiads and allowing redistribution for other sites) to games that actually make it past the pre-selection?
If a submitted game ends up in a link-dump, the author would retain some options as to the distribution of their game, and if the link-dump linked to their own site as opposed to the game running in a framework on JIG, the pagerank-fu you'd send their way might be of some consolation.
Of course, this all depends on whether it's fine with you or your sponsors...
Ok, I can see that lots of things are in the list for a "winning candidate", but nowhere I saw anything related to Design Patterns, OOP and stuff like that. Will that be important or I can stick to a 5-dollar-flash-magazine shamefull code?
[Edit: We do not judge the underlying code for games submitted to the competition. -Jay]
Hi Philipp!
There is no framework for this competition. Every game will be playable without any API driving it.
And we are flexible with how to handle the games that are not selected as 'finalists'.
My primary concern is to give everyone the consideration of some exposure for their work. I have no problem linking to the consolation games as opposed to hosting them.
l0ser - My hope is that there will be no consolation games at all, as I would like to make all games finalists. However, we have 40 thousand unique visitors each day to appease as well as the developers who submit their games to the competition.
Perhaps there should be an entry fee?
(just kidding, but I hope my point is clear by mentioning that) ;)
oh, ok.
...how do we determine which game to play first?
oo! How about if half of us go from the bottom up, and the other half of us go from the top down. And then the third half of us start in the middle and work towards both ends!
I'm still waiting for "Trapped: part two" to load.
...how do we determine which game to play first?Just in case you haven't set your mind about this Jay, I do indeed think it's important to make the list of games appear in random order every time page opens.
Excellent suggestion, Wouter. And I agree that is what we should do.
I have a game that's about finished, but not yet released. Does submitting to this contest mean that I can't release it until all of the entries drop?
SimianLogic -
"Your game must not have been in general release (publicly available to play on the Web) prior to the deadline of the competition."
Yes, that's what it means.
Think of a horse race where everyone starts out of the gate at the same time. :)
Upgrade? I'd like to see some of that.
In dutch, upgrade literally means "opwaardering", hope that helps with the dutch-related problems ;)
Do MochiAds replace load times, in other words, are MochiAds just Ads that appear during load times? Or does it have a set time limit?
NSP Games asked "Just curious about the whole Eidos cross platform thing. If a game where to be deemed good enough to port to other platforms, what about the author(s) I.P. rights? Do they get to keep those and to what level might they involved in the cross-platform development process?"
There are two questions here;
1. I.P. rights - Any porting of titles will be subject to a deal between Eidos and the developer, and the level of IP involved will be down to what kind of game it is, the type of deal that's done, and how much money changes hands (who's taking the biggest risk).
2. Involvement of the developer - again, a number of factors need to be considered, the level of involvement will be down to the type of game, the type of deal in place and how much the originator can bring to the table in the way of design and development.
Things to think about here are that if a game is considered strong enough to make the jump to another platform it signifies a recognition of a level of skill from the originator, this could be design, gameplay, programming, graphics, sound, or a combination of some or all of them - it would be unlikely the people with the intital vision would be cut out of involvement of any other versions.
The thing to remember about game publishing deals, or any deal for that matter, is that until an agreement is in place and ink is on paper, there is no deal.
-- Matt, Gimme5games.com
I have a question :
I already have a license of Flash CS3,so if I get another license from this competition,can I replace it with Photoshop CS3 Standard or give the license to NO.4?
Kannushi Link - I cannot promise you an exchange on the prize, I'm sorry. But I will ask Adobe for you if the situation arises. That's the best I can do.
my god! every freaking time a compettition comes out, i have an awesomly creative idea, but I CANT DO ANYTHING ABOUT THAT BECAUSE I DONT HAVE FREAKING FLASH!!!! it really PISSES me off! god! oh yeah, smjjames, i am pretty sure you are going to do a pokemon like thing. its creative, but already done. there are already a metric buttload of games that use upgrade as a key feature. none are mine, but i KNOW i could win this if ONLY I HAD FLASH! OR SOMETHING THAT CAN BE USED TO MAKE GAMES! ARGHH!!!!!!!!
If I were you, I'd put some of that creative energy you have into finding a way to realize your ideas.
My mother would always tell me: "Where there's a will there's a way."
Just do it. Make it happen. If you don't, no one else will for you.
After playing the fun Suveh Nux...
I got to thinking, it would be really nifty if someone made a Flash Interactive Fiction game with the theme of upgrade for this competition.
(See Hitchhiker's Illustrated Guide to the Galaxy for an example of a style of flash IF)
Just throwing that out there ;)
Maybe that will spark some ideas :D
uh Andy, I never said anything about pokemon, and I said I'm not a game designer, I don't even know how to code a flash game! Sure there are programs that can help you with that, but my point is that I don't know how to program a game.
If you don't have flash/shockwave, then get it! I think it's on the Adobe Acrobat's company's site as they now own Macromedia which origionally had it.
You don't have to be a game maker to enjoy the contest, I enjoy the contest just by playing the games.
That bieng said, what I meant by evolution could be either of those Plankton games, Flow (which has a review on this site somewhere I believe), or even that upcoming PC game from Maxis, Spore. I'm not trying to tell people what to do, just offering an idea for a theme which I like and could easily be connected to the contests upgrade theme.
im sorry, ill try to get something, i was just mad because my brother took my wii to his freinds house, and thanks for the advice jay!
I really like the idea of posting the games in random order, but maybe you can implement it so that for a single person (or at least on a single computer) the games always appear in the same order? I'm sure I won't have time to play through the entire list in one session, but it would be nice to have a consistent list to work through from top to bottom.
Excellent theme btw, I may actually have to dig out my copy of ye old flash mx...
That's a good idea, Zennehoy. We'll try to come up with a system with which you can check off the games you've played, either automatically or manually.
This is for anyone who does not own Adobe Flash CS3 and wants to make flash games for this competition.
actionScript 3.0 compiler:
http://www.haxe.org
You can use this program to make .swf files that work with flash.
@Harukio
I was actually considering making an IF game with an upgrade theme - I'm still toying with the idea right now, in fact. It's a lot of story to work out, but a lot less for() loops and trig... a fair trade-off to be sure.
Another interpretation of "upgrade" can be "to raise" or "rise." Just throwing that out there.
lol, I bet we are going to see at least one game in this contest inspired by the grow games because there is an upgrade theme in there.
Honestly, almost anything could have some connection to te upgrade theme if you look hard enough. So there could be a wide variety of games which cover most of the genre.
These are always so much fun! :D Thanks for hosting another contest.
My calendar says that March 3rd is a Monday, not a Sunday... Could you clarify the contest deadline?
Yes, you're absolutely correct. That was my error when posting the deadline. The deadline is Monday the 3rd of March, not Sunday the 2nd.
Sorry for the confusion. I've updated the post accordingly.
Since you're obviously never offended by suggestions on the competitions Jay, I have another one, which I'm not quite sure if you have had your thoughts about.
I liked the competition-shells, they gave the games just that little extra that flashgames actually always should have: nice background/surrounding.
Since the shell is gone now, will there be some nice and clean background-art/css added to the page you're publishing the games at? With a nice border around the movie? With a little less exuberant google-ads? Maybe change the css to the one you're used to after the comp? Just thinking out loud really. I could understand from a business-pov the known css is better maybe.
Cheers,
Wouter
Hi Wouter - yes, we're working on making the competition page as nice as possible, without ads (besides sponsor links and the MochiAds that appear before each game).
As for using the site CSS, the current format is quite narrow to support larger format games, so I've already had some thoughts on going with a separate CSS entirely, and yet somehow retain the general appearance of JIG.
Hopefully I can make all that work with my first attempt. :)
Cool!
and succes!
Do need a PayPal account to both enter and vote for a game?
Just a thought. For your hosting, could you implement something like Newgrounds does (javascript overlay with the game sitting in)?
Posted by: smjjames "lol, I bet we are going to see at least one game in this contest inspired by the grow games because there is an upgrade theme in there."
We did not have even single game inspired by Grow games on earlier competition where the theme itself was Grow.
True, there have been many strange interpretations of the theme in the past.
Hi, I've got a question about the stage size. I'm french, so I don't exactly understand. Width is 800 maximum, but what about height ?
I ask about this because our team plans to make a stage size kinda like a shoot'em up, more height than widht.
Thank you !
Hi DarkNemo - stage height is not really an issue for this competition. Still, I would caution you to keep the height within the boundaries of most displays (I believe 1024x768 is the most widely used display resolution today).
Hello, just one question, is there some kind of limit about the framerate we should use? You didn't mention nothing about that. Thanks.
Stage height needs to be at least 300 px in order for MochiAds to work.
Snae - there is no specific requirements for frame rate. Use what ever you feel is best for your game.
Thanks Imok. I'm preparing a competition update to go up Monday afternoon with the answers to some questions, along with some info on including MochiAds with your game.
Hey,
I have created Flash Games with GameBrix. Can I submit GameBrix Flash Games?
Thanks
No, games created with gamebrix are ineligible because (if I'm not mistaken) those games must run on the gamebrix platform.
Also, each entry must include MochiAds. I do not believe gamebrix supports MochiAds.
Hi. By submitting the game we accept non-exclusive license for Jayisgames.com and CasualGameplay, so there won't be chance after competition to sell exclusive license to other sites, right? :)
If by "exclusive license" you mean that such an agreement would require us to remove the game, then yes, that sort of agreement would not be possible.
Are we allowed to work with a partner? Is there a limit to the amount of people you can have on a dev team?
Yes, of course you can work with a partner or team. There is absolutely no restrictions about that at all.
Any prizes won, however, will be disbursed to only one representative of your team. You will be responsible for dividing it amongst yourselves.
"I hope there's at least one tower defense game in there :P"(LSN), "What about something based on evolution?", (smjjames) "Grade:The level of schooling you are in (K-12 for us in the US)"(slansing)...
I've got it! It's in the following spoiler. It's in there because it's long and might by a miracle be made by me, so I suppose I don't want people to "steal" it - but I will admit that by typing it here, I give any reader the right to use it.
Man vs. Nature:
Humans on one side, a tree on the other. As time goes on, both humans and the rest of nature evolves. Humans attack first with axes, soon evolving and growing to using more industrialized weapons. Nature atacks first with mosquitoes and alligators, to tornados and flood. The user gets to play as nature. There could be a twist, where nature don't actually evolve, but the user does - the user discovers new ways to influence the invironment and create new creatures, in order to combat human forces. And all of it is played more or less like a tower defense game, except more complicated. And the word "UP": the tree grows up during the entire time - the taller the tree is at the end, the better your "GRADE" is.
Although I do have another idea. But it's too complicated.
I might try to make this. Infact, I have started. But I have limited knowledge of ActionScript, although that may not be the problem - I feel that I need the most help drawing the graphics, which, at this point, look like they were drawn by a 2nd grader (no offence to any 2nd graders reading this).
That sounds pretty neat, Ainegue, I hope you get around to making it. And I know what you mean, the graphics are the exact same thing that might keep me from submitting an entry.
Jay, speaking of exclusive licenses, by submitting an entry to the competition, does that mean we're not allowed to upload the game to other websites, after the competition has ended?
ThemePark - "By submitting an entry to the competition, you grant Jayisgames.com and CasualGameplay a permanent, non-exclusive license to host the game, either individually or as part of a larger collection."
It says very clearly non-exclusive. Also see this:
"You are also encouraged to post your game to other game portals as well to help increase your game views and to increase your chances of winning the Viral award. However, your game must not have been in general release (publicly available to play on the Web) prior to the deadline of the competition."
Basically, you can not upload the game on other sites before deadline. Once the entries have been published on JIG (March 3rd, 2008 at 11:59:01PM) you can send the same game swf to other sites too.
What non-exclusive license granted to JIG means is that if you try to sell/give/upload same game later on some site "B" that wants to have exclusive license (game is only available in their site "B" and nowhere else in the web), you cant remove it from JIG. Meaning effectively you can not sell/give/upload game under exclusive license. You can of course put the game on unlimited number of sites under non-exclusive license (game is available in site C, site D, site E and JIG).
I know Jay has already answered these but maybe someone still wonders:
* minimum height of the game is 300 px. Why no maximum height? Because the web pages commonly can adjust the height of the page and not width. If you want, you could create game 2880px high which is maximum allowed in Flash. However, people may have trouble playing it. Considering that much of the space can be eaten by toolbars, menus and other browser-widgets you most likely want to keep the height < 500 px.
* good fps (frames per second) for the game is somewhere around 30-40.
Why not 12 fps? Usually with so low fps animations are not smooth anymore (it would work for text-based adventure game).
Why not 100fps? Flash player never reaches 100fps over all the OSs and browsers, most people probably get around 60fps which means nearly half the fps you design game for is lost. Too high fps can eat up all the cpu cycles and memory, specially when people have several browser tabs/windows opened, and even crash the browser and/or OS. The idea of using Flash plugin is to make game available for wide range of people, many of who have older computers. In case your game lags and behaves slowly, raising fps does not solve the problem, it simply makes the game even more unpredictable. You may need to rewrite portions of code (commonly loops) or reduce graphics to improve perfomance.
* why not reviewing Design Patterns, OOP and stuff like that? You do not submit source file (fla), all you submit is swf file. In order to judge programming techniques you would need to see the actual code. Plus it is possible to make perfectly playable Flash game using either Flash5 (and MX and MX2004 and 8) or FlashCS3/9. All of the Flash versions use different sets of Actionscript commands and 3 completely different Actionscript versions. And does the beauty of code even matter to people playing the game?
Thank you, tonypa, for the excellent response! :D
Sorry if this has already been answered, but do you guys have a mochiBot script for AS3, because I'm only seeing one for AS2 on their site?
Thanks!
I find that mochi-leaderboard thing pretty interesting, I must say.
Well, that's what I get for basing my question off of someone elses comment, instead of reading the original post first. Thanks tonypa, and sorry jay, for asking a stupid question.
from http://www.mochibot.com/forum/read.php?2,1484
as3 version of mochibot script (looks to be still in beta) is available:
http://www.mochibot.com/as3/MochiBot.as
Thanks again, Tonypa! :D
The word from Mochi Media is that the beta AS3 Mochibot code Tony links to above, although as yet unreleased, "works great."
Do you know when you're going to release the CGDC5 movie clip?
As for the CGDC5 button MCs, we still have a little bit of testing to be done before we're ready to start handing them out. The buttons will be cutomized with a MochiBot (Viral Award) specifically for your entry, so they will have to be handed out individually on request.
I will post an update when they are ready.
In the meantime, here are 3 prototypes images that we plan to use to give you a few options on sizes:
CGDC5 button #1
CGDC5 button #2
CGDC5 button #3
I can't wait to see the entries! The competitions really bring out some fantastic ideas.
I'm just trying flash at the moment (my friend and I are making a short animation) and there's so much to get my head around! That's just drawing and tweening. Add in the complexities of coding a game and I don't know how you all do it!
Good luck to everyone.
Wow! the new MCs look so much different than they used to. There's no 'pop down when you put your mouse on it' kind of thing. I'm sure it will be a lot less annoying for the games where you have your mouse all over the place like we had last competition.
P.S.:This will also be a good opportunity to tell who and how many people will be entering the competition if you have to ask for one.
Quick question: Can we get our game sponsored by a site and still enter it into the competition?
Yes, sponsorships are fine!
Will the voting for the Audience Award be the same as the other competitions?
I still feel that the first vote should be free, and that all subsequent votes should cost money. I'm not trying to deprive the authors or be a cheapskate here, but I think it would help bring in a substantial number of votes from people who do not have a PayPal account.
Thanks
Thanks for the update, just what I needed. I figured out what was going on with mochiads...my bad...it's acutally quite a simple process.
So, on the loading external swfs thing, would it be an option to host the external swfs on my company's server?
Has anyone reading this submitted a game for competition that called external swfs?
Jay, I don't know what you mean by "Please use a subdirectory named the same as your game to store the external data files and SWFs in".
Thanks again.
jorge
jorge - when you load in an external file or swf, you must provide the URL to the file. That URL can reference more than just the filename.
For example, if you are using AS2, you'd probably use a MovieClipLoader to load an external SWF via its loadClip method:
loadClip(url:String, target:Object)If you provide just the filename for the url, then Flash will look in the same directory as the SWF that was embedded on the Web page. If you provide a path to the SWF, then you can put the SWF in a subdirectory, like this:
loadClip('mygame/myexternalSWF.swf', mytarget)That assumes the SWF myexternalSWF.swf is in a subdirectory called "mygame", which is located in the same directory as the main game SWF.
Does that help?
yes. that's what I thought you meant.
I asked if I could host the external swfs on my server and I thought of some reasons why that would not be good, so don't worry about answering that.
thanks
I noticed a mistake and thought I ought to point it out so that it can be fixed and not confuse any newcomers to the competitions:
"How well does the game design promote or contribute to 'replay value'?"
At least, I assume this is copied and pasted from the old judging matrix and should now read "...to the 'upgrade' theme."
No, that is not a mistake, Parmeisan. Games that exhibit excellent replay value recieve bonus points in every competition.
This is as it should be.
Thanks, for pointing it out, however. I am prone to copy/paste miskakes. But this is not one of them. ;)
So I know you said our .swf files could be any size, but how does that work exactly? And what size would the UI be?
The game itself cannot have been released before the deadline, that muuch is clear... but how much promotion / advertisement about the game (without the game itself being released) would be acceptable within the rules concerning the viral award (ie, banners, websites, ARGs...)? Are we allowed to actively drum up interest in our contest entry before the game itself is actually relased, and if so, what are the limitations on that (Aside from, obviously, not being able to play the actual game at all)
personjerry - the competition games will appear in a standard Web page. There is no integrated UI as there was in previous competitions. With respect to size, your game must be a minimum of 300x300px and a maximum of 800px wide.
BDJ - there are no restrictions to how you may promote your games. The only restriction is that your game must not have been released prior to the competition deadline. You are free to promote your game as much as you would like. In fact, we encourage you to do so.
hurrah! less than a month left. i cant wait!
oh no! less than a month left. i better start!
In the latest update giving the links to the MochiBot buttons, the link at the bottom leads to the CDCG4 page, not 5. Just letting you know :)
Will you be choosing a whole new layout for this one?
It doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere ... but what about online multiplayer games? Is that allowed, and if it is, are there special considerations to take?
I have a question that extends what BDJ was asking: how much of the game can be in general release beforehand? I've posted a few screenshots to my blog, but no working versions. But if I were to, say, post a demo of the physics, but not the full game, would that be allowed? You did say that promotion of your game was encouraged, but I'm not sure if that crosses the line.
I am wanting to get sponsorship from various sources for my game (display their logo on the title page with a link and a "_blank" target).
First, is this allowed, second, is there a way you (Jay) can tell us approximately how many hits a day the site gets? How much traffic is expected once the competition starts? Do you have an expected number of hits each game MIGHT get? And once the games are in your system, they are there forever, right?
Thanks
jorge
Another question: Multiple file games...
How will you be inviting game portals to add the game to their site? Will there be a "download this game swf" link somewhere?
I am asking this because my game calls external SWFs, and if multi file games will be available as a zipped file, then cool, no problem (the path to the external swfs will work), but if the game portal people just download the main swf of my game, it won't work correctly, so, if the main swf is the only thing that will be downloaded and posted to game portals, is there a hard code (absolute) path I can write into my game so that whoever takes my game, when it calls the external swf, that it calls it from a folder on the jayisgames server or mirror or whatever.
thanks
jorge
One more question:
Would you consider adding a "email this to a friend" button under each game entry?
Here's one that works real well...and it sends you (jay) an email with what was "recommended", who recommended it and who it was recommended to.
That could be beneficial to you, right?
jorge
OOPS, here's the link I meant to add:
http://www.tamingthebeast.net/articles5/tell-a-friend-script-2.htm
jorge
Just out of curiosity if you are will be be along the
lines of gears working the games towards you, which you click to start
or something else entirely?(If you are)
YaiEf - multiplayer games are fine if you are able to handle the technology they require, there is no rule prohibiting them. However, most multiplayer games require multiplayer servers to drive the communications they need. We provide no multiplayer server for you to interface with.
wylie - the requirement that your game may not have been in general release prior to the deadline is to prevent older games from being submitted to the competition and to give all participants an equal chance at the Viral award. I'm guessing that a physics demo would be fine, but I must reserve judgement without actually seeing the demo myself. If the demo turns out to be essentially the entire game repackaged as a demo, that probably wouldn't pass our requirement.
jorge - yes, sponsorships are fine as long as our CGDC5 button appears on your game entry's main menu.
Unfortunately, we cannot allow other sites to deep link to content hosted on JIG. While I hope to provide a link to download the SWF or zip file containing all your files, it would — of course — make it easier for everyone if your game was contained in a single file.
Also, to answer your question about traffic, the site receives about 750,000 unique visitors each month. Our previous competitions (1, 2, 3 and 4) have received: 2.5M, 1.5M, 900K, and 900K views, respectively. Each competition collection continues to receive, on average, between 1-5K views per day. I believe the numbers for our 5th competition will eclipse all previous competitions due to the new "viral" direction we are taking them.
As stated in the announcement above, by entering a game into one of our competitions you give Jayisgames and Casual Gameplay a permanent, non-exclusive license to host your game. It will remain available to play on the CGDC5 competition page in perpetuity, along with your name and link to your website.
I will consider adding an "Email to friend" link to the competition page. That is a very good idea. :)
Alfie - I really have no idea what you're asking. Would you please explain in greater detail?
Another question... Would posting the game I am submitting on http://www.flashgamelicense.com be allowed for these last couple of weeks before the deadline to try to get sponsors? It's not public, but portal owners look around on there.
So, It's kind of public. FlashGameLicense apparently has some pretty strict rules about who can sign on as a sponsor.
Just wondering.
jorge
I have a question about posting games on different websites. I use Kongregate, which has its own API for high scores and such. Would I be able to post the same game that I submit here, with the competition intro and Mochiads still counting towards the viral award, but with the API implemented?
jorgegoyco - You may post your game to flashgamelicense for purpose of obtaining a sponsor.
wylie - If implementing the API is transparent to the player when the game is run from the competition page, then we have no issue with it. If, however, errors will result that cause functionality problems, then that might affect your score during judging.
Update: I just re-read your question, wylie, and I believe I misunderstood it, but my answer doesn't change very much: Yes, you may submit your game entry with the CGDC5 MochiBot button to other sites with transparent changes to support their API as long as the CGDC5 MochiBot button remains functional (i.e., it brings the user to the CGDC5 competition page when clicked).
Oh no! I wonder what happens if I don't sleep for two weeks...
Hi Jay,
Just a quick question regarding what material can be used in the game. I've been thinking of using certain samples/effects from the Freesound project (http://freesound.iua.upf.edu/). Almost all the stuff there is released under the Creative Commons Attribution License, (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/sampling+/1.0/) which essentially allows you to mash-up the stuff, even for commercial purposes, provided you give credit.
I just wanted to know if there is any problem using these both in terms of competition rules ?
Thanks
- Kunal
Hi jay, it seems that the link to the entry form has an extra double quote at the end. Anyway, I'm in! ;)
Thanks, Hazmer! The link should be fixed now.
...I wonder if that means we'll have fewer entries this time. :o
In any event, I'm pleased you're planning to participate once again! Good luck! :)
I have a question about how MochiAds are supposed to work with this game. As part of the process of registering ads, you had to test that the ad worked. Now, though, on my MochiAds page, it has a counter that shows ad "impressions," which I assume are page views. Are the statistics you track for the viral award separate from this? Is that included in code with the competition button? Clarification would be nice.
wylie,
Jayisgames movieclip (the one in your game's main menu) contains Mochibot script. Jay uses statistics collected by Mochibot. Mochiads impressions is not exactly same as statistics collected by mochibot - though I guess numbers are pretty much the same.
Thanks, Jussi!
Yes, Wylie, the statistics for the Viral award will come from MochiBot, a customized script for your game that is included with the CGDC5 buttons we'll deliver to you once you fill out the CGDC5 Entry Form.
Although the statistics for the MochiAds and MochiBot should be about the same, we do not have access to your MochiAds statistics. Therefore, we maintain the "official" impression count via the customized MochiBot scripts.
We give you a link to the shared statistics for your own MochiBot when we deliver the buttons to you, so you can keep track of the impressions for your own game, too.
Oops! Appologies, Kunal, I missed your question(!)
About using Creative Commons licensed sound in your game: Yes! No problem as long as you are giving proper credit as required.
I ran out of time... half finished project. Oh well... maybe I can use the classes in the next competition. :) Can't wait to see what other people come up with!
Jay, how's it going? How's the workload? I hope everything is working out...not funky code bugs, you know?
You doing OK? Thanks for all your work. You really pull out all the stops on these competitions and make it really easy and fun to enjoy the entries.
I hope your site gets more hits that you expected.
Here's to everyone's success.
jorge
Thanks, Jorge!
The competition page is coming along nicely, just a few more details left to add. I think people will be very pleased with the new look and function!
I am getting excited, but I want to see more entries!
To everyone planning to enter: please fill out the CGDC5 Entry Form so that we can get you all set up in our system, and so we know how many entries to expect.
If you're done with your entry, please send it in so we can begin the evaluation process.
No game will go up before the deadline, so rest assured if you need to send a last minute update or bug fix, that's not a problem!
I was working on a game, but I just don't have the time to finish it.
Jay - You should have a sort of belated "competition" a couple months after the real thing. It wouldn't give money, but it would give the guys who couldn't finish a chance to show off their ideas anyway.
FlyingHigh: Anyone who couldn't finish their submission in time is certainly welcome to send it in later as an ordinary game submission. If they say it was originally intended for the competition, I'm sure that will get a mention in the review.
If hosting's a problem, send Jay the .swf, just like you would for the competition. Tercessrebmun (Secret Numbers) came in that way.
Must... not... sleeeepp........
I don't know if it would work, but I think it would be interesting if the next competition's theme was 'Up' or 'Ascend'. I bet we would get a bunch of games like Avalanche.
Jay, you mentioned that games created by gamebrix do not work on other sites. That is incorrect information. The games I make on GameBrix are Flash games and I can post the games anywhere on the web. It is a web platform that that creates flash games and it is free. I like the gamebrix web2.0 platform and not look around for Flash software downloads or installations. You are an indie game champion Jay, be open to embrace next generation technologies to allow aspiring game developers who may or may not have access to Flash or Action Script programming but can use GameBrix open platform to create Flash games.
Better yet, champion a GameBrix game contest and support indies, newbies like me.
[Edit: I promise to look into this in more detail. -Jay]
Why is it not out yet?!
Update